Samenvatting

Alternative business models have a hard time setting foot in the construction industry due to attractive interest rates of mortgages as well as the long life times of buildings. Developing new buildings is a significant investment for property owners and developers. As a result caution is naturally taken to stay within budget and reducing costs. Despite of the focus on costs, the value of circularity is often discredited during decision-making. The author intends to give circularity a stronger vote in the decision-making process by making its value explicit with circular value calculators specifically developed for this purpose.

This paper and the calculators came about by desk research and co-creation sessions with varying stakeholders involved in the Dutch and Belgian construction industries. Co-creation sessions were organized to iteratively create a decision support tool that helps initiators in the building sector calculate and approximate the value of circularity, simply by doing it.

Benchmarks appeared to be a helpful tool for initiators to make decisions and relative estimates with more ease. Stakeholders with a financial responsibility can more easily be engaged by the use of calculators. Participants enjoyed being able to directly see the impact of changing a parameter to the outcome, such as Circular Value.

The efforts have resulted in two finalized calculators: the End of Life- and Flexibility Calculators. Those can be accessed and used by initiators and other stakeholders in the construction industry for free. The calculators are planned to be further tested and improved with the broader construction industry.