Circular Economy in renovation practices: A casestudy of the Building Renewal Unit

Nielsen, Frederik Lund

4. term

Sustaianable Cities, Master

2022

2022-01-06

57 pages

This report investigates how the Building Renewal Unit (BRU) an agent within the Municipality of Copenhagen (MCPH) in which co-fund ren-ovation of private properties, can accelerate development of circular renovation-practices. The report focusses on: 1) how external advisors and the employees in BRU perceive BRUs role in terms of accelerating development of the circular economy through renovations 2) how BRU can accelerate development of circular economy within the legal and organisational framework that applies to the unit 3) How BRU can improve their capacity to facilitate circular measures in the renewal-projects 4) what challenges and opportunities BRU have in regard to facilitating measures that can accelerate development of CE in renovations. This is examined through the perspective of the four teams in BRU, condemna-tion-team, political team, caseworkers, and the R&D-team and representatives from four adviser-firms in which BRU usually collaborate with. The main empirical basis of the report is five internal interviews with BRU-employees, and four interviews with external advisors, supplemented with four interviews with BRU-caseworkers, conducted by an intern in BRU, desk research and a conference about sustainable construction. The analysis is based on the theoretical perspectives, the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), combined with governance-concepts and Strategic Niche Management (SNM). Based on this, the report finds that BRU believe they should accelerate development of CE, however they have no strategy or procedure to facilitate measures that can lead to circular outcomes. Further, the report finds that BRU needs to change their processes and premise of funding to enhance their capacity to facilitate circular outcomes in the renovations. Upon this, recommendations for new processes and criteria of funding are presented, these revolve around collaborative processes, where property-owners need to make motivated applications to argue why BRU should fund the projects. Thus, the premise of projects could e.g., be space-optimisation of apartments to make the living-space suitable for shared living. Finally, the discussion suggests that BRU has expertise to lead projects to circular outcomes, and if the recom-mendation of the report is implemented this may be done without increasing the workload for the employees. However, it may be difficult to muster the resources required for developing a new administrative foundation of the unit, and the political level in MCPH may not agree that the operation of BRU need to change in the direction suggested in this report.

Cirkulær Økonomi ; renovering ; sufficiency ; organisatoriske processer ; Multi-Level Perspective ; Transitionsteori

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