JULY 2018 — PAGE 66/83Report | Pathways to Decarbonizing the Built EnvironmentTowards a Circular Building Industry in Berlin – Emerging Concepts and from the Circular EconomyCircular Economy PrinciplesThe relevant literature discusses the principles of the circular economy. The Table 7: Circular Econ-omy Principles for the Built EnvironmentTable 7 presents in the column on the left three fundamentalprinciples put forward by the EMF foundation and in the column on the right the principles of thecircular economy reflected in the built environment, namely: 1) the end of the life cycle of the buildingsshould be “designed out”, considering a period of periodic renovation and reconditioning; 2) the ma-terials used in the construction are diverse and the components of the buildings are made to last for along time; and 3) the energy that feeds the building systems comes entirely from renewable sourcesand the users of the buildings are energy prosumers.Table 7: Circular Economy Principles for the Built EnvironmentSource: Own elaboration based on EMF (2013a:22)By complying with the principles of circular economy for the built environment, the construction in-dustry could achieve the construction of circular buildings. The Figure 13 shows the components of acircular building and the required timeframe for a renovation to take place for each building compo-nent. Thus, more robust components and less easy to replace, such as the “structure” component, aredesigned to last longer (60 to 120 years); on the other hand, lighter elements, but also of greater useand that therefore could deteriorate sooner, like the “stuff” component, have a shorter replacementperiod. In this way, the relevant literature highlights the importance of thinking from the design stagein those periods and what will happen to the components once the cycle is completed. In most cases,materials and components return to the production chain through disassembly and recycling. Thus,they are generating closed cycles that are widely mentioned in the literature

Natural resources are currently being consumed at twice the rate they are produced; by 2050, thiscould be three times the rate (ARUP 2016). Thus, the concern about worldwide resource scarcity andthe consumption of virgin materials, mainly by the construction industry, is gaining increasing atten-tion in public policy, the private sector, and academia. Figure 1 shows finite resources necessary forthe elaboration of diverse products of daily use. Similarly, the image shows the number of years thatthese resources will be available on our planet if our consumption rate continues at the same pace

According to Kirchherr and others (2017) there are at least two methods to investigate the under-standing of a concept. The difference between them is, basically, about the interaction between re-searcher and sources of information for building new knowledge. The first one, deals firstly with pri-mary data, that means interviews for asking for the understanding of a concept should be conductedwith relevant stakeholders. In this case, it is assumed that It is assumed that the informants have someknowledge of the research topic. The second one, starts dealing with secondary data – in this casewritten definitions of a concept – for the analysis; following this approach, written definitions of aconcept can be gathered and then analysed. It is estimated that, for providing a more valid view on thecurrent understanding of a concept in the discourse this method is more suitable since, usually, writ-ten definitions 1 are more thoughtful than ad hoc ones provided in interviews (Kirchherr et al.2017:222). This second method was, therefore, chosen for the purposes of this research.

The primary goal of Healthy Homes was to improve access to affordable, safe housing in a historically disinvested community. Reduction in crime was not an expressed objective at the outset of the initiative and the project staff did not directly consider impacts on crime in their approach to selecting properties for development or repair, or for selecting residents. As the project has grown and developed, however, so too has interest in measuring crime as an ancillary outcome.

Vacant and abandoned lots and buildings, and hazardous housing conditions, present a significant cost to the public, to municipalities and other entities including healthcare institutions.

A set of theories – social disorganisation, broken windows and opportunity theories – attempt to explain the spatial distribution of crime that might help explain potential mechanisms for the association between housing vacancy and crime. Social disorganisation has been defined as ‘the inability of a local community to regulate itself in order to attain goals that are agreed to by the residents of that community’ (Bursik, 1988). Shaw and McKay’s (1942) social disorganisation theory and subsequent extensions focused on social disorganisation as the link between neighbourhood characteristics such as economic decline, instability and variations in crime.

While findings were mixed, we found some evidence of reduced thefts in the Healthy Homes area, relative to its synthetic control. This initiative to repair, rebuild and increase ownership of housing has the potential to reduce crime rates for neighbours of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Zonda projects 381 metropolitan statistical areas are expected to see growth in annual project volume in 2021. Among those markets, the average growth rate is expected to be 6.3%.