EU-MAT – Effective Urban Material Mining in Cities

The EU-MAT project is developing a new method and digital tool to map, analyse and make building materials from demolitions and renovations accessible – enabling resources to circulate locally instead of being lost.

The goal is to treat the city as a material bank: to know what materials exist, where they are located, and when they become available. This allows municipalities, companies and construction actors to plan for reuse well before demolition begins.

RISE’s role in the project

RISE leads the work of testing the material mining tool (WP2) and contributes to developing circular building products (WP3) in collaboration with industry and research partners. The work includes:

• design for disassembly and reuse according to ISO 20887
• prototype development together with industrial partners
• mechanical testing in RISE laboratories in Skellefteå
• validation of performance and life-cycle potential

RISE also contributes to communication and dissemination activities (WP5), as well as policy and logistics analysis (WP4).
The aim is to connect digital material analysis with practical product development and circular business models.

Project objectives

• Develop an Urban Material Mining tool that can predict the quantity and quality of recoverable construction materials.
• Create new building products from reclaimed materials – designed for future disassembly and reuse.
• Test and validate the method in three municipalities in the Arctic region (Finland, Sweden, Norway).
• Strengthen local value chains and reduce transportation needs through improved knowledge of local material flows.