This article is written by Carmen Devesa Fernández, Director of Innovation and Internationalisation, and Silvia Fernández Marín, Technical Director, both representing AEICE (ES), a partner organisation in the RECONMATIC project.
The construction industry is one of the largest consumers of raw materials globally. It accounts for approximately 40% of global resource consumption, contributes to 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, and generates vast amounts of waste annually. The transition towards more sustainable practices is, thus, imperative.
Policies such as the EU Green Deal and the Circular Economy Action Plan play a vital role in this transition. These initiatives underline the importance of industrial symbiosis, where waste from one sector becomes a resource for another (for example, using rubber waste in asphalt or converting agricultural residues into insulation materials…). They also promote ecodesign principles (designing for resource efficiency, material longevity, and end-of-life reuse), together with instruments such as the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which broadens the scope of ecodesign requirements beyond energy efficiency.
This directive introduces criteria for durability, repairability, and recyclability, directly supporting the integration of revalorized materials into industrial practices. Such frameworks encourage the construction industry to align with a vision where materials flow efficiently within circular systems, reducing waste while maintaining high-quality standards.
There is much more: as emphasized in the Draghi Report on European Competitiveness, the circular economy serves not only as a tool for decarbonization, but also as a lever for enhancing competitiveness within industries. By reducing dependency on virgin resources and fostering innovation, circular practices align with both environmental goals and market demands. This dual focus positions circularity as a key element for supporting resilient and forward-looking business models.
In short, Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) offers a pathway to address resource scarcity and promote sustainability while creating new markets for recycled materials, stimulating innovation in material processing and green construction technologies.
Barriers to Progress
However, for these recycled or reused materials to be widely adopted, significant barriers must be overcome. Furthermore, it is essential to understand how these materials can be integrated into the construction industry's shift towards off-site manufacturing, which emphasises quality and traceability of materials.
Regulatory hurdles are one of the most significant barriers. Safety and performance standards for revalorized materials, for example, often require lengthy testing and certification processes. The lack of harmonized regulations across countries or regions is also an issue, leading to potential inefficiencies. For instance, materials approved for use in one EU member state may require additional certifications for another, complicating cross-border trade. As a result, builders and developers can face legal and financial risks associated with using revalorized materials.
Economic factors also come into play: revalorized materials can be more expensive due to inconsistent supply chains, specialized processing, and higher transportation costs. Besides this, uncertainty can constitute a huge burden for the final client that we still need to overcome.
Cultural resistance within the construction industry also exists. Many professionals remain sceptical of the reliability of recycled or reused materials, or focus just on economic issues, losing the chance of taking advantage of the benefits this new materials entail.
From a technical perspective, more barriers arise. Sorting processes are far from straightforward, and the revalued materials experience variability in quality. For example, revalorized concrete or aggregates often lack uniformity in strength or size, making them harder to incorporate into industrialized construction methods without further treatment or mixing with virgin materials.
All of them, especially the latter, are critical given the aforementioned shift towards industrialisation that the building sector is undergoing. This approach, which holds the potential to enhance efficiency in processing and integrating revalorized materials, demands consistent performance and quality of materials across large-scale production processes, and this constitutes a challenge for the inherently diverse nature of revalorized resources.
Another challenge to address in the revalorization of materials for industrialized construction is the traceability and documentation of recycled materials throughout the construction process. The generation of high-quality data is thus essential. Nevertheless, the Spanish construction industry, echoing trends in other European regions, lacks adequate monitoring systems, making it difficult to accurately map CDW flows and ensure the reliable availability of materials for revalorization. This situation needs to be urgently addressed in order to properly position the revalued materials.
Turning Challenges into Opportunities
In this scenario, innovation and collaboration become paramount. Technologies such as automated systems for sorting, processing, and certifying revalorized materials, for example, can address concerns about quality and supply consistency.
RECONMATIC exemplifies how automation can streamline these processes, making revalorized materials more competitive in an industrialized context.
Digital twin technologies and blockchain-based systems for traceability also constitute a good opportunity for the integration of revalorized materials in industrialized construction, ensuring transparency (compliance, quality, material origins...).
Ecodesign must also evolve, focusing on modular and adaptable components that align with industrialized methods to ensure that revalorized materials can be easily integrated into prefabricated systems. It will involve working with materials with more predictable performance metrics (for example, uniform dimensions and consistent strength), bridging the gap between circularity and scalability.
Additionally, regulatory innovation is important. Creating "fast-track" approval processes for standardized revalorized materials, together with pilot programs that reward the integration of recycled content in off-site manufacturing, although controversial, could be an option accelerate adoption while reducing costs.
Cross-sectorial collaboration is equally critical. Construction companies, material manufacturers, and waste management firms must forge stronger partnerships to ensure a steady flow of high-quality materials.
A Call to Action
Significant efforts are required across all sectors—public and private alike—to foster the reuse of CDW in the construction industry and, more importantly, to adapt to emerging trends such as industrialization. If we can navigate these hurdles effectively and embrace innovation, revalorization can become a key driver for a more circular economy and a sustainable construction sector.