On December 5, the Alliance for a Circular Economy in Construction Metropolitan Region Northwest will kick off with an information event in online format. Anyone interested can find out more about the project and how to get involved. At a kick-off event in November, all the groundwork had already been successfully laid for this alliance to successfully tackle a regional infrastructure for reuse and recycling in the construction industry.

The merger was no coincidence. Resource efficiency tables for the construction industry have been held in Bremen since 2021. Invitations were issued by the "Netzwerk Reuse- und Recycling im Bauwesen" (Reuse and Recycling in the Construction Industry Network), an association of the Materials Testing Institute of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen - Leibniz-IWT Division, the Research Association for Recycling and Reusable Materials in the Construction Industry (RWB), Bremen University of Applied Sciences and the Bundesverband bauteilnetz Deutschland e.V. (BTND). The work results from these events were compiled in an action guide in summer 2023 and now provide the basis for the Circular Economy in Construction - Northwest Metropolitan Region project. With 40 partners from business, science and administration, the aim is to create areas of cooperation to promote the reuse of building components and the use of recycled building materials in the construction industry. The two-year project is being financed by the Bremen and Lower Saxony development fund for the Northwest Metropolitan Region. "The project deserves special recognition because the topics of reuse and recycling in the construction industry are to be promoted along the entire value chain," said Friedericke Hackmann, Project Manager of the Northwest Metropolitan Region, who gave the welcoming address at the launch event in November.

The declared aim of all those involved in the alliance is to establish an economically viable structure along the entire value chain in the construction industry, which significantly increases the reuse and recycling rate and thus contributes to resource conservation and CO2 reduction. The project is already attracting a great deal of interest nationwide even before it begins. "We want to concentrate on the north-west metropolitan region for the time being, pool our strengths and make use of the short distances. Of course, everything is connected, which is why further partners from all sectors of the construction industry are very welcome to join our cooperation network," says project manager Ute Dechantsreiter, who has been committed to the reuse of building materials for 30 years.

The project sponsor is the Official Materials Testing Institute of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, a division of Leibniz-IWT. An online event will take place on 05.12.2023 at 13:00, where all interested parties can find out more about the project and opportunities to get involved. If you would like to find out more or get involved, please send an email to bau-circle@mpa-bremen.de.