KIRA CIRCULARIS - Circular economy products, services and innovations in the real estate and construction industry

KIRA CIRCULARIS project opens up the research environments and laboratory platforms of six universities of applied sciences (TAMK, Metropolia, XAMK, Karelia, Oulu and Turku) to serve SMEs in promoting the circular economy. The project is looking for a wide impact around numerous circular economy themes and
with the help of a wide national cooperation network. The points of view are material circulation, building parts that can be reused or manufactured, and building designed for disassembly. The project creates a new kind of ecosystem that supports the circular economy of companies and with cooperation we aim to develop new products,
implementation of services and innovations.

TAMK's main focus in the project is the innovation learning process. The goal is to connect the learning process required by innovations to the ability of laboratory testing to produce information.
Paradigm change from linear economy product development to circular economy service market
requires a lot of innovation and new services for the construction industry, and it requires innovation processes
development as joint development activities of companies.

TAMK's role in cooperation with the laboratory activities is to see the prototypes and the testing activities to demonstrate the validity as part of the learning process related to the creation of innovations, and to develop a process that connects the parties in cooperation with companies and other stakeholders, in which the value network that connects products and services is developed. Such value networks are needed so that circular economy solutions can compete on the market with linear economy solution models, as individual products or changes in operating methods are often too expensive to succeed in the competition.

According to the EU Waste Directive (2008/98/EC), the primary objective is to prevent waste, followed by the recycling and reuse of products and materials. The requirement to transition to a circular economy is due to the need to transition to low-carbon production, but also to the overconsumption of resources on Earth.
The construction sector needs to renew the circular economy innovation process. Fewer and fewer operators have the opportunity to carry out various tests in their own laboratories. Many do not have testing environments or laboratories at all. The product development process includes new variables:
the product must be suitable for the customer's use cases, production must take place with the lowest possible carbon emissions and without using virgin natural resources, and must also be as affordable as possible. Due to these new variables, the KIRA CIRCULARIS project focuses on renewing the circular economy innovation process, developing circular economy innovations and services in companies, and establishing closer cooperation between research and business.

The project aims to improve the competence and knowledge of construction companies in the green transition and to create a learning path and a pathway for companies to enter into product development partnerships.
The project also aims to create and pilot an innovation process based on co-creation, in which small and medium-sized companies also have the opportunity to develop a functional product or service from their idea and the value network it requires.
The project also aims to find by-products excess materials together with companies and to determine their quantities and further use possibilities as such or processed. When determining new uses, legislation related to recycling and construction as well as the environmental and cost impacts of the operation are taken into account.

The project's measures will ensure that the competence level of housing and infrastructure construction companies is raised and that product and service development that guarantees future vitality is ensured. The most important effect of accelerating circular economy innovation activities is the increase in the amount of recycling of building components, when it is found that recycling building components is more economically meaningful than disposing of them as waste. The improvement in the economic profitability of recycling building components is based on the innovation process developed and tested in this project, which construction industry operators will presumably begin to replicate in the hope of economic benefit. The circular economy proving to be more profitable than the linear economy is a prerequisite for the rapid spread of circular economy solutions. In addition to economic profitability, the need for service innovations and the spread of good solutions is supported by the desire of industry operators to reduce "greenwashing".

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