Circular Economy Policies in the European Framework: a Focus on the Construction Sector

Resource scarcity and climate change are two of the biggest challenges of our times. The concentration of greenhouse gas is rising steadily since the Industrial Revolution, leading to an average global temperature that is higher and higher and we are consuming resources for 1.75 planet. The construction sector is one of the main responsible of the emissions and therefore is object of great attention from policy makers and academia aiming at finding innovative solutions to cut emission of this sector that, alone, is responsible of the 40% of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the construction and demolition waste accounts for the 35.9% of the total waste, representing the largest category. Circular economy is seen as an opportunity to thrive and tackle climate change, fostering a new model of economy that overcomes the linear process of “take-make-dispose”, which is the basis of the current economic system. Indeed, circular economy aims at implementing thriving systems without continuing with the consumption of the finite resources, but eliminating the concept of waste and pollution, maintaining products and materials in loop at their highest value and regenerating nature. Circular economy principles have been applied to the construction sector, trying to overcome the focus on energy efficiency of building and widening the perspective to embrace the whole life cycle in the discourse. However, an holistic vision is still missing. The purpose of this contribution is to explore and present the policies related to the circular economy at European level, starting from the first circular economy action plan enacted in 2015 and going towards the current European Green Deal and the new circular economy action plan. Through the implementation of the first action plan, many interesting results have been achieved, such as the first monitoring system available at EU level and the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform, a collaborative network of stakeholders. In addition, the partnership on Circular Economy of the Urban Agenda has developed a framework for cities to implement actions and integrate circular economy principles pursuing the objectives of better regulations, better knowledge and better funding. Moving from a strategic to a regulative framework, a European directive does not exists targeting the construction sector since the building stock and the climate conditions vary significantly across EU. However, the Level(s) framework has been developed and tested, representing a common EU framework of core sustainability indicators for office and residential buildings. Level(s) framework inspired already many regulations that are in force in some Member States, and the Italian case of the minimum environmental criteria is presented. Lastly, the manuscript presents the circular building toolkit, as an interesting case study for the implementation of the circular economy principles to the construction sector.