Paper info: Recycling in the city: mobilising resources in initiating a circular economy in the construction sector
Title
Recycling in the city: mobilising resources in initiating a circular economy in the construction sector
Authors

Lena Bygballe
Norwegian School of Management
Norway

Debbie Harrison
Norwegian School of Management
Norway
Place of Publication
The paper was published at the 35th IMP-conference in Paris, France in 2019.
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Abstract
In this paper, we address how a circular economy can be initiated and designed through the mobilisation of resources between public and private actors. Specifically, we investigate the nature of resource interfaces and circular resource use in a construction setting. The construction sector is known as the “40%” sector: it accounts for 40% of global energy consumption and 25-40% of global carbon emissions. We also know that the industry generates a large amount of waste. The paper centres on an on-going public-private circular economy initiative in Oslo, regarding the cleaning and recycling of masses from and in construction projects. The initiative is localised with the goal to make Oslo entirely self-sufficient in terms of one key construction waste product: masse. We take a resource lens to analyse the imagined and actual resource interaction between business and non-business actors as a city-based ‘ecosystem’ is developed. We question (i) what happens to current understandings of resource interfaces when applied to a circular economy model (a shift from linear to butterfly resource combining), and (ii) the roles played by different business and non-business actors in designing and creating resource interfaces.