Systems Mapping of Scotland’s Built Environment and Energy Infrastructure Sectors
Zero Waste Scotland has published interactive systems maps of Scotland's built environment and energy infrastructure sectors to illustrate the factors influencing circular economy principles and practices.
Circular economy practices can deliver wide-ranging benefits to the built environment and energy infrastructure sectors. These include:
Lower emissions from how we design, build and operate infrastructure
Stronger local supply chains by keeping materials and components in use at their highest value for as long as possible
Less reliance on international sources for essential materials like critical raw materials
Stakeholder engagement
Zero Waste Scotland engaged with the built environment and energy infrastructure sectors to develop sector specific roadmaps to identify conditions, barriers, and opportunities to accelerate circularity.
We hosted a series of online and in-person stakeholder engagement opportunities to build on the evidence of Scotland’s circular practices and had a survey for stakeholders to feedback on if they were unable to join one of our events.
Developing sector-specific roadmaps
Zero Waste Scotland is leading the development of Roadmaps for energy infrastructure, the built environment, textiles and the bioeconomy.
Developed in partnership with industry, the Roadmaps are targeted action plans that guide priority sectors through Scotland’s transition to a circular economy - identifying challenges, enabling change, and unlocking environmental, economic, and social benefits. 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.
Systems mapping allows us to understand the factors that are influencing circular economy practice adoption, the relative strength of different factors and the relationships between them. This allows prioritisation of areas where intervention is required to influence the conditions in the system and a greater understanding of how intervention in one area may impact other factors across the system.
A first of its kind Roadmap to guide Scotland towards a more circular energy sector has been published, alongside the establishment of a sector-wide Mission Board to drive forward its delivery.
Introducing systems maps
Zero Waste Scotland commissioned Resource Futures to review the literature on existing circular practice potential across the built environment and energy infrastructure sectors, followed up with stakeholder engagement. When combined, this creates the ‘root causes and key factors’ systems maps.
The systems maps not only highlight where barriers and opportunities lie for enabling change, but how connected they are to understand influencing consequence. They focus on four strategies: circular design, lifetime extension, alternative business models, and recycled materials.
View the interactive systems maps on the links below and listen to the audio explainer to learn more about the systems maps.
Interactive systems maps
Key findings
The following causes and factors have become apparent as influencing circular economy practice adoption across the built environment and energy infrastructure sectors:
- Policy Leadership & Alignment
- Circular Economy Performance & Material Assessments
- Infrastructure for Enabling Circular Economy Practices
- Integration into Project Planning & Design
- Market Demand for Circular Economy Practices
- Organisational Risk & Innovation Culture
These six factors are arguably the most influential wider system factors because they consistently appear in the top rankings across each sector map.
Further, the following key connections have been identified between all factors across both the built environment and energy infrastructure systems maps:
- CE Knowledge and Literacy – CE Performance and Material Assessments
- Industry Leadership – Information Sharing Across Supply Chains
- Availability of Investment – Policy Leadership and Alignment
- CE Knowledge and Literacy - Information Sharing Across Supply Chains
- Policy Leadership and Alignment - Regulatory Strength & Enforcement
Using these insights, we can better target action and influence or partner with stakeholders on the roadmap journey to deliver interventions that produce meaningful change.