Integrated, circular, and digitally supported sustainable solutions for wood waste minimization and carbon storage in buildings and the construction sector
WOODCIRCLES (June 2023 – June 2027) is a four-year European innovation project that aims to accelerate the green transition of the construction sector by developing circular and sustainable solutions for the use of wood in construction.
WOODCIRCLES (June 2023 – June 2027) is a four-year European innovation project that aims to accelerate the green transition of the construction sector by developing circular and sustainable solutions for the use of wood in construction. The project addresses the significant environmental impacts of the built environment — which contributes a large share of material extraction, waste generation, and greenhouse gas emissions — by promoting material efficiency and substituting non-renewable, energy-intensive materials with renewable wood-based alternatives. WOODCIRCLES brings together a multi-stakeholder consortium of 20 leading European partners across the wood construction value chain to create innovative value chains for recycled wood, digital tools for mapping urban wood resources, and advanced solutions such as an 'Urban Sawmill' facility to transform low-value wood waste into high-value products. Additionally, the project designs wood-based building systems optimised for disassembly and reuse and plans a pilot demonstration building to tour several European cities. Through these activities, WOODCIRCLES aims to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase upcycling and recycling of wood construction waste, extend the service life of building materials, and support the transition to a more circular construction sector across Europe. Since the start of the project, WOODCIRCLES has advanced its work across several interconnected areas, including the mapping and assessment of urban wood stocks and material flows, the development of circular wood-based building systems designed for disassembly and reuse, and the exploration of the Urban Sawmill concept for recovering and processing secondary wood resources. In parallel, activities in the pilot cities of Rotterdam, Turin and Tartu have brought together local stakeholders through co-design workshops, capacity-building sessions and other local activities to explore how these solutions can be adapted to different urban contexts.
