From Vision to Practice

In her keynote, Sabine Rau-Oberhuber showed that meaningful change happens across three layers at once: product, process, and enabling conditions. A modular design alone won’t deliver impact; you also need maintenance and reverse logistics, clear contracts (e.g., “as-a-service”), and explicit agreements with financiers and clients. The takeaway: circularity isn’t a side project—it’s a way of working across your organization and the entire value chain.

A Place That’s Doing It

Max Mol (De Groene Afslag) walked us through a former barracks transformed from “demolition candidate” into a vibrant space using reused and bio-based materials. It’s a proof point of what’s possible when you design, procure, and organize differently—including budgeting and planning in new ways.

From Pioneering to Scaling: One Language for Impact

The panel described a sector maturing from pilots to scale. Lars and Constantijn showed how clients and builders are taking concrete steps, yet still grapple with materials passports and data-driven decisions. Dorien showed producers raising the bar with more transparent data and circular concepts. Across the board, pressure is mounting: too many methods, shifting requirements, and fragmented data.

Red thread: we need one common language for impact—grounded in verified product data. Jan-Willem and Ruben, with spontaneous support from Dirk Breedveld, outlined a future landscape of measurement methods and product data where harmonization and interoperability unlock speed.

Looking Ahead

• Producers are on the CPR (EU Construction Products Regulation) path: EPDs and Digital Product Passports (DPPs) will keep improving in quality, coverage, and interoperability over the coming years.
• The north star for circular building is a clear, unified methodology via Whole Life Carbon (WLC), anchored in a materials passport built on verified product data (EPDs).
• The Dutch MPG (building environmental performance metric) remains valuable—especially because it includes non-CO₂ impacts.

Soundbite for 2040:

“One project, one passport, one score—circular construction as the new normal, powered by rich, reliable product data.”

Speakers: Jan-Willem Groot (Stichting Nationale Milieudatabase), Ruben Zonnevijlle (Dutch Green Building Council), Dorien Van der Weele (wienerberger), Constantijn Berning (Edge) en Lars van der Meulen (VolkerWessels)

What We Learned in the Workshops

CIRCO— Designing for Function

Working in pairs, participants chose an existing product/process and explored radically different solutions: sharing, leasing, as-a-service, modularity, and disassembly. The “Spotify metaphor” helped: people want the service, not necessarily ownership.

Key lesson: start small—pick, for example, an HVAC system or façade module. Design it modular and demountable, then measure CO₂, reuse potential, and TCO. In parallel, lock in the enabling conditions (contracts, ownership, take-back) and set up data flows so you can prove and finance reuse and retained value.

Speakers: Lilian Van Hove and Iris Grobben

Ecochain × Madaster — Getting the Data Right

A building LCA is the sum of product LCAs plus use and maintenance. That means the quality of your building assessment depends on good product data (EPDs, NMD) and consistent rules: same scope, PCRs, database versions, and functional units—otherwise, you’re comparing apples to oranges.

We looked beyond CO₂ and discussed Whole Life Carbon (WLC): as buildings become more energy-efficient, material impact becomes a larger share of total emissions. AI can support dataset selection and scenario modeling, but transparency and reproducibility remain key.

Conclusion: if you want to manage real impact, organize your data chain and document your assumptions.Conclusion: if you want to steer on real impact, organise your data chain and document your assumptions.

Speakers:  Emma Thunnissen (Ecochain) and Frédérique van Erven (Madaster)

AKD × Madaster — ESG that actually works for projects

This session focused on ESG frameworks: EU Taxonomy, CSRD/CSDDD, and SFDR. The greener your claim, the higher the disclosure bar—and the better your access to capital.

In practice, SFDR Article 9 is challenging for many funds, while Article 8 is achievable with a solid reporting process. Banks are closely monitoring stranded assets; without data on materials and reuse scenarios, unlocking financing becomes difficult.

Practical takeaway: take a data-first approach (material passports and verification), contract for circularity (KPIs, take-back, maintenance), involve financiers early, and use ESG frameworks to structure both your story and your dataset. Applying VSME appears to be the right way forward.

Speakers: Jasper Verhoog (AKD) en Martijn Oostenrijk (Madaster)

What you can do right now

If you do one thing today, make it this: choose a single component in a current or upcoming project (for example, an installation system), design it modular and demountable, define which data you’ll collect (materials, maintenance, reverse logistics), and determine who agrees to what (supplier, financier, client). Then meet with your financier to calculate residual value and risk.

Start small, document thoroughly, scale up—that’s the core message of Madaster Connect 2025.

What’s next

Over the coming weeks, we’ll publish in-depth articles diving deeper into the panel discussions, workshops, and the Madaster roadmap.

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