Ascend - Advancing Sustainable Circularity For Eco-Friendly Net-Zero Developments

The construction sector accounts for around 40% of society's waste and energy consumption and 50% of the raw-material use, so it is imperative to find circular solutions. We need regenerative construction that promotes the green transition. In the interdisciplinary project ASCEND - Advancing Sustainable Circularity for Eco-friendly Net-zero Developments, researchers from Lund University and Aarhus University enter into dialogue with the construction industry in the Öresund-Kattegatt-Skagerrak region. The mission is clear: We must have a common direction towards absolute sustainability! We will work together in parallel in three different work packages: EXISTING BUILDINGS can be viewed as material banks, but there are no established methods for assessing the balance of the account. We will therefore work with mapping of buildings and materials as well as risk-based decision support to decide whether buildings should be dismantled or preserved. This can assess whether renovation or conversion to other uses are better than reusing materials and components. NEW BUILDINGS must be constructed from renewable materials and so that they can contribute to future reuse. Modular timber construction has great potential here. We therefore uncover the construction industry's current approach with a focus on identifying opportunities for better material utilization and reuse of materials in modules, just as we work with principles for disassembly and adaptation of modules. MATERIALS AND COMPONENTS must allow safe deconstruction and their quality must be known for them to be optimally reused. We will therefore work with techniques for safe deconstruction of buildings as well as classification methods, where the quality of reused materials and components is determined through non-destructive testing methods.