In recent years, solid knowledge and valuable experience has been built up in Denmark with circular construction, driven by companies, research environments and committed pioneers – often with a focus on direct reuse, where the building materials are used on a one-to-one basis in new projects. However, if the resource consumption and climate footprint of the construction industry are to be seriously reduced, it will require, amongst other things, that many more materials are transformed and recycled into new materials or products.
This is the challenge that Realdania now intends to address with the Circular Construction 2.0 initiative.
With DKK 30 million over the coming years, the initiative – in close cooperation with construction industry players – will make it easier and more attractive to reuse materials that today end up as construction waste, in order to produce new construction materials under industrial and market conditions. At the same time, the initiative aims to strengthen the knowledge base, so that the industry can be better equipped to assess where, how and to what extent reuse, recycling and recovery are best brought into play – thereby ensuring that materials are used where they will have the greatest impact for the global climate and for Denmark’s resources.
“If construction is to make a real difference to the climate and our use of resources, our building materials must circulate more – not just as individual examples, but as a natural part of the way we build. A large proportion of the building materials used today end up as waste, even though they contain value that could be extracted in new ways and in new production,” says Stine Lea Jacobi, Director of Philanthropy at Realdania.
The rocky road from waste to materials
While reuse is often a matter of transferring materials from one building to another, recycling involves the materials being transformed and incorporated into new products. This is for example the case when concrete is crushed and used in new production, or when glass, plastics and metals are processed into new construction materials.
“Increased reuse of materials requires, for example, the establishment of return schemes that work for all parties, but also the development and testing of new products. We aim to bear some of the risk and support the development efforts that the industry as a whole needs in order to take circular construction to the next level,” says Stine Lea Jacobi.
Resources must be used more wisely
Today, direct reuse represents less than one percent of material consumption in the construction sector, while around 36% is recycled, and the rest largely ends up being recovered – typically in the form of low-value products such as road fill. This points to a great potential for making better use of the materials – but also to the lack of solutions that will work in practice and can be widely applied in the industry. With Circular Construction 2.0, the ambition is therefore – in close collaboration with the entire industry value chain from resource extraction to building owner – to shift the emphasis from individual recycling projects to recycled materials becoming a basic component in all construction.
Analysing materials’ movements and potential
We currently lack a clear picture of how much material is in play, where the materials are used and what their real potential is for reuse and recycling. Accordingly, Realdania has initiated an analysis of the flows of building materials, designed to map out how materials move in and out of the sector and create a more accurate picture of where the resources are located.
At the same time, the initiative aims to improve our understanding of the various material fractions. Building materials are far from identical: They offer different possibilities for reuse and recycling, they face different obstacles to their use, and their value varies – both commercially and in socio-economic terms. A strengthened knowledge foundation will thus make it easier for industry players to prioritise areas where these efforts will have the greatest impact, and enable them to act in a more targeted and qualified manner. The results will be published in the autumn of 2026.
Support for innovation and concrete project examples
The project also encompasses a number of concrete measures aimed at translating ambition into action:
In the autumn of 2026, Realdania will open a pool aimed at both established material producers and entrepreneurs who wish to work with new, innovative ways of recycling building materials. The goal is to identify and address barriers to increased recycling, and to test out new ways of bringing the large amounts of discarded materials from construction and other sectors into play as building materials.
Later in the year, Realdania will also launch a pool targeted at professional building clients – including social housing organisations, municipalities and private clients. The pool is designed to enable the testing of recirculated building materials – i.e. both recycled and reused – in specific projects, and build up practical experience. The drawing materials, data on volumes, prices and secondary costs, and the experience derived from the projects, will subsequently be shared with the industry and the public.