It's all about planning - Pre-demolition audits to inform public calls for tender for enhanced resource management of building materials from deconstruction

Abstract

Practical tools for the establishment of material inventories prior to demolition were developed to implement requirements of the Luxembourgish waste law. Pilot projects are accompanied to implement material inventories and encourage selective deconstruction to optimize material separation and resource exploitation. In one of the pilot projects, a test deconstruction of a representative unit of the building and a comprehensive material inventory served as basis for the public call for tender targeting the deconstruction. Both the material inventory of components and materials and the analysis of building contaminants during the early phase of the project allowed to define technical specifications and specific award criteria in the call for tender to reinforce state of the art methods for deconstruction and to channel resource management. An environmental assessment of the deconstruction of the building, based on the life-cycle assessment methodology, is currently undertaken to compare its environmental impacts versus those of a business-as-usual demolition scenario. The results will be used to further support the discussion with stakeholders how tender specifications can be adapted to reinforce environmental benefits of deconstruction and revalorization of materials and which steps have to be included in the planning process of deconstruction projects.