Building within planetary boundaries

Background

The Netherlands faces a substantial construction challenge for housing, commercial buildings and infrastructure. On the one hand, about 900,000 homes will need to be built, as well as the accompanying facilities and infrastructure. On the other hand, there is a renovation task involving approximately 8 million homes, 1 million commercial buildings, and more than 300 bridges and viaducts.

Achieving these goals must be done in line with ambitious climate targets and circularity ambitions. In addition, we face other sustainability challenges, including nature restoration and reducing the use of toxic substances.

Research question

The conflicting ambitions of building more on the one hand, and reducing environmental impact on the other have led us to the following questions:

1. What is the material demand associated with our construction task — for both new construction and renovation?
2. What are the effects of this material demand on our planet — such as climate change and biodiversity loss?
3. What circular strategies can reduce material demand, CO₂ emissions, and the environmental impact of construction in the short term?
4. Which actions are required from which stakeholders to put these circular strategies into practice?

Approach

We conduct these studies in collaboration with Metabolic, NIBE and Alba Concepts. Our work is guided by the following principles:

• Providing clear insight into the expected material demand, CO₂ emissions and environmental impact resulting from the national construction task.
• Developing circular scenarios based on ‘realistic extremes’, to demonstrate what is possible using technically feasible measures (realistic) without limiting boundary conditions (extreme).
• Validating the circular scenarios with stakeholders from the sector, in order to create a shared perspective on how to realise the construction task with lower environmental impact.
• Offering actionable guidance for all stakeholders in the construction sector, showing the contribution they can make based on their role and responsibility.

Status

This research series has now resulted in four publications:

• Housing Construction within Planetary Boundaries (May 2023)
• Commercial Buildings within Planetary Boundaries (January 2024)
• Circular Construction 2035: Towards a Future Perspective (October 2023)
• CO₂ Impact of the Dutch Construction Sector (March 2024)

We are currently working on an additional study on the impact of dominant construction materials on land use, water use and biodiversity loss across the supply chain. We expect to publish this study early 2026.

Results

With this research series, we aim on the one hand to build sector‑wide insight into the environmental impact of construction. On the other hand, we show how circular strategies can help reduce the sector’s impact.

So far, our studies have led to the following conclusions:

• The CO₂ emissions from renovation are significantly higher than those from new construction; this is therefore where the greatest need lies to reduce emissions.
• Making better use of the existing housing stock can make an important contribution to reducing the number of new homes required, including the facilities and infrastructure that come with them. Up to 2030, around 50,000 homes can be realised through better utilisation.
• Achieving the ambitions for climate and the circular economy requires deploying all circular strategies; relying solely on construction‑technical strategies, such as biobased construction, is insufficient. Additional choices are also needed in the types of buildings we develop, and accelerated decarbonisation of industry is necessary.
• The CO₂ budget of the construction sector — the Dutch construction sector’s contribution to limiting global warming to 1.5°C — will be exhausted in 2026. If we aim to limit the sector’s contribution to 1.7°C, that budget will be used up in 2031. Rapid action on CO₂ reduction is therefore essential.