EU BAMB

Buildings as Material Banks (BAMB)

Increase the value of building materials through innovative and integrated tools demonstrated by 6 pilots.
logo BAMB

In the Project BAMB – Buildings As Material Banks 15 partners from 7 European countries were working together with one mission – enabling a systemic shift in the building sector by creating circular solutions. Today, building materials end up as waste when no longer needed, with effects like destroying ecosystems, increasing environmental costs, and creating risks of resource scarcity. To create a sustainable future, the building sector needs to move towards a circular economy. Whether an industry goes circular or not depends on the value of the materials within it – worthless materials are waste, while valuable materials are recycled. Increased value equals less waste, and that is what BAMB is creating – ways to increase the values of building materials. BAMB will enable a systemic shift where dynamically and flexibly designed buildings can be incorporated into a circular economy. Through design and circular value chains, materials in buildings sustain their value – in a sector producing less waste and using less virgin resources. Instead of being to-be waste, buildings will function as banks of valuable materials – slowing down the usage of resources to a rate that meets the capacity of the planet. The project has developing and integrating tools that will enable the shift: Materials Passports and Reversible Building Design – supported by new business models, policy propositions and management and decision-making models. During the course of the project these new approaches has been demonstrated and refined with input from 6 pilots. The BAMB project started in September 2015 and progressed for 3 and a half years as an innovation action within the EU funded Horizon 2020 program.

Timeline: 2015-2020

Project Partners: -Brussels Environment -BAM International -BRE -EPEA Nederland -Drees & Sommer -IBM -Ronneby Muncipality -Sarajevo Green Design Foundation -SundaHus -Technische Universität München -Twente University -University of Minho -VITO -Vrije Universiteit Brussel -Zuyd University