Building a Circular Future: Closing the Loop in Construction

The need to reduce the construction industry’s carbon footprint and its reliance on virgin natural resources is the most pressing issue facing the sector. Fostering innovation to make building materials environmentally friendly is crucial for tackling its sizable carbon footprint and, most importantly, for closing the material loop to create a truly circular economy.

Concrete is the most widely used man-made resource in the world. However, its production raises environmental concerns due to high consumption of natural resources and associated CO₂ emissions. With global urbanization rising, the demand for concrete will increase, highlighting the importance of innovations to make it more resource-efficient and circular.

Companies within the construction sector are becoming increasingly aware of their role in creating a circular future. Holcim, a global leader in sustainable building solutions, has mapped out a new focus on reducing carbon emissions, optimizing material use, and promoting a collaborative innovation ecosystem to make the industry more circular.

A Circular Approach to Cement and Concrete

The journey toward circular construction starts with cement. The development of ECOPlanet cement provides a lower-carbon material by substituting clinker with recycled raw materials like calcined clay or demolition waste. This directly supports a circular model by diverting waste from landfills and reducing the need for virgin limestone.

Complementing this is ECOPact, a range of low-carbon concrete. A key breakthrough in this circular mission was developed at Holcim’s plant in France: 100% recycled clinker. This product uses 100% exclusively recycled materials, ranging from wood ash to mineral processing by-products, a significant departure from conventional approaches that rely on extracted raw materials.

This vision for 100% recycled clinker is culminating in “Recygénie,” the world’s first fully recycled concrete building. This project exemplifies the transformative potential of Holcim’s custom concrete, crafted using ECOCycle® technology to incorporate recycled cement, aggregates, and water. This circular approach effectively repurposes construction and demolition waste, with the Recygénie project alone preserving over 6,000 tons of natural resources.

Building components also benefit from circular innovation. Holcim’s investment in Carbon Prestressed Concrete (CPC) technology results in slabs that are five times thinner and lighter. The absence of steel allows for disassembly and reuse or complete recycling of CPC systems, reducing material usage by up to 80% and facilitating industrialized, circular, low-carbon building practices.

Fostering a Culture of Circular Innovation

The commitment to a circular economy must ramp up product innovation and make the leap to tangible construction methods. In Kenya, the venture 14Trees has 3D-printed affordable housing units using efficient materials, representing a new, less wasteful paradigm for building.

Collaboration is key to this circular future. The newly established Holcim Innovation Hub serves as a platform for co-creation and collaboration, where ideas converge and partnerships are formed to advance circular progress. In essence, Holcim’s emphasis on innovation spans multiple dimensions, all geared towards building a world that is not just sustainable, but fundamentally circular.

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✦ ArchUp Editorial Insight

This article effectively outlines the construction industry’s imperative shift toward a circular economy, showcasing Holcim’s innovations in recycled cement, concrete, and building systems that minimize waste and maximize resource reuse. The main idea is compelling and well-supported with concrete examples like the Recygénie project and CPC technology. However, the piece could be more critical by acknowledging the significant economic and logistical hurdles in scaling these pilot projects to become industry-standard practices globally, which remains a formidable challenge. Despite this, the proactive development of a closed-loop material system, as detailed, represents the most viable and transformative path forward for genuinely sustainable construction, turning the industry’s waste problem into its solution