Circular Economy Policies and Regulations at the European Level

During the transition from the 20th to the 21st century, increased focus on environmental issues has prompted efforts to reduce the ecological footprint of buildings. Buildings are primary sites for human activity and significant contributors to energy utilisation and CO2 emissions. Initial efforts have prioritised the reduction of energy consumption and emissions, particularly during the use-phase of buildings. More recently, the entire lifecycle of construction has also been taken into account for buildings, as was already the case for other industrial sectors (Sala et al. 2021). The next step was therefore to consider each cycle repeatable, thus envisaging the transition from a linear economy to a circular economy. Considering that building products and materials usually have a significantly longer lifespan than other consumer goods (at least 20-50 years), different strategies are needed to implement circularity for constructions and building products.

LAMPERTI TORNAGHI Marco; 

2025-10-23

Springer Cham

JRC143156

978-92-68-30942-1 (online),   

366-259X (online),   

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-02834-1_4,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC143156,   

10.1007/978-3-032-02834-1 (online),