Circular Economy in the built environment new legal...

Circular Economy in the built environment

new legal approaches needed?

Chris Backes and Marlon Boeve

Agenda

Legal Instruments to Improve:

1. Quality of Recycling and Material Recovery ?

2. Circularity and Total Environmental Performance of Buildings?

Some figures

- CDW: 25-30% of all waste within EU

- Construction materials: - 50% of all materials extracted- 1/3 of the use of water- 35% of CO2 emissions

Waste Framework Directive (WFD)

Article 11 (2) b WFD: by 2020 a minimum of 70% (by weight) of non-hazardous CDW shall be prepared for reuse, recycled or undergo other material recovery

Hugh differences between MS: between less than 10% to more than 90%

New Legal Approach?

Requirement of use of x % of secundarymaterial in buildings

Not in waste law, but in product or resources law:

Circularity Influences EntireBuilding Process

Design for:• Durability• Adaptibility• Reuse• Reversibility•…… etc

Environmental friendly buildings – EU Law

Energy-performance first, Circularity/Resource-efficiency second?

Current Regulatory Framework

Minimum energy performance requirement for buildings- EU level: Directive on the energy performance of buildings

(directive 2010/31/EU)à implemented by member states

Minimum circularity performance requirement for buildings- EU-level: No standards

Minimum environmental performance requirement for buildings (holistic)- EU-level: no standards but methodology is being developed- National examples (Netherlands)

Issues• Energy performance requirement may conflict

with environmental performance of buildings

• No separate tools to support circularity of buildings (unlike energy-performance)

Towards regulatory support of circular construction

Three different standards:- Energy performance- Circularity performance- Environmental friendly performance

All three standards needed

Within one EU Directive

Effects

Boosting transition to circularity andenvironmental friendly buildings

Level playing field

No counter-productive side-effects

Contact informationUtrecht Centre for Water, Oceans and Sustainability Law,

Utrecht University

Prof. dr. C.W. Backes, LLM c.w.backes@uu.nlDr. M.N. Boeve, LLM m.n.boeve@uu.nl