Financial assessment of reusing materials in buildings: comparing financial potential of wood, concrete, and glass reuse

Abstract

Buildings are responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, with much of their life cycle impacts resulting from embodied impacts of building materials. One solution to reduce embodied emissions is to use of secondary materials such as by-products and waste materials for producing building materials (in this study referred to as reuse solutions). While this is reported to have positive environmental and economic impact, many financial barriers to economic application remain, centering on labor-intensive recovery processes, low end-of life value, fluctuating material volumes and qualities. This paper aims to advance understanding of the financial potential to reuse different end-of-life materials for building materials by presenting a cost structure analysis of three reuse solutions developed by a Scandinavian case company for wood, glass, and concrete. Findings indicate that profit margins differ considerably by material stream and application. Expenditure for production processes (i.e. cutting wood to planks, assembling glass into windows, mixing aggregates to new concrete) was a significant cost driver in all three reuse solutions. Costs for purchasing end-of-life materials also differed significantly in each case, reflecting the differences in residual value of each material stream. Future research is needed to expand the financial assessment to consider the upscale potential and effect of economies of scale for each case. In addition, we suggest to investigate other dimensions of value such as economic aspects (e.g. job creation and societal costs savings from environmental impacts), as well as the environmental improvement to advance understanding of the relevance of material reuse for buildings.