13 January 2021

Eco Intelligent Growth, Grupo Construcía and Upcyclea join their forces to accelerate the deployment in Europe of the Circular Buildings Industry

The European leaders in circular construction announce a joint offer to accelerate the construction and operation of carbon-neutral, healthy and Circular Buildings in Europe

The construction sector is, along with transport, one of the worst performers in terms of carbon footprint. It alone accounts for 25% of greenhouse gas emissions and generates more than 850 million metric tons of waste every year in Europe. Faced with this challenge, the European Commission has adopted in March 2020, a new Circular Economy Action Plan. As Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal, says: “To achieve climate-neutrality by 2050, to preserve our natural environment, and to strengthen our economic competitiveness, requires a fully circular economy. Today, our economy is still mostly linear, with only 12% of secondary materials and resources being brought back into the economy. With this plan we launch action to transform the way products are made and empower consumers to make sustainable choices for their own benefit and that of the environment”.

Grupo Construcía led by EIG has been anticipating this challenge since 2013 and has refurbished and built dozens of thousands of sqm of C2C-Inspired buildings, based upon Lean2Cradle® and Circular Shared Value disruptive methodologies that combine Value to Business and Value to Society monetized approaches. Mostly present in the Iberian Peninsula, they now want to deploy their solution in Europe and help structuring the European market of circular construction.

For its part, Upcyclea offers myUpcyclea®, a software based upon artificial intelligence technologies that enables the eco-design and management of dismountable, healthy and circular buildings, by suggesting regenerative ecosystems and calculating upstream and downstream circular indicators. It also offers a portal of BIM-compatible digital passports that eases the selection of circular products.

By combining their technologies and methodologies within the same offer, the partners propose a digitalized and unprecedented process to industrialize the deconstruction, construction and operation of circular, carbon-neutral buildings, a source of income rather than waste for landowners, real estate companies and public administrations. Their objective is to design buildings whose products can be reused or upcycled by more than 80%, and to generate, at the building level, an over-value corresponding to a minimum of 10% of the acquisition cost of the products.

On the occasion of this partnership, Christine Guinebretière, President of Upcyclea, says: “More and more players are looking to digitalize their real estate assets and to design, build and operate buildings that respect health and the environment and are a source of income rather than waste. Our alliance with EIG and Construcía gives us the opportunity to expand more rapidly internationally and to respond very concretely to such challenges.”

Ignasi Cubiña, Director of EIG adds: “We are delighted to have entered into this technological partnership with Upcyclea because its value proposition is totally complementary to that of EIG and our partner company Construcía. Together, we are now able to support the construction industry in the design of a new generation of buildings with positive impacts on health, the environment and our business model.”

Arturo Fernández Vidal, CEO of Construcía concludes: “As circular general contractors we need tools to manage big data flows effectively and understand our impact and dependencies. Powered by EIG we have developed methodologies, tools and metrics to design, execute and maintain buildings as material banks. This partnership with Upcylea enables us to actually manage them this way already now and in the future.”