‍Now is the time to act

The built environment is responsible for almost 40% of the worldwide CO2 emissions, and globally the construction of new buildings is responsible for the use of 40% of all materials produced. Demolition of old buildings generates about 35% of the world’s waste. Lowering the amount of embodied carbon, eliminating construction waste, and making materials and building components reusable at a high value will have a profound positive effect on achieving the UN sustainability goals.

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To accelerate the transition towards a greener built environment, Home.Earth has taken the initiative to bridge the gap between new and emerging building technologies which make use of a high level of prefabrication and the standing practice of onsite construction. Carel van Houte, co-founder of Home.Earth, shares:

“The real estate sector lacks innovation although various modern methods of construction have become available over the past decades. The environmental challenges we face today require us to act, as traditional construction methods do not provide the necessary improvements to change the tide any time soon. Henry Ford said it well: If you keep doing what you always did, you will keep getting what you have always gotten.”

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The partners believe that the result of the 18-month project will fasten the transition of how we design and construct new buildings, in pursuit of a more sustainable built environment. Van Houte continues:

“Finding the right building systems is difficult because of the fragmentation of the industry and comparing them is a challenge by itself due to the lack of objective criteria. In addition, new building systems mostly exist of premanufactured elements that also require a different design and construction process. The full impact of changing these processes is often underestimated, which leads to unnecessary failures and additional costs. These are the hurdles we aim to overcome with this project”

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An easily accessible overview of readily available building systems

The project will bring together the best and most sustainable new building systems in the European market and make them easily available to the entire real estate sector. This will be realized through a freely accessible public website that allows users to easily find and compare the most suitable systems for their projects in one place.  

Christian Thuesen from DTU and Daniel Hall from TuD elaborate:

“We will not only enable users to easily search, compare and select new building technologies but also explain the impact of each technology on the current design and construction processes. When we want market parties to be successful in using sustainable and circular construction methods, we must also help them by providing clear guidance on how to transform their processes to make this happen.”

Each selected building system will be accompanied by a guideline on how to implement the selected product during the design and construction of new buildings and how that will impact the organization of the project, or the work of the parties involved. This educational content will allow users to overcome the operational hurdles that usually stand in the way of utilizing innovative technologies.

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Supported by a generous grant

Aase og Ejnar Danielsens Fond has supported the project with a grant of 5 million DKK. On the decision to support the project, Chairman of the Board, Karsten Kristoffersen, Attorney at Law, says:

“The project will help the construction industry move in the right direction, the project fits our foundation’s purpose of raising the standards of construction very well, and the project is aligned with an important trend around inspiring the sector to innovate and think in new ways. Furthermore, our foundation has based the grant decision on the fact that the project findings will be made available on a public open-source platform benefitting society as a whole.”

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Cooperation with the industry

It is the clear objective of the initiators to cooperate with the building industry and other stakeholders in the real estate sector. Interested parties are invited to get in touch and will receive an invitation for a webinar about the project in March.

For inquiries please contact: bridgethegap@home.earth

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Fact box

Home.Earth

Home.Earth is a new international real estate company with offices in Denmark and the Netherlands. The company has been founded to develop environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive housing in European cities to much higher standards than currently available. To achieve these objectives, the company invests in fundamental research on the impact of real estate to the benefit of people and the planet.

www.home.earth

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Aase og Ejnar  Danielsens Fond

Aase og Ejnar Danielsens Fond is a Danish philanthropic foundation that provides support for non-profit, charitable, and humanitarian purposes, preferably in the form of support for research and further education in the medical and social sciences as well as for construction research.

www.danielsensfond.dk

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Bridge the Gap

Bridge the Gap is an 18-month building innovation research project initiated by Home.Earth in collaboration with the Technical University of Denmark and Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, funded by a 5 million DKK grant from the Aase og Ejnar Danielsens Fond. Results will be shared publicly and can be used freely by architects, developers, municipalities, contractors, and anyone else interested in creating a sustainable real estate industry.