👷 Works in Progress: How to Reconcile Economic Value and Circularity in the Construction Industry?

Hi from 2031,

I hope you had a great start into 2022. More and more of you reply to my emails asking for more details about the future like "When will the Covid crisis end?", "What does your life look like in 2031?" or "Who will be the next French president?"...

I know all these answers but, I must say, you underestimate your power to change things around you. Take the example of this Canadian company: Just Biofiber. They have launched new hempcrete blocks that can be stacked like bricks to build walls up to 30 feet high whilst insulating the structure of the building.

Indeed, hemp can capture carbon and as the production of these blocks is well designed, it can capture about 10 tons of carbon per house!
Imagine the impact of these blocks compared to traditional concrete that is still the go-to building material in 2022.

So bring it on and the positive impacts will follow!

Joséphine from 2031

How to keep the circular economy front and center in a construction industry reshaped by Covid-19?

The figures are unambiguous: after a slight decrease in 2020, the construction sector has seen an impressive growth across the world’s largest economies, including the US and China, and has been one of the fastest-recovering industry in other territories. Unfortunately, this economic growth comes with a heightened social and environmental impact.

Indeed, despite the sector being one of the first to be analyzed through the lens of the Circular economy, consumption of raw materials, energy use and waste generation by the construction industry have been soaring.

There is an increasing number of new viable solutions for ‘green building’ championed around the world and, while the projected share of investment in the green alternatives remains at 1% in 2023, the trend is growing. In our latest blog post Andrei-Filip Ionescu, Project Manager at Circulab, provides an outlook on the current status of the sector and the challenges it faces on the road to circularity.

Great news for professionals based in France: Circulab has obtained its Qualiopi certification! What does it mean?

It’s a guarantee of the quality of Circulab trainings and of their continuous adaptation to participants’ needs,
it also proves our commitment to accompany participants before, during and after their training,
it certifies that we continue to recruit and develop qualified trainers,
and it allows French professionals to finance their continuous education through their professional training allowances.

New exciting courses have been added to the Circulab Academy, among which:

Develop Circular Packaging Solutions: a course on circular packaging developed and delivered by Colienne Regout, starting in February 2022,
Teach the Circular Economy: an introductory free course with teaching materials, starting this month,
Improve the Resilience of a Company: a course based on the Business Resilience Game, offering participants insights into how resilient organizations are built.

The Circular Economy is gaining momentum in the academic environment. At ESSEC, one of Europe’s top business schools, students from the Master of Management can now enroll in the “Global Circular Economy Chair”, a joint initiative supported by L’Oréal, EssilorLuxottica and Bouygues. Students will be able to learn the principles and practices of the circular economy and to apply them to real-life business cases under the guidance of circular economy experts. Among the experts, Justine Laurent, Managing Director of Circulab, will introduce the students to the Circular Canvas tool developed by Circulab.

As part of the EU-backed project COSME (Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium Enterprises), Circulab is joining other circular economy leaders in accompanying some of the selected SMEs as part of the CircularInnoBooster Fashion and Textile project’s accelerator, CirCoAX. COSME aims at improving the prospects of European SMEs by tackling 4 main themes: access to finance, access to markets, better framework conditions for competitiveness, and encouraging entrepreneurship.Out of the 70 participants, 30 have been selected for the program, which will span two years and deploy over 1.12 million euros, 75% of which is co-financed by the European Commission.

What are the community members up to?

3 news members joined the Circulab community earlier this month. With Claudine Pagon, Laetitia Thomas and Aurélie Foulon, the community extends to a new region (Grenoble, France) and strengthens its capacity in Paris and in Lyon, but also adds new expertises in marketing, innovation & business models and user research & brand strategy.
Anne-France Mariacher was interviewed in the French online show ‘Sustainable Supply Chain’ where she talks about her collective intelligence tool The Circular Economy Collage (La Fresque de l’Economie Circulaire). The interview is available on Supply Chain Village (in French).
The latest episode of the ‘Unboxing Your Packaging’ podcast by Colienne Regout looks into key motivations behind the customers’ choices. Her guest Lindsey Byle from Circular Citizen explains that making sustainable choices is not always motivated by ecological preoccupation and gives advice as to how to define your key motivation and the ones of your main customers. Listen to the episode here and subscribe to the series.
Patrick Noel and Fakrou Akbaraly, co-founders of Blue Bike Innovation, hosted a round table ”Shifting 30% of the car drivers to soft mobility: dream or reality?” which involved David Saussol, vice mayor of Orsay in the Parisian region, as well as the car engineer and co-creator of the Mobility Collage Laurent Perron and the low carbon mobility solutions manufacturer Alexandre Lagrange. The webconference is available on-demand (in French).