The regulatory drive to accelerate the clean energy and circular economy transitions in the European building stock is currently failing to overcome systemic implementation barriers. These barriers include high initial investment costs, misaligned financial incentives among stakeholders, and the relatively low cost of less sustainable energy and materials. A Product-Service Systems (PSS) approach could successfully overcome many of these barriers by (1) outsourcing capital investment, as well as financial and technical risks, (2) providing shared economic incentives to collaborating stakeholders, and (3) retaining extended producer responsibility and ownership over materials and products. However, PSS is still not seen as a viable business model when compared to both a standard “ownership” contract and a “no-retrofit” scenario. This paper proposes a Total Value of Ownership (TVO) method to evaluate the financial performance of a building energy retrofit in terms of Net Present Value, comparing a matrix of scenarios. Results show that – when accounting for capital and opportunity costs tied to alternative investments, internalising externalities, and monetising soft values such as user productivity and property value – a PSS model can deliver the highest NPV. Furthermore, results show that a PSS alternative can act as a positive future-proofing strategy to safeguard the building owner’s position in the face of uncertain future market indicators and carbon taxation. Recommendations for policymakers, investors, financiers, building owners, and end-users are presented to identify the economic value of PSS contracts, leading to better-informed decisions which can accelerate deep energy retrofit of the building stock.

Buildings and construction have been identified as having one of the greatest potential for value creation and capture from the application of circular economy principles. To achieve this requires a fundamental transformation in the recovery, remanufacture and re-use of end of service life structural products such as steel, bricks, concrete which make up the largest proportion of materials. At the same time these products must be re-used in new buildings and infrastructure designed for subsequent deconstruction and disassembly. REBUILD is a 3 year way UK research project to address this challenge. Initial findings on quantifying the material intensity of buildings (stock and flow assessment) are presented based on one of our case study cities. Results from new techniques to separate and reclaim bricks from cement mortar shows technical feasibility and ability to retain structural performance. Details on the next stage of scaling this work and techniques for separating and reclaiming steel and concrete are briefly described. Subsequent stage of life cycle assessment, value stream mapping and creating products for new forms of circular building and construction systems are also described. The paper concludes that whilst there are considerable challenges in reclaiming structural products that redesigned circular building and construction system could transform the value of end of service life buildings and the offers new opportunities for circular innovation and the circulation of materials and products at their highest value for the longest period.

Background: Single-use personal protective equipment (PPE) has been essential to protect healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, intensified use of PPE could counteract the previous efforts made by the UK NHS Trusts to reduce their plastic footprint. Design and methods: In this study, we conducted an in-depth case study in the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust to investigate plastic-related issues in a typical NHS Trust before, during and after the pandemic. We first collected hospital routine data on both procurement and usage of single-use PPE (including face masks, aprons, and gowns) for the time period between April 2019 and August 2020. We then interviewed 12 hospital staff across a wide remit, from senior managers to consultants, nurses and catering staff, to gather qualitative evidence on the overall impact of COVID-19 on the Trust regarding plastic use. Results: We found that although COVID-19 had increased the procurement and the use of single-use plastic substantially during the pandemic, it did not appear to have changed the focus of the hospital on implementing measures to reduce single-use plastic in the long term. We then discussed the barriers and opportunities to tackle plastic issues within the NHS in the post-COVID world, for example, a circular healthcare model. Conclusion: Investment is needed in technologies and processes that can recycle and reuse a wider range of single-use plastics, and innovate sustainable alternatives to replace singleuse consumables used in the NHS to construct a fully operational closed material loop healthcare system.

The appropriate means of benchmarking environmental performance within and between companies is a matter of considerable debate and raises issues such as what information to compare and the reliability and consistency of data. Comparing environmental performance through company environment reports is an approach which has been widely used but, as this paper shows, is difficult and has severe limitations. This paper presents a unique analysis, based on the UK water industry, which compares data reported in company environmental reports and data on the same companies reported through the industry regulators. In turn, this is compared with the environmental performance indicators proposed by two other systems, one advanced by the UK water industry itself. The results demonstrate the difficulty of specifying environmental indicators that enable meaningful comparison. The difficulty of comparing environmental performance in a sector with a comprehensive approach to, and long history of, environmental performance reporting presents some hard lessons for other sectors.

Infrastructure organisations must reduce carbon emissions, improve resource efficiency, and maintain service performance across large ageing asset portfolios. However, circular-economy interventions in infrastructure are often organised around individual projects, limiting understanding of where material and carbon impacts accumulate at portfolio level. This paper develops a top-down portfolio-level modelling approach to support circular-economy prioritisation in flood-risk management infrastructure. The study integrates public asset-register data with organisational carbon and material-flow datasets to identify lifecycle, asset, and material hotspots across a distributed infrastructure portfolio. Using 415 asset-level carbon records and 5486 material-level records, the analysis estimates whole-life carbon distribution across asset classes and maps material inflows across material–asset combinations. The findings reveal a strong concentration effect: a small number of lifecycle stages, asset types, and materials account for a disproportionate share of portfolio-level impacts. Replacement carbon emerges as a major whole-life contributor, while walls, embankments, and channels dominate asset-level emissions, given the organization context. At the material level, soil/clay, steel, concrete, and stone represent key hotspots, showing that circular-economy strategies should address both high-carbon materials and high-material mass earthworks. The paper contributes a portfolio-level screening approach that shifts circular-economy analysis from project-level optimisation to portfolio-level prioritisation.