Transitioning the Swedish building sector toward reuse and circularity

Abstract

A transition toward a circular building sector, in which built-in construction products with remaining technical life are reused, would decrease the amount of waste generated, improve resource utilization and reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to the built environment. Based on this premise, this study (1) identifies key barriers to the increased reuse of high-quality construction products in the Swedish building sector and, based on these barriers (2) presents a set of new working practices that enable reuse in building and deconstruction projects. The study uses an explorative research approach based on data from ten case studies of Swedish building and deconstruction projects, semi-structured interviews and a survey conducted with key building-sector stakeholders. The results identify a lack of knowledge and an immature market as key barriers that must be removed in order to enable increased reuse in the Swedish building sector. Key working practices identified as solutions for increased reuse are (1) materials inventories, (2) targets for reuse, (3) circular building design, (4) planning for reuse, (5) incentives for reuse in procurement and (6) long-term documentation strategies enabling future reuse.