RECONMATIC Clustering Event: Scaling up efforts for circularity in construction 

Future Needs, as the dissemination leader in the RECONMATIC project, has proudly organised the virtual Clustering Event “Promoting Circularity in Construction” together with the project partners, where key players from other EU projects and initiatives in the sector participated.

The event, hosted on the BUILD UP platform on February 28, 2024, was a remarkable success, attracting a worldwide attendance that reached 100 people. It aimed to pinpoint collaboration opportunities and lay the groundwork for future independent workshops that will focus on specific research topics. To explore this potential, the representatives of the six invited projects Beeyonders, CircularB COST Action, Reincarnate, RobetArme, REDOL, and Valrec participated in two insightful panel discussions alongside their counterparts from the RECONMATIC project. 

Watch the recording of the event below to find out more about all the topics discussed.

But how did it all start? Anna Palaiologk gave an overview of the Horizon Programme structure and the similarities between the projects relying on it.

Anna Palaiologk elaborates on the Horizon Twin Transition into construction 

Anna Palaiologk, an economist, an expert in EU research funding and the founder of Future Needs Management Consulting, is beside the RECONMATIC dissemination team & the project consortium. As the impact leader of the project, she opened her presentation with the announcement of the Circular Construction Cluster and gave an overview of the Horizon Europe programme, focusing on the “Horizon Europe – Pillar II- Cluster ‘Digital Industry & Space’- Destination 1”- the umbrella under which most of the participating projects in the event are funded.

The Circular Construction Cluster is an initiative of the RECONMATIC Dissemination and Exploitation team that aims to attract European projects related to circularity in the construction sector by fostering research collaborations, sharing knowledge and results, and organising joint activities at various levels. All interested parties are invited to contact the project and subscribe to the newsletter to receive in their inbox the news about the cluster’s activities.

Anna explained that in “Destination 1: Climate-neutral, circular and digitised production”, the construction sector is included along with manufacturing and energy production, and gave an in-depth presentation of the steps that led to the idea behind the birth of the participating projects under the Call “Twin Green and Digital Transition” under different strands and topics. She presented how Horizon is ensuring continuity and a holistic approach, with open calls on the same strands in succeeding years, and depicted the similarities and differences among the participating projects, that rely on the keywords mentioned in the expected impacts of each Call.

This explains how all the invited projects work on Twin Transition, which is all about green and digital construction but at the same time, RECONMATIC and Reincarnate emphasise on circularity, thus on the green aspect, while the projects of the Tech4EUconstruction cluster, (HumanTech, BEEYONDERS and RoBétArmé) focus on the digital aspect – and this is the difference between the two Calls in 2021. Finally, the REDOL project, funded under the 2022 call, does not focus on construction but on solid waste in general. 

“It is not all about the technical features of each project, but there are other very important elements to focus on related to circularity such as the business models of reduced waste, the reusability of construction products and how we can overcome barriers like the consumers’ trust for recycled materials. On a more general mode, we should also be interested in how to reduce CO2 emissions in the entire life-cycle of construction which is of course not only a European goal, but a global one.” – Anna Palaiologk

The Discussion Panels 

All the participating projects have common goals that were briefly described during the panel discussions, such as reducing CO2 and waste through recycling, more efficient use of construction data, boosting awareness and raising consumers’ trust in reused materials, creating new business models, upskilling the workforce and fostering communities and synergies.

The RECONMATIC coordinator Ing. Jan Valentin from Czech Technical University in Prague gave a short overview of the project and hosted the first panel discussion on how the projects address circularity in construction and the innovative solutions they propose. The discussion between the coordinators and technical managers of the projects, concluded by summarising the similarities between the projects into nine synergy topics. 

Georgia Nikolakopoulou from Future Needs, led the session identifying future research dissemination and conference opportunities. She highlighted the upcoming RECONMATIC Open Day event, on May 7th,2024, and the potential collaborations of RECONMATIC with the participating projects for the development of educational materials and training activities. 

As Anna pointed out, closing her presentation, the construction ecosystem, which is predominantly driven by small and medium-sized enterprises, offers 22  million jobs, and contributes 10.5% of EU-27 global value added. Nevertheless, at the same time, the sector absorbs very slowly the offered digital technologies that could potentially contribute to its circularity. This is why the European Union and the projects – like the ones we met in this clustering event – aim to address these deficiencies by proposing new solutions and offering training on them. Wide dissemination of these projects’ results is a key factor in addressing the future challenges in the construction sector, thus joint dissemination activities are pursued to increase the impact on the industry and society. 

Main takeaways from the attendees

A notable number of attendees, from Europe to South America, joined online, expressing their interest with specific questions and concerns addressed to the speakers. The participants agreed on the collaboration potential among them and that the event contributed to getting familiar with each project’s advancements, giving the thumbs up to the initiative! The value of organising joint conferences was proposed as a means of having a greater impact, while several expressed their concerns about the barriers for the reuse of recycled materials in construction in South America’s market as well as in Europe’s.

Added value

This clustering event aimed to contribute to narrowing the gap between the research community and industry stakeholders, invited to share their hurdles and experiences in implementing circularity along various construction life cycle stages. Given the high potential social impact of the project on European society, this event was open to the general public. We aspire that this was an initial step to take the research for circularity and sustainability in the construction sector to the next level. Join us to find out what the next steps will be! 

Many thanks to the participants who honoured us with their participation.

Stay tuned with Future Needs for all upcoming events, workshops, and webinars we organise!