Urban Mining revolutionizes the way we think about waste and resources. The innovative approach is to extract valuable materials from existing buildings and infrastructures and to consider cities as raw material depots. This approach was brought to life as part of the circular economy.
The Multi Tower, a future-oriented example of Circular Economy, has 44,000 square meters and 18 floors and is the first CO2-neutral office building of the city of Brussels. The advisory company Drees & Sommer SE, which specializes in construction, real estate and infrastructure, and its subsidiary EPEA, an international innovation partner for environmentally friendly products, processes, buildings and districts, did Cradle-to-Cradle advice and supported the implementation of the principles of the circular economy.
From the sight of the eyes – this is the best way to describe our handling of garbage. And that also applies to the currently largest source of waste: the demolition of buildings. Most building materials are currently landed on landfill, where they are either destroyed or processed into products with significantly lower value. This leads to a significant loss of valuable resources. Because raw materials are finally, and in view of the increasing pressure through urbanization and increasing population, global demand for building materials will probably triple by 2050. The concept of urban mining deals with the critical topic of the finite resources, complements the Cradle-to-Cradle principles (C2C) and supports the circular economy. The focus is on saying goodbye to the way of thinking of demolition and instead investing existing materials in buildings.
The diverse strengths of the Multi Tower in terms of sustainability
The Multi Tower is one of the most impressive urban mining projects that Drees & Sommer accompanied. The company supported the conversion of the aging office building from the 1960s with the Services Building Circularity Passport and Urban Mining Passport. 89% of the existing concrete were reused, which saved 3,259 tons of bound carbon, 20,000 tons of waste, 2,222 cement trucks and 2,000 cement load trips. The building has the highest percentage of reused materials among the large office projects in Brussels, with 3 % winning iconic Belgian locations in cooperation with the circulatory economy partner Rotor DC. Due to the energy and CO2 balance sheet as well as the circular economy, the French company Total and BPost, Belgium’s leading postal service provider, decided to rent the building. After its renovation, the important project of Immobel and Whitewood, which acquired the building at the end of 2015, and until 2022 renovated, around 44,000 square meters of office space for 2,000 people and retail space. The project has received “Excellent” Breeam certification and is therefore one of the top 10 percent of the office buildings in Belgium.
On the way to a regenerative future
Since the beginning of the EU-funded research project Buildings AS Material Banks in 2015, EPEA has exhibited hundreds of passports and continuously developed them to promote the circular use of materials in construction. It is important to emphasize that the Cradle-to-Cradle approach differs from traditional recycling, which often includes downcycling or energetic exploitation methods that are detrimental to climate and resource protection. The Circularity Passport® describes the value of materials for circular use, including their ability to be disconstructed, deconstructed and reused when converting or demolition, which means that buildings become valuable raw material bearings. This pass also contains CO2 footprints, including the “gray energy” from production, transport, dismantling and disposal of building materials, and thus offers a comprehensive life cycle assessment. With this instrument, those involved should be proactively informed about how to select the correct materials and use them in a circular economy.
To the author: Michael Moradiess Del Molino, International Head of Circularity and Sustainability at Drees & Sommer SE
Michael Moradiess Del Molino is International Head of Circularity and Sustainability at Drees & Sommer in Belgium. As a co -founder and partner of several companies as well as expert for circular economy and cradle to cradle, he came to Drees & Sommer seven years ago. His goal was to introduce the Cradle-to-Cradle principle in the French-speaking market in order to meet the growing demand for sustainability and circulatory business issues. Previously, he was part of the subsidiary Epea and acted there as Head of Real Estate. Michael studied architecture at the Isavh in Brussels and then went to Spain to write his doctoral thesis in the area of sustainable urban planning and to take up his professional activity in parallel. Today he is the managing director of Drees & Sommer in Belgium and a member of the European Board.
Drees & Sommer: Uniting Opposites to Create A World We Want to live in.
To advise, implement, implement, implement, implement, implement sustainable, innovative and economical solutions for real estate, industry, energy and infrastructure – or even offer both from a single source – this is characterized by the partner -managed consulting company Drees & Summer SE. Founded in 1970 and has since been known as a sustainability pioneer and digitization driver of the Real Estate industry, the company employs more than 5,100 employees at 59 locations. Interdisciplinary teams are working in more than 5,000 projects worldwide to create a future worth living and to combine apparent contrasts: tradition and future, analog and digital, efficiency and well -being. As an entrepreneur in the company, there is a personally responsible partnership.
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