The construction industry is responsible for a significant part of Germany's resource consumption. As resources become scarcer and less landfill capacity is available, buildings and building products must be planned and implemented in the future in such a way that they are recyclable and resource consumption is documented and evaluated.
In contrast to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, the topic of resource efficiency still arouses less public interest. Moreover, it has not yet been possible to develop and permanently establish a generally recognised method for recording and evaluating material flows in the construction sector. This is also reflected in environmental product declarations (EPDs), which so far do not comprehensively consider resource efficiency and cycle aspects.
As part of the project "Resource Conservation, Resource Efficiency, Circularity" – ReReK for short – the researchers therefore conducted a systematic examination of resource efficiency and circularity aspects and how they can be assessed and influenced in buildings. They developed possibilities for action for relevant groups of actors, the exchange of information and discussed suitable indicators, methods, databases and tools.