Environmental and socio-economic benefits of circularity in real estate management

Abstract

The environmental potential of reusing interior and building products (notably furniture, lighting, doors, windows, flooring and ceilings) has been calculated by a rather basic model based on life cycle approach. By making a calculation model available to housing and renovation companies in Sweden, a total of over 43000 items have been included in calculations as objects for reuse, stemming from about 130 renovation projects with a total waste saving of 800 tonnes of waste in the renovation stage. The first calculations of the corresponding avoided climate impact, from avoided waste management and avoided new product extraction and manufacturing, corresponds to around 1600 tonnes of CO2-equivalents. Translating this and other environmental aspects to monetary values with the EPS system, socio-economic savings is around 2.3 million Euro. Assuming the same composition of items for potential reuse from all renovation activities in Sweden and extrapolating to the total annual amount of building waste, the potential annual savings on the national scale is estimated to be 900000 tons of building waste and 1.3 million tons of CO2 equivalents, corresponding to around 7% of the total annual greenhouse gas emissions of the Swedish building sector. With the EPS evaluation, the total annual environmental benefit adds up to 600 million Euro. The calculation model is currently being refined to include a better coverage of logistics and refurbishment activities.