The video brings together the solutions the project is developing to make the construction sector more renewable and circular.
From waste to resource
The built environment accounts for around half of all extracted materials and about 35% of the EU’s total waste generation, while energy-intensive, non-renewable materials such as concrete and steel still dominate construction. The video starts from this challenge and proposes a change of perspective: end-of-life buildings are not waste, but material banks. The timber they contain can be recovered and given a new life instead of being sent to incineration.
The circular journey of wood, step by step
The story follows wood through each stage of the circular value chain that WOODCIRCLES is building:
- The Urban Sawmill, a facility designed specifically for recovering construction timber, where automated scanning, sorting and processing turn mixed waste wood into standardised, high-quality construction products, creating new value chains close to cities.
- A building system designed for manufacture, assembly and disassembly, so that buildings can be adapted, repaired and transformed over time, with components reused rather than replaced.
- Digital tools such as material passports and Building Information Modelling (BIM), which record the origin, performance, location and future reuse potential of each component, making circular construction measurable and traceable.
- Full-scale demonstration, embodied by the Woodcircles Travelling Demonstrator, a modular timber structure that is assembled, disassembled and rebuilt in different European cities.
Built together
The video closes on a key message: a circular construction sector requires more than innovation, it requires collaboration. WOODCIRCLES brings together 19 partners from across the wood construction value chain, working with researchers, industry, policymakers, cities and local communities to turn innovative solutions into everyday practice.
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