The Infrastructure Podcast: Episode 26

Guest: Mark Enzer, Strategic Adviser, Mott MacDonald 

A circular economy for the built environment

In this podcast we talk about the challenge of creating a circular economy in the built environment as key to working towards a sustainable, net zero carbon emission future. 

Last month a new movement was launched across infrastructure at the World Circular Economy Forum with a vision for a built environment whose purpose is, and I quote: “to enable people and nature to flourish together for generations.”

I call it a movement because it involved a range of people, organisations and businesses who came together to publish a document called Our Shared Understanding - a summary of core concepts that inform the transition to a circular economy. 

So what is the circular economy in respect to the built environment? Well according to this report its “about enabling people and nature to live and grow within our planet’s capacity to provide resources and handle waste”.

That means getting the greatest possible value from the use of materials, products, assets and systems in the built environment - value as defined by the social, environmental and economic outcomes gained from that investment. More on that later.

This document also highlights why circularity is so important and of course sets out a number of key objectives and challenges to help the sector to finally embrace the concept. 

In short, it calls for collective action to first choose to make change happen and second, for radical collaboration accelerate the move towards circularity. 

To guide us through the challenges, my guest today is Mark Enzer, Strategic Adviser, Mott MacDonald and visiting professor, University of Cambridge, who has been driving this movement and continues to agitate for change across the sector.

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