[Committee Member] CEN/TC 350/SC 1 - Circular Economy in the Construction Sector

Another successful meeting in Coimbra on the 12th of June 2023 as part of the CEN/TC 350/SC 1 - Circular Economy in the Construction Sector. Under the leadership of Danemark, particularly WG1, Prof. Lisbeth M. Ottosen Ottesen, our lab is participating in this new CEN committee on circular construction. #SBDLab members Muheeb Al-Obaidy and Shady Attia are participating as members of the new CEN/TC 350, representing Belgium with a large consortium involving 19 European countries. Our lab represents the Belgian Bureau of Standardization (NBN), the Belgian Building Research Institute and the Colruyt Group.

After almost two years of work, we reached the 8th plenary meeting to develop the new standard expected to be published by 2025. We will already have our first draft this summer.

The scope of the standardization is to specify circular principles, guidelines, and requirements to facilitate the transition to a more sustainable circular economy, including tools and processes to achieve this, covering design to deconstruction and end-of-life scenarios in all stages of current and subsequent life cycles. This applies to new and existing construction works (buildings and civil engineering works), including their products, materials and components. The Subcommittee deals with technical issues on circularity and environmental, economic and social challenges, including take-back policy and waste management. This work will take into account the standards of CEN/TC 350, construction performance regulations, EPBD, Renewable Energy Directive, and Eco Design Directive and consider the work of existing committees on subjects that may support the circular economy in the construction sector, such as ISO/TC 323 and CEN-CLC/JTC 10, including initiatives of the European Commission.

The essence of our participation is to work on circularity principles and translate them to measurable indicators on the building level, elements level and materials level. In my opinion, the CEN group is still struggling with scoping and framing the content of the standard and, specifically, the used language and terminology. However, we are closer to agreeing on the standard structure, definition of circularity and key principles of circularity assessment. In the coming meeting, we will focus on guidance for assessing circularity in the construction sector.

📣 Read and share the 📄 previous post on advancing the standard: https://lnkd.in/eJy_wkVx

Learn about the standard draft: https://lnkd.in/edjUZMtX

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Look at ☑️ recent posts and activities. https://lnkd.in/eR-jiXtR

#circularity#building#standards#CENTC350#constructionindustry