D5.3 Policy brief and business case of building transformation

The purpose of this report is to evaluate the outcomes of circular design principles for the life cycle extension of existing buildings, demonstrated in the CIRCuIT project and use the findings to provide municipal authorities and building owners the policy brief & business cases on circular life cycle extending strategies. Through twelve demonstrator projects, various circular retention principles were designed, tested and evaluated. Methods such as LCA have been used to calculate the environmental consequences of preserving rather than demolishing and building new, and the economics of circular retention have been examined through LCC calculations. Based on the results and experiences from the twelve demonstrator projects, three business cases and three policy briefs have been formed that argue in favour of extending life cycles of existing buildings through different transformation and refurbishment strategies. They are presented in this report.

The work with the twelve demonstrator projects has given a deeper insight into the advantages and problems of using circular design principles. Since all the demonstrator projects showed that there were both environmental and financial savings to be gained by preserving and transforming than demolishing and building new, the overall recommendation is that the building owner, investors, and public authorities should prioritize circular retention principles through strategies for extending lifecycles (e.g., by refurbishment and transformation).