Reuse Logic

Changes in Processes and Value Chains

To create an effective reuse market, a number of changes must be made to existing processes in order to achieve a systemic transition. Municipal processes surrounding demolition and building permits have the potential to be transformed into tools that can accelerate the transition and increase the use of reclaimed building components, products, and materials through certain adjustments to current processes. However, simply changing regulations and policies is not enough to drive the transition. To achieve this, key actors in the reuse market need to establish new value chains that enable access to reclaimed materials.

The project Reuse Logic: Permit Processes for an Efficient Market Model for Reuse focuses on the permit processes for demolition and construction, and how these can create the conditions for a new market model for reuse. For such a model to be successful and sustainable, authorities (through regulations), municipalities (through permit processes), and businesses (through business models) must support each other in developing a model that is embedded across the entire value chain.

Demolition and Building Permits as Enablers

Demolition permits have the potential, through standardization and digitalization, to increase knowledge of which materials, products, and building components are available for reuse now or in the near future. Knowing which materials, products, and components will become available through upcoming demolitions, as well as their volumes and quality, has an impact on how subsequent business transactions can be structured.

Today, the building permit process involves a single decision — the granting of a building permit — followed by a start notice. By introducing stepwise decisions instead, there may be an opportunity to create conditions for reuse (by incorporating aspects related to available reclaimed materials and products already during the permit process). These changes have the potential to increase demand for reclaimed materials and stimulate the growth of reuse markets in general.

Together, demolition and building permits can establish conditions for a new market model in which new or existing actors collaborate to match materials from demolition or dismantling with a construction project that is in the planning stage. Through changes in the permit procedure, there would be information, time, and opportunity to identify, secure volumes and required quality, purchase, document, store, and deliver the desired reclaimed building components, products, or materials.

Conditions for a Circular Transition

To succeed with the circular transition of the built environment sector, both regulations and market models must be designed in collaboration with key actors in order to create the necessary conditions for large-scale transformation.