SWIRCULAR

2024-2029

The largest share of waste in Switzerland is generated by construction activity. In SWIRCULAR   (Swiss Digital Circular Construction Ecosystem) – a five-year Flagship project supported by Innosuisse, five research institutes and 24 industry partners join forces to accelerate the use and interlinkage of digitalization and circular economy in the Swiss construction sector in order to attain a significant transformation of this key economic sector. Together, the project partners aim to establish the first Swiss Circular Construction Digital Ecosystem, demonstrating that this sector transformation is viable and sustainable, and offering new ways of value creation.
SusTec focuses on the value creation from new circular and digitalized solutions co-created by the partners in the Flagship. The traditional construction industry operates in a fixed order wherein value chain partners assume separate roles and apply strong ‘silo-thinking’ to value creation. It is expected that a shift to circular and digitalized construction will significantly transform value creation and division, and value chain operations. SusTec research within SP7 of SWIRCULAR centers on this shift in value creation, together with Berner Fachhochschule.
SusTec uses qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate how the co-created Flagship solutions change value flows (such as money, information, or physical resources) and how these changes in value creation affect actors in the construction sector and the broader stakeholder ecosystem. This regards e.g., patterns of involvement, interaction, and coordination over the different phases of construction projects and over the entire lifecycle. In exploring the (economic) potentials and bottlenecks that arise for different value chain members, SusTec’s research is an important step towards the identification of business models that link circularity strategies (R-strategies) and digitalization in Swiss construction for creating more economic, social, and environmental value.

Website: https://swircular.ethz.ch