Circularity and LCA - material pathways: cascade potential and cascade environmental impact of an in-use building product

Abstract

Improving circularity in the building sector entails ensuring greater material efficiency to avoid virgin material extraction. To assist stakeholders in decisions regarding salvaging an in-use building product, requires to predict and assess the potential further productive uses of that product and its materials. The range of possible cascade material paths originating from the in-use building product X and their assessments comprise the cascade potential of product X. Method: To determine the cascade potential and impact, we work further on existing efforts done in the field of circularity and life cycle assessment (LCA). This entails discussing scenario models to predict cascade material pathways over time, and multifunctionality solutions to assess those pathways. Due to the fact that the environment is a complex system and long term forecasting is required, the cascade potential can never be exactly determined. Therefore, we first set up conceptual formulas and then discuss steps to make these formulas feasible. Furthermore, the effort to generate the cascade paths originating from a product, can also be used to form circular systems that adhere to carbon mitigation pathways.