Abstract
In the last couple of years, actors in the construction industry have shown an increasing willingness to move towards circular businesses. However, many consider circular construction to be a more expensive option, which makes actors reluctant to invest in circularity. This study contributes to the existing literature by relating the Level of Circularity (LoC) for a one-family house to its Life Cycle Costs (LCC). Using design-orientated research, the design of the one-family house was altered to gradually increase its LoC. The results revealed that it is possible to double the LoC to 0.41 compared to the initial design (LoC = 0.20) without increasing the LCC. Furthermore, the measures do not require radical changes to the design and construction process. Rather, it only requires replacing virgin materials with recycled or biological materials, and using building products that can be disassembled relatively easily. The results also revealed that increasing the circularity level further resulted in a sharp increase in product costs, and therefore an increase in LCC. This makes it less economically attractive for construction companies. Therefore, we suggest starting with relatively easy measures, which can already double the current circularity level of typical one-family houses.
Highlights
The building industry is responsible for the highest amount of resource use (Ness and Xing, 2017; Wouterszoon Jansen et al, 2020) and has a considerable environmental impact worldwide (Bhochhibhoya et al, 2020)
The research outcomes contribute by showing that circular building design measures are financially valuable for a client
Higher circularity levels are difficult to achieve as circular building components are still scarce and are subject to cost premiums
Summary
The building industry is responsible for the highest amount of resource use (Ness and Xing, 2017; Wouterszoon Jansen et al, 2020) and has a considerable environmental impact worldwide (Bhochhibhoya et al, 2020). The construction and demolition of buildings account for around one-third of global materials consumption and waste generation (Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2019). The circular economy (CE) concept provides ideas for resource decoupling (Giorgi et al, 2019; UNEP, 2011) that offer resource efficiency and effectiveness, and the reduction of resource use and waste production (Wouterszoon Jansen et al, 2020). Many have adopted the circular economy model by replacing the ‘end-of-life’ concept with effective and smart reuse strategies that reduce the use of virgin materials and negative environmental impacts (Ghaffar et al, 2020)
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