The Ellen MacArthur Foundation outlines six circular strategies to transform Europe’s built environment that will boost economic activity, increase climate resilience, and make cities more vibrant places to live and work.
A new report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation asserts that transforming how European towns and cities are built could unlock massive economic, environmental and social benefits by 2035.
Building Prosperity: Unlocking the potential of a nature-positive, circular economy for Europe calls for the adoption of six circular strategies to transform and optimize Europe’s built environment. This will boost economic activity, increase climate resilience, and make cities more vibrant places to live and work.
Key findings from the report include:
- A circular transformation of Europe’s towns and cities could address 90 percent of housing needs while avoiding urban sprawl half the size of Belgium.
- Business and society can reap €733 billion in yearly benefits by 2035.
- Households and local businesses could gain €22 billion annually, including through lower energy and water bills.
- A circular approach could save 250 million tonnes of construction materials annually.
- Sustainably optimized cities will cut emissions equal to taking 12 million cars off the road and keep cities cooler during heat waves.
Europe’s nature is being destroyed at an unprecedented rate, with the region’s climate heating faster than any other continent — while economic losses from heat waves, droughts and floods are predicted to escalate.
The built environment significantly contributes to this. The construction sector accounts for the largest share of Europe’s material footprint, generating more than 35 percent of its total waste and over a third of greenhouse gas emissions.
“Europe’s built environment is central to its economy, but it is currently too resource-intensive and disconnected from nature. It doesn’t have to be this way,” says Jocelyn Blériot, Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Executive Lead for Policy & Institutions. “The circular economy, in contrast, gives us the tools to maximize the expansion of green space, to make the most of existing buildings and to make better design as well as material choices.
“Our research has identified six strategies, rooted in circular economy principles, which can unlock this potential — delivering widespread benefits to business, society and the environment.”
6 circular strategies to optimize Europe’s built environment
The Foundation spotlights Europe’s cities as pivotal economic powerhouses with the potential to contribute to a prosperous and resilient European economy. The six strategies for achieving this fall under three themes:
- Revitalizing land and assets — Focusing on brownfield site redevelopment and the revitalization of vacant commercial buildings could help avoid 7,700km2 of urban sprawl, along with the associated carbon emissions and impacts on biodiversity.
- Maximizing nature in cities — Strategically increasing tree canopies and expanding green-blue spaces by adding more areas of water and vegetation throughout cityscapes can add 8,500km2 of green space to Europe’s cities and increase resilience to the effects of climate change.
- Optimizing building design and material sourcing — Employing material-efficient design and using low-impact materials — including reused or recycled materials, bio-based and lower-carbon alternatives — can reduce land used to extract construction materials by 500km2 and avoid large amounts of both operational and embodied carbon emissions.
The report asserts that the six strategies can together unlock €575 billion of potential revenue annually across the built environment value chain. In many cases, these revenue opportunities are ready to be seized now, with low barriers to implementation.
The Foundation calls on the building sector to build on recent progress made by policy and business, and collaborate to use emerging technologies to scale the circular economy.
“In our built environment, every building, every street, every neighborhood offers us a chance to embrace innovative circular design,” says Jerome Frost, Chair of Arup Group and one of the experts that provided input into the report. “But we will only unlock this positive change at scale by bringing together designers, policymakers, businesses and investors.
“What is abundantly clear is that nature must become a priority issue as we transition towards a regenerative built environment that balances growth with human and societal wellbeing for long-term prosperity.”