Circular Collaboration (CirCol): Delivering circular renovation at scale through multi-cycle, multi-scalar and multi-level collaboration

Although collaboration has long been recognised as essential in the transition towards a circular built environment, how to make collaboration work for circular renovation is under-examined. Lacking the concepts, methods and tools for circular collaboration is significantly impeding the scaling up of technical possibilities. Furthermore, research has focussed mainly on the building project, which ignores the need for long-term collaboration that covers multiple and extended product lifecycles, engaging with the value chain across multiple levels from project, to industry regime, to society at large and multiple scales that cover neighbourhoods and urban areas. Given the challenges of establishing the circular economy, meeting the energy transition and providing affordable housing, the scale of adapting the existing housing stock in the Netherlands presents a unique opportunity to accelerate circularity through new ways of collaboration. CirCol addresses these gaps by asking how the Dutch building sector can deliver scalable circular renovations through breakthroughs in multi-cycle, multi-scalar and multi-level collaboration. CirCol will co-produce new threshold concepts for multi-cycle, multi-scalar and multi-level collaboration (WP1), as well as the structures, strategies and practices for micro-level experiential and action learning (WP2), reconfigurations of meso-level activity systems (WP3) and transformation of macro-level values (WP4) for circular housing renovation.