HeidelbergCement supports circular city project

HeidelbergCement is to be a partner for the 'Circular City - Building Material Registry for the City of Heidelberg' project, alongside Drees & Sommer SE and the materials platform Madaster. 

Heidelberg is the first city in Europe to apply the principle of urban mining, in which construction and demolition waste is to be reused in new construction projects in the sense of circular economy. 

“Full circular economy and sustainable construction are central elements of our climate strategy,” says Dr Dominik von Achten, chairman of the Managing Board of HeidelbergCement: “We want to continue to significantly reduce our carbon footprint in the coming years. In doing so, we are focussing on the life cycle assessment of our product, concrete – including the processing of demolished concrete and returning it to the construction cycle. 

“By 2030, we want to offer circular alternatives for half of our concrete products. Together with the city of Heidelberg, also a pioneer in the area of climate protection, we want to use the Circular City project to demonstrate the enormous potential of concrete recycling for future urban construction.”

The goal is the complete economic and ecological analysis of the city's building inventory, which will be compiled in a digital material registry. The basis for the registry is the Urban Mining Screener developed by EPEA, a subsidiary of Drees & Sommer. This programme can estimate the composition of buildings.