BLOX HUB: Circular Built Environment Network 

• Description: "This network consists of two Grand Solutions projects and 15 industrial Ph.D. projects. The network will create new knowledge and share their learnings with each other, the BLOXHUB community, and the industry as such. All the projects share a vision of contributing to a shift from the conventional construction industry to a circular resource economy."
• Link: https://bloxhub.org/circular-built-environment-network/

Sustainable reuse of post-war architecture through life cycle assessment (Ferriss, Lois; Journal of Architectural Conservation; June 2021)

• Description: "This paper presents two case studies involving the reuse of undergraduate residence halls [from the mid-twentieth century]. The first illustrates the substantial total carbon savings from restoration and reuse. The second proposes an analysis-based methodology for designing retrofits that optimize carbon payback of targeted interventions.
• Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13556207.2021.1943260?scroll=top&needAccess=true#abstract

Waste Heritage Research: Deconstruction, Salvage, and Re-Use 

• Description: "A constantly updated list of articles, books, chapters, conference proceedings, reports and theses, mainly in English, with some French and German. Links will be added as they become available."
• Link: https://wasteheritageresearch.wordpress.com/resources/reference-list/

University of Minnesota Capstone projects focused on the built environment: Sustainable Material Management in Minnesota's Built Environment: Economic, environmental, and community impact framework for assessing demolition, deconstruction, and restoration of a building

• Description: "Construction and demolition (C&D) materials constitute a large portion of Minnesota’s waste stream. These materials offer an economic and environmental opportunity if they reenter the market as a raw material according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which reports that the recycling and reuse of C&D material generates jobs, wages, taxes, and mitigates carbon emissions more than any other material stream (Delta Institute, 2019). Increased clarity on the diversion impacts associated with C&D materials from landfills can encourage dialogue about material management that may inform future policy and program strategies resulting in economic, environmental, and community benefits for the state of Minnesota.

  With the support from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), this Capstone project has worked to provide an estimate of the total impact – economic, environmental, and community – associated with three material management methods used during building end-of-life: demolition, deconstruction, and renovation. Increasing awareness and transparency on the impacts associated with each method allows for data to be provided to both the private and public sector to enable actors to reduce the rate of salvageable C&D materials currently being landfilled and increase local and state governments capacity to adopt policies and programs that encourage C&D material recycling or reuse as a result of recognized economic, environmental, and social benefits.

  This report looks specifically at the Ben Pomeroy Student-Alumni Learning Center (Pomeroy Center) in order to quantify established metrics. The aim of this project was not to determine the end-of-life practice best suited for this building specifically but rather for the Pomeroy Center to serve as a model structure for the purpose of creating a framework for future economic, environmental, and social analyses performed on the building material management methods of Minnesota built environment projects.

  The results of this study found that deconstruction is the preferred method based on net economic, environmental, and community impacts. Though the data and models available at the time of this study were fragmentary, its findings can serve as an estimated baseline for buildings of comparable scale and scope to understand the economic, environmental, and community impacts of various material management strategies. The findings remain useful in determining how to approach and determine the best building end-of-life material management method for future projects in Minnesota’s built environment."

• Link: MPCA Capstone Final Report, 2022.pdf (2.74 MB)

Assessment of Materials Management Methods in Higher Education Building Lifecycle Decisions

• Description: "Our team identified a need for sustainability considerations within the decision-making process for the end of lifespan of higher education buildings. This is primarily because they are too often demolished in favor of aesthetics and external factors rather than practical internal ones (Liu et al., 2014). As a result, these demolitions cause significant and unnecessary negative effects on both climate change and the environment (Coelho & de Brito, 2012). We developed a categorical assessment tool and research framework to analyze and compare additional materials management methods for higher education buildings other than demolition, with the goal of empowering decision makers to reduce organizational impact. This assessment was created for addressing multiple considerations for embodied carbon, material sustainability/disposal factors, and project financing in balance with one another and can easily be replicated by decision makers for their use in making real life decisions. To illustrate the effectiveness of our model, we analyzed a hypothetical scenario of either renovating or demolishing and rebuilding Green Hall, an academic building owned by the University of Minnesota. Using our model, we were able to show an over 2.1x increase in project embodied carbon, 1.9x increase in capital costs, and a 1.7x increase in total landfill waste as a result of enacting demolition and new building construction over renovation. Our tool also considered the weighing of different impact categories in terms of importance towards reaching 100% project goal fulfillment. By adjusting our needs to prioritize climate (50%), and environment (35%) over project financing (15%) our tool rated renovation (3.85/5) at almost double the effectiveness of demolition and new building (1.86/5). Once completed, this tool allowed for the decision makers we presented to at the MPCA quarterly Built Environment meeting to clearly see the associated impacts of different project materials management methods on climate change, the environment, and a decision maker’s budget."
• Link: MPCA Capstone Final Report, 2023.pdf (1.68 MB)

What is the true cost of landfilling construction and demolition materials in one Minnesota landfill?

• Description: Construction and demolition (C&D) operations account for a significant amount of our waste streams, producing a staggering 1,534,127 tons in 2019 in Minnesota alone (MPCA, 2020). C&D waste comprises building materials and appliances originating from an industrial demolition site. Twice as much waste comes from C&D compared to household waste, and this number is only expected to grow, as an estimated one-third of existing buildings will be demolished by 2050 (MPCA, 2020). Currently, about 70% of C&D waste ends up in landfills (Hennepin County, 2024). It is hypothesized that landfilling C&D waste has additional environmental impacts from hazardous particulate matter emissions, eco-toxicity, and carbon emissions (Ecochain, 2024). Melissa Wenzel, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's sponsor for this project, asked her colleagues a simple question: could anyone define the true cost of a cubic yard of construction waste? To her surprise, no one could answer this question, which is where our work comes in.

This project aims to identify the true environmental, economic, and social costs of a Construction and Demolition landfill in USD, for the Becker County Landfill in particular, from construction to closing. The traditional method of actualizing the costs of a landfill is expressed as the fee charged to those who dispose of waste in a landfill, otherwise known as a tipping fee. A traditional tipping fee covers various expenses, including operations, maintenance, regulatory compliance, and post-closure care. Still, it fails to include social and environmental costs, leading to an incomplete representation of the costs associated with waste disposal. Our analysis goes beyond the traditional tipping fee associated with C&D waste disposal. To identify environmental costs, we considered the greenhouse gas emissions released by the landfill and translated this to a monetary value through the social cost of carbon framework. Social costs were assessed qualitatively by observing nearby community impacts, such as jobs generated by the landfill and decreased land value around the landfill. Becker County Landfill has implemented a waste-diversion Reuse Program. In this program, materials fit for continuous use are salvaged from the waste and stored in a showroom warehouse where contractors, artists, and individuals can purchase the reused goods. Revenue generated and the mass of the avoided landfilled materials from this program will be incorporated into the overall cost characterization. This data, showing the economic value of Becker County’s waste-diversion program, can be shared with other landfills to prompt their consideration of implementing a similar program.

• Link: MPCA Capstone Final Report 2024.pdf (2.55 MB)