How can we transition to a circular economy in the built environment?

We have one planet but we are consuming two planet's resources. The construction industry is the world's largest consumer of resources. Much of this industry is built upon an obsolete model of extraction, consumption and waste. As far as sand is concerned, the UNEP has called our unyielding appetite for the resource, one of the major sustainability challenges of the 21st century! The circular economy and the re-use of resources will eventually become inevitable.

But is the construction industry in Europe today aware of the looming sand crisis? What does the circular economy mean in practice at this point? Are there any real-life examples that offer inspiration? To answer these questions and more, we reached out to Frazer Stokes, the founder of WasteBuild, an organisation that aims to eliminate global waste through innovations in the built environment. WasteBuild's mission to accelerate the transition towards a circular built environment by showcasing the latest materials, techniques, solutions and innovators who are helping to deliver circular schemes today.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about these projects. Let us know if there are other people and projects that we can feature here for you.

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Mining the seabed for iron sands in New Zealand

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Is the world running out of sand?