Circularity in Infrastructure: A Sustainable Future

Increasingly, enterprises are shifting their environmental initiatives toward circularity — an evolution of the lean, waste-reduction practices of the past. In infrastructure, circularity means not only preserving but also improving the resources and conditions available today, which traditional “gray” infrastructure often depletes, ensuring their availability for future generations.

Many are familiar with the phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle.” Circularity takes this further: recovering materials that would otherwise be wasted, repurposing assets rather than demolishing them, and designing systems with environmental upgrades for a more sustainable future.

In a linear economy, we use resources to create, then dispose of them. A circular approach avoids waste entirely by repurposing or recycling materials, reducing the consumption of finite resources. We extend the lifespan of existing assets, tackling climate change and other environmental issues like biodiversity loss, resource depletion, and pollution.

Image Source Pumapala/stock.adobe.com.

A Pragmatic Approach for Infrastructure

In infrastructure, circularity is not just environmentally beneficial, it’s also practical. For instance, studies show that roughly 80% of the predicted building stock we’ll use in 2050 already exists today. Maintaining and upgrading these assets is key to keeping them in use. One of the guiding principles in today’s infrastructure industry is to prioritize repurposing and revamping existing assets rather than building new ones.

Circularity strategies for infrastructure include:

• Use green materials: Design with recycled materials, such as concrete, rubber from tires, and recyclable wood, steel, plastic, and glass.
• Design for durability: Resilient infrastructure, built to withstand climate impacts like heat waves, storms, and floods, extends asset lifecycles, reducing the need for demolition.
• Predict maintenance and upgrades: Real-time predictive maintenance helps keep infrastructure functioning longer, reducing the need for costly replacements.
• Deconstruct sustainably: When an asset reaches the end of its life, deconstruction (rather than demolition) allows for material recovery and reuse, especially in modular systems.
• Utilize nature-based solutions: Green roofs, permeable pavements, urban forests, and rain gardens help assets blend with their environment, promoting clean air, reducing water waste, and extending lifecycles.
• Water-saving solutions: Incorporating rainwater harvesting creates a closed-loop system, reducing drainage pressure, minimizing water waste, and promoting sustainability.

The Role of Technology

Technology, especially infrastructure digital twins, plays a key role in optimizing infrastructure lifecycles. Digital twins create virtual representations of real-world projects, allowing for data collection and simulation to improve decision-making. They enable construction leaders to explore scenarios, reduce material usage, and improve maintenance through predictive insights.

By visualizing and analyzing assets through IoT, drones, AI, and models, digital twins help prevent structural failures and improve safety while minimizing waste. They also create data circularity, where information gathered from design and construction stages is continuously used and refined throughout the asset’s lifecycle, resulting in less data siloes, more collaboration, as well as better maintenance and reduced material waste.

A Transparent Ecosystem

As the saying goes, “You have to build the right infrastructure, but you also have to build infrastructure right.” Circularity ensures we do both by prioritizing sustainable systems that enable a circular economy (e.g., renewable energy, recycling facilities, or repair grids) and designing infrastructure to reduce waste and maximize resource efficiency. A truly circular approach requires transparency and collaboration across the entire supply chain, from mineral extraction to data exchange. This is one of the biggest challenges of our time, but with today’s digital technologies, it’s a challenge we are increasingly equipped to meet. 

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Viewpoint articles are tech-focused editorial written by experts from the CAD industry. This article was written by Rodrigo Fernandes of  Bentley Systems.

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