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A Finnish materials technology company has just announced layoffs because demand for its low-carbon concrete has weakened substantially and permanently. That is where green construction stands in 2026. We talk about green construction and circularity, but current business realities and research suggest the prospects for both look grim. A positive turn would require industrial-scale volumes and distribution, along with construction and demolition processes that make economic sense.
I did my first podcast interview on circularity ten years ago, and I have written optimistically about precast reuse pilots such as ReCreate. It is hard to be optimistic now. The technical questions are largely answered, but the financial ones are not, and evidence from the past year is not encouraging.
Cost wins over greenness
A recent interview with Tuija Kalpala, the CEO of Betolar, a Finnish circular economy and materials technology company, was revealing. In the Tekniikka&Talous magazine interview, she told the reporter that the planned layoffs are due to the demand for low-carbon concrete having weakened “substantially and permanently.”
Betolar’s Geoprime material for concrete production has 85% lower CO2 emissions than cement. However, sales are disappointing. According to Kalpala, there’s a lot of talk about green construction, but there’s no market pull. That’s because cost, not sustainability, drives the market.
“For now, it’s enough to do something. Even a small emission reduction is enough, as long as you can tell the customer that you use low-carbon products,” Kalpala said (the quotes are my translation from Finnish).
What Betolar is experiencing reflects the broader problem in green construction and circularity. Green values are fine as long as they don’t lead to higher costs, which they currently do.
Design for Disassembly does not close the gap
How economically viable is it to reuse construction components, and could Design for Disassembly (DfD) make a difference? This is the topic of a recent Tampere University research report. The DfD Ecosystem project examined the Finnish construction sector, which has predominantly used precast concrete components since the 1970s.
This project estimated that “constructing a DfD building may currently be slightly more expensive than conventional construction.” Under certain circumstances, it would reduce CO2 emissions by 10% over a 50-year period.
The research study also examined four case studies from the demolition perspective: one with traditional crushing demolition and three with disassemblies with component recovery. It assumed a 50% resale price for the disassembled components.
The study’s conclusion is not encouraging. Dismantling today’s conventionally built concrete buildings for reuse is not profitable and cannot become profitable unless the business environment changes dramatically.
The feeble business case for circularity
The cost challenge was also discussed at the annual Building 2030 Summer Seminar, where Robert van den Brink of VTT presented his research on circular supply chains. Robert noted that selective demolition can be 3 times more expensive than conventional demolition and that donor components can be 13 times more expensive than equivalent virgin raw materials. Furthermore, circular construction supply chains suffer from up to 40% material and process waste.
Some clients will always be willing to pay a premium for circularity. But what would it take to make circular construction mainstream? Robert suggests streamlining the reuse process. The key, however, is volume. Industrializing the process would increase volume, shorten throughput time, reduce waste, and validate the environmental potential of circular construction.
“But is even volume the answer?” Robert asked. The cost will nevertheless remain an issue. He mentioned that in his two case studies, there was a government incentive. Without it, circularity would not have been considered, the studied companies admitted. Public incentives can’t be a long-term solution; more aggressive carbon emission taxation might have an impact, but it would lead to higher construction costs.
A possible way forward
It is important to remember that there are other circular options that fall between recycling, the dominant circular practice in construction today, and reuse. Robert noted that these include repair, refurbishment, remanufacture, and repurpose. For some high-intrinsic-value products, such as certain technical components, reuse strategies might make sense from both financial and environmental perspectives. But for other products, the alternative strategies might offer a supply chain that makes circularity feasible.
Another presentation by Merika Kiurula of Skanska made clear that circularity should be integrated into project planning and design early on. It also requires a longer procurement process than traditionally used and more collaboration among project participants. Even a new coordinator role is necessary.
Regulation may force the issue
As Satu Räsänen, CEO at ACTS, presented at the seminar, an emerging regulation may advance circularity. The use of circular materials has not grown meaningfully over the past 15 years in the EU. In 2024, it was 12.2%, which is not enough to reach the Union’s goal of 24% by 2030.
Hence, the EU is preparing a circularity regulation that will take precedence over national legislation. In construction, this will increase the share of recycled raw materials in products and likely make selective demolition obligatory. It will standardize so-called end-of-waste criteria, making cross-border material trade possible. Standardization of digital product data exchange is critical to making all this work.
Circularity can’t remain a project-level choice
Circularity will not be a project-level choice. Every study and every case I have seen points the same way: when a client or a designer decides to reuse components on a single project, someone absorbs a cost premium, and that premium does not shrink with practice.
Reuse becomes viable only when it shifts from a project decision to a supply business, with industrial volumes, standardized product data, and inventory held by someone other than the contractor.
Regulation will likely force the first step. The industry should decide now who wants to own that supply chain, because the firms that build it will set the price that everyone else pays.
