CIRCULAR ECONOMY ACTION PLAN
Offshoot of the European Green Deal
An offshoot of the European Green Deal, with a strong focus on construction materials and the building process, it will lead in 2021 to a Strategy for a Sustainable Built Environment ensuring "coherence across the relevant policy areas such as climate, energy and resource efficiency, management of construction and demolition waste, accessibility, digitalisation and skills." (p. 14)
It will promote circularity principles throughout the lifecycle of buildings by:
- "addressing the sustainability performance of construction products in the context of the revision of the Construction Product Regulation, including the possible introduction of recycled content requirements for certain construction products, taking into account their safety and functionality";"
- "promoting measures to improve the durability and adaptability of built assets in line with the circular economy principles for buildings design and developing digital logbooks for buildings";
- using Level(s) to integrate life cycle assessment in public procurement and the EU sustainable finance framework and exploring the appropriateness of setting of carbon reduction targets and the potential of carbon storage*;
- considering a revision of material recovery targets set in EU legislation for construction and demolition waste and its material-specific fractions (with special attention to insulation materials, a growing waste stream);
- promoting initiatives to reduce soil sealing, rehabilitate abandoned or contaminated brownfields and increase the safe, sustainable and circular use of excavated soils.
"Furthermore, the 'Renovation Wave' initiative announced in the European Green Deal to lead to significant improvements in energy efficiency in the EU will beimplemented in line with circular economy principles, notably optimised lifecycle performance, and longer life expectancy of built assets." (p. 14).
Full report and commentary on the above bullets under epf20-16 of 12.03.2020