Why construction is still getting the circular economy wrong

By Alastair Mant 2019-05-14T09:57:00

Many of the answers required for the shift to a restorative and regenerative system already exist, now the industry needs to start asking the right questions, says Alastair Mant of UKGBC

There are ecological and business imperatives for moving away from our current ‘take-make-dispose’ economy, towards a model which decouples economic activity from the consumption of finite resources. In the UK, construction, demolition and excavation account for 60% of both material use and waste generation. Humanity is on course to triple material extraction in the next 30 years and triple waste production by 2100. Meanwhile, prices of construction materials in the UK rose by 4.9% between 2017 and 2018, and adopting circular economy principles is a €1.8 trillion opportunity for the EU between 2015 and 2030.

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