Built Environment Roadmap to Circularity
Built Environment Roadmap to Circularity
Explore the Built Environment Roadmap to Circularity
Built_Environment_Roadmap_to_Circularity.pdf
Roadmap to circularity
With growing demand for materials pressure on supply is increasing. This exposes Scotland to supply chain risks and materials security challenges, while also contributing to environmentally damaging extraction, production and consumption.
Construction and demolition activity account for around half of all waste produced in Scotland, while outputs linked to these activities are estimated to have made up around 10% of Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2022. Scaling up the circular economy is one way to support economic, supply chain and environmental resilience.
The Roadmap has been developed to address these challenges, and to help accelerate circular practices to support a sustainable sector that can thrive both within our economy and the limits of our finite planetary resources.
Establishing a vision to circularity
Following publication of the Scottish Government’s Circular Economy Strategy – which identified priority sectors including the built environment, energy infrastructure, textiles, the food system, and transport – Zero Waste Scotland is leading the development of Roadmaps for energy infrastructure, the built environment, textiles and the bioeconomy.
Developed in partnership with industry, these roadmaps are a cornerstone of the Strategy. They take an innovative approach in the application of systems thinking to the circular economy, setting out a five-year horizon for a series of interventions which unlock increased circularity in these sectors.
Interventions identified within the Roadmaps are the product of extensive co-design with industry after assessing the key barriers and opportunities, critical path for success and ensuring a clear, shared vision. They will help deliver on the Scottish Government’s cross-policy ambitions for the circular economy, led and delivered by ambitious key industry players with support from Zero Waste Scotland.
Leadership for each Roadmap is provided by a Mission Board, a collective of senior representatives across the private, public and third sectors, providing cross-sectoral insight and support.
Systems mapping across priority sectors
Unlocking change at this scale relies on influencing all parts of the economy that shape products and services within these sectors. The Roadmap has been informed by extensive systems mapping, carried out with stakeholders across the sector to understand key interdependencies, barriers and opportunities.
Zero Waste Scotland led this work through engagement with over 100 businesses and organisations spanning the public, private, third, finance, and insurance sectors. A process of co-ownership, partnership, and collaboration has been central to building a shared vision for change.
The Roadmap draws on systems mapping, visioning, evidence reviews, and landscape analysis to identify, test, and agree a set of meaningful and ambitious interventions. By harnessing collective expertise, sharing risks and opportunities, and applying a systems-based approach, it establishes a credible and coordinated pathway to deliver transformational change.
Circular economy interventions
The circular economy interventions are the product of extensive co-design with industry after assessing the key barriers and opportunities, critical path for success and ensuring a clear, shared vision. They will help deliver on the Scottish Government’s cross-policy ambitions for the circular economy, led and delivered by ambitious key industry players with support from Zero Waste Scotland.
The interventions collectively aim to:
- Address the devastating impacts from climate change and Scotland’s unsustainably high resource consumption;
- Slowing the flow of materials to retain their value within the Scottish economy for longer through demand reduction, remanufacturing, reuse, repair, reprocessing, and recycling across all parts of the economy;
- Generating compelling evidence for activity will grow our economy, benefit our communities, and support business resilience and sustainability.
While Zero Waste Scotland is leading in the production of the Roadmap, it will be for industry to lead on the individual interventions. Industry and government collaboration will be organised through a Mission Board. This governing body will implement a mission-oriented approach, including setting bold, ambitious and measurable goals.
The interventions below set out the key actions needed to deliver this roadmap.
Intervention 1: Mission Board
Establish a Mission Board to lead delivery of this Roadmap’s mission to create a circular built environment sector in Scotland. This will have cross-sector ownership to address all the priority, interconnected factors identified in the systems mapping. Members will be expected to champion the mission, support the implementation and delivery of proposed interventions, and work collaboratively with the wider sector to drive delivery.
Intervention 2: Metrics and Evaluation
Optimise understanding and adoption of circular economy practices across the built environment sector. The sector shall build an evidence base that demonstrates the impact of circular practices across the supply chain for sharing and replication. Appropriate learning points will address the challenges and opportunities of implementing circular economy practices.
Intervention 3: Building Performance Standards
Work with the providers of building performance standards to include and promote circular economy practices, as well as improve the reach and efficiency of standards across the built environment sector. This intervention will seek to strengthen the role of building performance standards in promoting and incentivising circular economy practices, identifying how key standards are used currently to encourage greater uptake and use across the sector.
Intervention 4: Material Reuse Hubs
Develop a national hub infrastructure to enable the reuse of materials from the built environment. The move to a circular economy and achieving net zero by 2045 will require the value and retention of materials to be maximised. A structured system will facilitate access to high quality reused materials.
Intervention 5: Circular Economy Products and Services
Work to broaden market access to innovative products and services in Scotland. This intervention will support Scotland’s strong innovation ecosystem in developing circular products and services. This will include assessing and addressing barriers to achieving higher Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), full commercialisation and securing market share.
Intervention 6: Sustainable Procurement
Utilise procurement as a mechanism to leverage circular economy practices. Procurement is recognised as one of the biggest unused levers for driving the uptake of CEPs and is a core theme in the Scottish Government’s Just Transition - Built Environment and Construction report. Changes in procurement practices to incorporate circular economy principles could significantly increase the demand in the uptake of circular economy practices across the sector.
Intervention 7: Insurance
Work with the insurance sector to understand current barriers, then develop insurance-based levers to encourage the uptake of circular economy practices. This intervention will involve working with the insurance sector to develop and trial insurance products which can unlock support for circular economy practices in the built environment sector.
Intervention 8: Finance
Work with the finance sector to develop innovative finance mechanisms that incentivise uptake of circular economy practices. There are some emerging trends towards the adoption and promotion of circular economy practices in the funding mechanisms for built environment projects.
Intervention 9: Communications
Deliver strategic communications, normalising the embedding of circular economy practices within the built environment sector. This intervention will target an awareness and understanding of circular economy principles to help support the widespread adoption of circular economy practices in the sector.
Intervention 10: Policy and Regulation Frameworks
Work to integrate circular economy practices into the policy and legislation frameworks which impact the built environment sector. This intervention will identify opportunities for policy changes that could positively influence the built environment sector’s transition towards circularity by mapping the policy landscape and engaging with policymakers.
Intervention 11: Tax and Revenue Frameworks
Work to identify where tax and revenue levers could be used to incentivise the adoption of circular economy practices. This intervention will identify opportunities for changes in tax and revenue frameworks to incentivise the adoption of circular economy practices.
Intervention 12: Material Demand Reduction
Work to identify opportunities to reduce Scotland’s demand for materials and resources in the built environment. This intervention will look across the built environment sector to identify opportunities to reduce consumption of materials and resources.
Next steps
Development of the Roadmaps is just one step; cross-economy ownership and delivery bring them to life.
Detailed actions plans, building on and prioritising the interventions laid out in this Roadmap are being developed by the Mission Board and being taken forward in 2026.
The commitment to amend and update the intervention plans on a regular basis underscores the collective commitment, readiness, and momentum that is gathering to make Scotland a leader in circularity and innovation.
Downloads
Access the full suite of built environment Roadmap documents below.
Built Environment Roadmap to Circularity
The Built Environment Roadmap to Circularity combines expertise in systems analysis and circularity with industry insight and technical experience to set out a five-year horizon of interventions that unlock opportunities and increase circularity across priority sectors.
Built_Environment_Roadmap_to_Circularity.pdf
Equality Impact Assessment
This Equalities Impact Assessment has been prepared to accompany the publication of the Built Environment Roadmap to Circularity.
Equalities_Impact_Assessment_Built_Environment_Roadmap_to_Circularity.pdf
Island Communities Impact Assessment
This Island Communities Impact Assessment has been prepared to accompany the publication of the Built Environment Roadmap to Circularity. For full information on Island Communities Impact Assessments please see guidance on the Scottish Government website.
Island_Communities_Impact_Assessment_Built_Environment_Roadmap_to_Circularity.pdf
Consumer Duty Impact Assessment
This Consumer Duty Impact Assessment has been prepared to accompany the publication of the Built Environment Roadmap to Circularity.