The Upside of Upcycling : An Investigation of Construction Waste Materials’ Potential for Upcycling through Material Driven Design

Abstract: The main objective of this thesis is to show the potential that construction waste materials from Skanska’s projects have for upcycling. Materials are investigated through a comprehensive pre-study and their potential is showcased in developed concepts. Further, this thesis aims at suggesting implementation steps that facilitate circular material handling at Skanska. The conclusions are that waste at construction sites usually occurs from spillage, plethora and provisional installations, and materials suitable for upcycling are metal profiles for indoor and outdoor use, processed and unprocessed wooden planks, pallets, and plywood. Moreover, it is concluded that Skanska’s initial step towards increased circularity within material flows is to create a cross-functional project group to set up future goals and actions. Followingly, suggested areas for the project group to review further is education and knowledge creation, management of logistics and supply chain, external collaborations, and Skanska’s brand image from a sustainability perspective.  Skanska is one of the leading project management companies in Sweden, aiming at being climate neutral throughout the entire value system by 2045. This thesis is motivated with background in the amount of emissions caused by production of new materials for construction and building projects. From Skanska’s annual sustainability report it is discerned that over 50 % of CO2 emissions arise from material production. Further, there is great potential in exploring solutions others than recycling for construction waste materials to minimize the sector’s use of resources. How design can be used as a research method to investigate and explore the potential of different waste materials is yet unexplored, which motivates the importance of this work further. General methods such as a literature study, interviews, observations, analysis, and evaluation are used for gathering information and come up with results and conclusions regarding construction materials and sustainability work. Although, the foremost unique research approach in this thesis is Material Driven Design, and since upcycling of waste materials is investigated, Repurpose Driven Design is of great importance as well. The product concepts developed through these approaches are the primary results from this work since they contribute to fulfill the objective.