Facilitating the reuse of building materials
The Earth is a closed system with finite resources, meaning once a material runs out, it’s gone forever. As such, our current consume-and-discard based economy is simply unsustainable. In fact, if we continue to consume at the current rate, all the Earth’s critical resources will be depleted within 10 to 50 years. When it comes to waste, clearly there’s no time to waste. “It is essential that we move towards a sustainable circular economy in which resources are reused and recycled and waste is eliminated,” says Mr Martijn Oostenrijk, coordinator of the EU-funded Madaster project. To facilitate this shift towards a circular economy, the Madaster project has developed a disruptive digital platform to identify, track and reuse otherwise wasted materials.
Match, monitor, manage
The Madaster platform facilitates the reuse of the products and materials commonly used by the construction sector. A designer, builder or owner simply needs to create an account and upload such information as the 3D building information models that most of the real estate business uses for new buildings. If that information is unavailable, Madaster and its partners have multiple workarounds to maximise the benefits of the platform without having to create new data. Once a building is registered, Madaster creates a Material Passport for the project that indicates the circular characteristics and financial value of the building’s materials. Both the circularity index and financial value are updated automatically with every log in, and building registrations are fully managed by the user. As data is not shared or sold, the platform complies with the strictest privacy regulations. “If you are looking for materials or want to sell your reused products that will become available after maintenance, reconstruction or renovation, Madaster facilitates this via its partner network,” explains Oostenrijk. “Madaster is the register – the trusted data source – that automatically connects to a range of service providers like marketplaces for reused construction materials, (re)construction firms, facility managers, architects and engineering companies.” To illustrate Madaster in action, take a huge hospital in Rotterdam that was recently set for demolition. Instead of asking a demolisher for the lowest price, the hospital registered its assets with Madaster and asked demolishers to organise the reuse of its registered assets. By facilitating the sale of a large quantity of the hospital’s building assets to a social housing corporation, Madaster helped lower demolition costs for the hospital and provide low-cost assets for the housing project.
Ready to scale up
The Madaster platform is currently available for use in the Netherlands. Since the end of 2017, the project has seen its database grow from just over 300 square metres of materials registered to more than 2.5 million. “The Madaster platform is built to last,” adds Oostenrijk. “But to be sustainable, the scale up to new European markets is a must and is something we are currently focused on.”
Keywords
Madaster, circular economy, building materials, sustainable, reused, recycled, construction sector, privacy regulations
