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June 16, 2025
The “10 Whole Life Cycle Recommendations for the Buildings Breakthrough” are consensus driven recommendations developed through extensive stakeholder engagement led by the Materials Hub (supported by the GlobalABC, One Planet Network and Life Cycle Initiative) and its two parallel working groups Whole Life Cycle Policy Coalition (WLCP.Co, led by the Department of Energy Security and Net-Zero from the UK and the WBCSD) and Circular Built Environment (CBE, led by the Ministry of the Environment of Finland and RMIT University).
The recommendations are launched with the ambition to promote circular economy strategies and Whole Life Cycle (WLC) policy thinking on a global stage, and to raise awareness on the significance of addressing Whole Life Cycle emissions in implementing the Buildings Breakthrough objectives. This should help to progress towards the Paris Agreement through near-zero emissions and resilient buildings.
The “10 Whole Life Cycle Recommendations for the Buildings Breakthrough” aim to show how Whole Life Cycle considerations underpin the Buildings Breakthrough Key Priority Actions, and to provide guidance to policy makers to implement the Buildings Breakthrough commitments nationally and locally.
More details at One Planet Network website.
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June 11, 2025
How can the cooperation between enterprises, businesses and public buyers be improved? That’s a key question for public authorities seeking to incorporate social responsibility in their tenders. The Big Buyers Working Together Social Procurement Community of Practice (CoP) visited social enterprise Silta -Valmennusyhdistys and HOAS, the Foundation for Student Housing for the Helsinki region, concluding that people-centered models lead to simpler and more humane processes that make collaboration easier.
Silta is one of 11 organisations that have joined forces in the Centre of Expertise for Social Enterprises (SYO), seeking to implement and develop a Finnish strategy for the social economy. Currently, Finnish social enterprises are struggling with decreased funding, due to increased competition from big companies.
As noted by Eeva Salmi, Director of Silta, the social enterprise that runs SYO; during a dialogue session with the CoP on Social procurement: "It is really important that there is a continuous dialogue between buyers and service providers at different levels. Silta-Valmennusyhdistys and its sister organisation Valo-Valmennusyhdistys provide a wide range of social and employment services in Finland. That’s also done through our work with the Finnish Centre of Expertise for Social Enterprises- one of its objectives is to promote socially responsible procurement in Finland. Using public procurement to prominent employment opportunities is a key activity in this regardt.”
Through its connection to SYO, Silta also seeks to tackle social sustainability and further develop Socially Responsible Public Procurement, as most of the funding for Finnish social enterprises comes from public tenders and European and national projects. By November 2025 SYO is aiming to develop an updated strategy for social enterprises, which will include recommended measures for SRPP. These measures will be discussed with various Finish ministries.
One of the key points of the new strategy will be that there need to be more different ways of funding social enterprises. Recent research has shown for example that the use of reserved contracts is an almost non-existent practice in public tenders in Finland. Reserved contracts can make it easier for social economy actors to participate in tenders without fearing competition from big market players.
Building on these insights from the Finnish social economy, the BBWT Social CoP also visited HOAS. In addition to building apartments, HOAS is raising awareness of the well-being of workers at construction sites, seeking to ensure the quality and safety of their work. Within this context, they have developed the Aware worksite concept to ensure that all HOAS worksites share the same practical social responsibility objectives, and comply with labour rights. Compliance is monitored through regular (voluntary) surveys measuring the performance and well-being of the workplace. The results of the surveys are fully transparent and based on the responses makes adjustments at the workplace in collaboration with the contractors on site. After three months another survey is done to check if the situation has improved.
As such the concept is a great case study for the Social CoP which aims to build a shared understanding of labour considerations, aligning local, national and international labour standards to ensure fair working conditions and ethical sourcing practices across all contracted suppliers and subcontractors across the entire value chain.
Marika Nyyssönen, Sustainability Manager at HOAS explains "As a non-profit construction client, we believe it's our responsibility to care about the people working on our sites and to actively shape the industry's direction on social responsibility. Our Aware Worksite concept sets shared, concrete goals for well-being, interaction, and fairness — from procurement to everyday site practices. It’s not just a checklist; it’s a mindset for collaboration. We've implemented it in ten projects so far, and others in Finland are joining in. We share the model freely because real impact only happens when good practices spread. Meeting others who are working toward the same goals was truly eye-opening and valuable — exchanging experiences and practical solutions reminded us that together, we can achieve much more."
Learn more at ICLEI sustainable procurement platform news webpage.
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June 4, 2025
As part of the World Circular Economy Forum 2025, a dynamic Accelerator Session brought together global stakeholders to explore how measurement, policy, and practice can collectively drive the transition to a circular built environment. The session focused on aligning efforts to implement circularity strategies to achieve the goals of a near-zero emission and resilient built environment, anchored by this powerful opening statement:" We are not just building for today—we're harvesting the future. Our built environment should serve as a bank of materials and resources for future generations."
Part I: National level policy development supporting circularity in the built environment.
The session began with two key announcements: Actions Menu of the Global Framework for Action, developed in alignment with the Buildings Breakthrough Priority Action 2 on Demand Creation, the One Planet Network at UNEP introduced an Actions Menu for integrating sustainable and circular public procurement into construction value chains. This tool provides actionable guidance for governments and industry to create demand for circular, low-emission building solutions.
National Circularity Assessment Framework for Buildings, developed by UNEP, UNOPS, and UN-Habitat with support from the Government of Finland, this is the first comprehensive national-level framework to measure circularity in the built environment. Pilot applications in Senegal and Bangladesh offer key insights into data availability, reuse potential, and material flow baselines.
Part II: Solutions for implementing circularity in the built environment–From policy to practice
The second half spotlighted practical applications and tools:10 Whole Life Cycle Recommendations for the Buildings Breakthrough, a set of practical recommendations supported by a global case study platform that helps policymakers identify scalable, replicable solutions. Featured case studies during the session. Circularity Transition Indicators for Buildings, developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, is a tool that supports circularity measurement at the building level, offering project developers a structured approach to assess performance across life cycle stages.UN-Habitat’s CiCoSa Toolkit and Implementation guide, targeting Sub-Saharan Africa, the toolkit enables circular construction waste management with localized, scalable solutions, highlighting the role of inclusive, regionally grounded interventions.
Diverse Global Voices at both panel discussions emphasized: Retrofitting is a cost-effective, high-impact strategy to extend building life, reduce operational emissions, and minimize construction waste; Local circular practices already exist (such as inclusive brickmaking from recycled materials) but need clear regulation, quality assurance, and data access to scale;Circularity begins at the design stage, from national urban planning to building components. Key design principles include flexibility, redundancy, reuse, and disassembly, supported by recycled and renewable materials; The need for localized R&D on cost-effective and efficient use of upcycled materials; The importance of context-specific metrics, youth inclusion, and extended producer responsibility were also emphasized.
This Accelerator Session highlighted the urgent need and growing momentum, for embedding circularity in the built environment. With new measurement tools, policy frameworks and practical solutions now available, governments and stakeholders have clearer pathways to align and scale up implementation. Circularity is not a distant goal; it is already unfolding in cities and communities around the world. What is needed now is coordination, investment and political will to implement it at scale.
Organizers and Collaborators
This session was co-organized by the GlobalABC Materials Hub Circular Built Environment Working Group (Ministry of the Environment of Finland, RMIT University, and Habitat for Humanity International), the One Planet Network and the Life Cycle Initiative in collaboration with:UNOPS, UN-Habitat, Kenya Green Building Society, French Ministry of Ecological Transition, Ashok B. Lall Architcts, Metro Arquitetos, Habitat for Humanity International, Lalitpur Metropolitan City of Nepal, WBCSD, Government of Chile, Ministry of Environment of Colombia, Asian Development Bank, Municipality of Walvis Bay of Namibia.
More details at UNEP One Planet Network website.
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