Hubs, logistics and stakeholders: Drivers of circular economy flows in the construction sector

Abstract

The building sector is a major contributor to environmental impacts, accounting for 39% of global CO₂ emissions and 70% of annual waste production in France. Faced with these environmental challenges, public and private players are increasingly turning to the circular economy, which promotes the optimized use of resources, recycling being the most common practice (Blanquart 2019).

Several cities have decided to launch government-supported circular economy hubs (physical platforms) as a key enabler for construction material and equipment circularity, as illustrated in France by cases in the Paris region, Toulouse, Bordeaux or Strasbourg. These policies seem to imply that there are an untapped supply and demand of secondary resources that lack an open physical hub at close distance to meet (Institut Paris Région 2023). However, some authors have shown that there are other criteria  which can influence the flows and loops of secondary building resources, in particular the coordination logics of the different players (Mongeard 2017).

In this work we aim to identify the key drivers of material flows and circularity for secondary resources in the building sector, using the case of the Paris Region. Given their relevance for public policy, we have chosen the physical platforms of circular economy as an entry point for our analysis. This term can cover a wide range of realities: we can define it as an infrastructure through which secondary resources from deconstruction or building site pass and/or are transformed, with a view to their reuse or recycling.

In this research, about 100 platforms are mapped out and identified using criteria such as address, surface area, logistical connections, type of organisation, materials, operations… This allows us to suggest a typology of platforms, mainly based on their business models, resource type and operations. It appears the Paris Region is already well meshed by a wide range of these platforms controlled by a variety of players, most of them private, organizing their own circularity loops outside the scope of public action. These platforms are evenly spread across the inner suburbs, but are also present in city centre, albeit on a smaller scale: the city of Paris accounts for 10% of these hubs, but only 3% of their surface areas. While access to the river seems a key factor in the choice of location for suppliers, platforms specializing in reuse only have road access.

In a second step, interviews are conducted with a selected panel of platform managers, to identify their upstream sources and downstream outlets, their links with the players involved, and the obstacles they face in 'closing the loop'.

This quantitative and qualitative data is analysed using the typologies of proximity in its geographical, economic, organisational and institutional dimensions: we suggest an adaptation of these typologies used in the case of waste management by Bahers et al. (2017) and recycled gravel by Mongeard (2017). The aim is to analyse both the materiality of the circular economy in the building and public works sector and its socio-economic dimension. In this context, we explore the role that a government-supported circular economy hub can play and whether it can lead to new economic models for regional sustainability (Maillefert 2020).