The Circular Built Tool

Ready for circular building?

Start your project here - go to the tool

Or first watch the video below that quickly explains how the tool works.

With this tool, you can make your circular construction ambitions concrete, from the start of the project until the end, with all parties involved. An adequate way to have your project completely circularly built.

Why a "Circular Built" tool?

Every construction project is different with its own specific context and preconditions. Also, the term "circular construction" or a "circular building" is unambiguous to this day. So translating the theoretical principles of circular building into a practical implementation is a very challenging exercise.

The "Circular Built" tool

Guides you in defining, monitoring and evaluating circular ambitions in construction projects.
Helps construction partners to communicate in a transparent way about circular ambitions.
Ensures you to make these circular ambitions reality in your construction project, together with all parties involved, from the start of the project.

And so your project really will be "circular built".

Start using the tool and make your circular ambitions concrete!

"At the Emergis Living lab, there was a strong commitment to valorise the existing situation with an ambition to retain 24% of the existing structure. In the end, this ambition was exceeded by 4% thanks to the preservation of the foundation, concrete floor and a tiled floor"

Calculation method Dashboard

The percentages that can be found on the dashboard do not express how circular a building is, but show the extent to which you want to focus on a certain aspect. The goal is therefore not to achieve 100% on every aspect, but to put forward an ambitious but at the same time realistic percentage for each project and monitor whether it is achieved.

Ambitionlevel expressed in percentages:

Design for reuse and recycling

In the calculator "Design for reuse and recycling", however, a simple calculation method was used to visualise and estimate the extent to which the various aspects determining the reuse and recycling potential are taken into account per building component. This methodology is explained further.

As avoiding the use of materials is at the top of the circularity ladder, the calculator first examines whether material-saving optimisations are made or even better, materials are avoided. Bonus points are awarded for this:

Materiaal-saving = 2 points
Avoiding material use = 20 points = Maximumscore

Next, the extent to which each building component was designed to allow for reuse and recycling in the future is checked for 4 aspects. Depending on the answers, a 4-level scale is used with a score distribution of 0, 1, 3 and 5. Thus, a maximum score of 20 points per building component can be obtained when the reuse and recycling potential is maximised for all aspects.

Finally, the scores per building component are converted into a percentage that represents the ambition level for the entire building. To do this, the scores per building component are combined with the following weighting factors to produce a total percentage. The weighting factors are taken from DGNB New buildings criteria set - version 2018, TEC1.6 / EASE OF RECOVERY AND RECYCLING.

Toont een tabel berekening calculator ontwerp voor hergebruik en recyclage

There is the following logic behind these weighting factors: when building components are subject to regular changes (because of their limited technical or functional lifespan), it is all the more important that they were designed for reuse or recycling. Therefore, the floor, internal walls and ceiling have a high weighting factor. The foundation, on the other hand, remains unchanged in most cases and therefore has the lowest weighting factor.