Proposal of a building material passport and its application feasibility to the wood frame constructive system in Brazil

Abstract

Implementing practices for a circular economy transforms the way companies do business. Obtaining and processing systematized and optimized information facilitates decision making in order to innovate, create value and adopt measures to promote energy efficiency and sustainability in construction. Building Materials Passports (BMPs) are tools for inserting circular economy in buildings. They can be crucial in managing and providing information to stakeholders in industry value chains, with the aim of promoting the construction of more sustainable and resilient cities, where materials are identified in a database, removed and reused in order to maintain, recover or even increase value and useful life. This paper presents a proposal of a BMP applied to the wood frame system in Brazil, introducing the following guidelines: general information, safety, sustainability, use and operation, assembling directions, reuse and product service history. A case study was developed in a Brazilian company in order to test the application feasibility of the tool to the system. There were some barriers found in the development of the BMP regarding LCA data, as well as the end of life information of the material. This attempt to implement the BMP encourages practices of circular economy in the construction industry and, associated with the expanding use of wood frame in Brazil, contributes to flexible and renewable buildings. In addition, the main challenges for the introduction of BMP are discussed, emphasizing the need for joint action based on political initiatives and regulations that allow and facilitate circular practices in construction.