The path towards more-sustainable building construction

The built environment provides a huge opportunity to move to a circular economy. Standardization and smart design will be key to enabling the shift.

  1. Katharine Sanderson
    1. Katharine Sanderson is a freelance writer based in Cornwall, UK.

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

    An illustration of a lego-like building site. Workers are reusing an old building parts to build a new one.

    Our built environment — from houses to offices, schools and shops — is not environmentally benign. Buildings and the construction industry are, in fact, the world’s biggest consumer of raw materials and contribute 25–40% of global carbon dioxide emissions (F. Pomponi & A. J. Moncaster Clean. Prod. 143, 710–718; 2017). Making buildings part of a circular economy that minimizes the waste of materials could therefore yield huge environmental rewards. Conversely, failure on this front could have dire consequences.

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    Nature 611, S18-S19 (2022)

    This article is part of Nature Outlook: The circular economy, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

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