Introduction

The EU Horizon 2020 funded CityLoops project focuses on closing the material loops of two central sectors of any city in terms of material flows, societal needs and employment, namely the construction and biomass sectors. Due to their sizes, they represent a considerable opportunity for cities to transform their metabolism and economy towards a more circular state.

Within this project, seven European cities, amongst those also the City of Bodø are planning to implement demonstration actions to kickstart their circularity journey. To better understand what the current circularity status quo is, as well as the impact of these actions, and the efforts needed to transform their sector, a Sector-Wide Circularity Assessment method was developed. This method combines a circular city and circular sector definition, a material flow and stock accounting method, as well as circularity indicators. The sector itself was defined in terms of a number of representative materials that make up a large share of the sector and associated economic activities. The construction sector is made up of 11 materials, depicted as icons here, which were studied along the entirety of their supply chains. Altogether, these elements help to set a solid knowledge and analytical foundation to develop future circularity roadmaps and action plans.

The assessment was carried out by the cities themselves after receiving extensive training in the form of courses on data collection (construction and biomass) and data processing. Numerous additional insights can be found in the individual Data Hubs of each city.

This current Sector-Wide Circularity Assessment report provides contextual information on the city and the economic sector under study. It then illustrates how circular these sectors are through circularity indicators and a Sankey diagram. Finally, it analyses and interprets the results, presents the limitations from the data used and offers recommendations about how to make this sector more circular.

(* The italic texts in this report were written by Metabolism of Cities' Aristide Athanassiadis and Carolin Bellstedt. They provide relevant general information and serve as connecting elements of the single report parts.)

Urban context

To contextualise the results of the sector-wide circularity assessment, this section provides population and land use information data of the city. In addition, population and area of the city under study, as well as its corresponding NUTS3, NUTS2 and country were included. Data for these scales were added to better understand how relevant and important the approximations are when downscaling data from these scales to a city level.

Population of Bodø

The population of Bodø was 52,560 in 2021. Over the last 35 years, it has been increasing significantly, namely by 46.8%, where there were only 35,792 inhabitants in 1986. On average, the municipality grew by 471 people each year over the last 10 years. The population density is quite low with 40 inhabitants per km² of land area in 2020.

As can be seen in the graphic below, the population is comparatively young with 51% of them being younger than 40 years.

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Land use

Data source

Bodø is a town and a port located on the tip of a peninsula in the traditional region of Salten in Nordland Country, Norway. It consists of several small islands off the peninsular coastline as well. Due to its strategic location and its popularity as a trading port, it was established as a town around 200 years ago.

Its landscape was historically dominated by natural birch vegetation, but over the past 4,500 years, it has developed into an open and mostly treeless landscape (Moe, 2011).

This is evident even today as the dominant land use in Bodø are Open Area (~47%) and Forests (40%) corresponding to approximately 650 sqkm and 560 sqkm respectively. The urban built up area, in contrast, is merely 5 sqkm (0.35%) of which the airport comprises 3.5 sqkm (0.25%), industrial area comprises 1.4 sqkm (0.1%) and residential areas comprises 0.02 km.

Economic context of construction sector

This section puts into perspective the economic context of the sector under study. It describes how many people are employed in this sector, as well as who the main actors involved (from all lifecycle stages for the sector’s materials) are.

The construction sector in Bodø

The construction sector in Norway is the second-largest employer in the country after wholesale and retail trade according to Statistics Norway, providing employment to approximately 16% of employees. In comparison, the construction sector employs only 8% of employees in Bodø. In 2019, the annual turnover of the construction sector in Norway was NOK 626,851.8 million, while in Nord-Norge (Northern Norway) it was NOK 327,060 million and in Nordland was NOK 161,592.1 million.

The construction sector in Bodø is quite small compared to Norway in total, when considering activities around new buildings. In the year 2020, the number of construction applications processed in Bodø were merely 440, which is 0.5% of the 80,584 construction applications processed for the whole of Norway. (Data source).

In Bodø, the building stock is fairly equally distributed between residential and non-residential buildings. 47% of the buildings are residential (source), of which 4% are municipally managed housing (source) and remaining 43% are private housing. 53% of buildings are non-residential (source). As is shown in the graphic, from 2006 to 2022, the total building stock of Bodø has gradually been growing. Until 2011, the number of residential and non-residential buildings were nearly the same, but after that the number of non-residential buildings grew while the residential stock remained fairly steady.

Data source

The 13,519 residential buildings comprise 26,861 dwellings. These dwellings can be further categorised by the year of construction and into six different housing typologies. The graphic here shows the number of buildings that were built in different groups of years, counting in decades from 1961 onwards. Considering the age of buildings is relevant from a circular economy perspective. With the age of buildings, their renovation needs, as well as the materials that become available when houses are demolished can be anticipated.

For the situation in Bodø, it can be seen that while there was a boost in construction activity between 2001 and 2010, the majority of the dwellings existing today were built already before that time, after the second world war. This means that depending on the quality of the built stock, the expectations of the residents with regards to comfort and design trends, these buildings will, at a minimum, face renovation activities or will be replaced by new buildings, triggering the production of CDW and the consumption of new or secondary raw materials.

Data source

Aside from the age, the distribution by typology can also be considered. The following two charts illustrate the data for 2007 to 2021, and data focused on 2021, respectively. The graph illustrates that the ‘detached house’ is the most prevalent with 37%, followed by the ‘multidwelling house’ and the ‘row house, linked house and house with 3 dwellings or more’, with 27% and 18% respectively. It is interesting to note that even though the number of residential buildings has largely remained constant, there has been a notable increase in the number of dwellings. This can largely be attributed to the increase in the number of multidwelling houses.

Data source

Data source

As for the non-residential building stock, the 15,074 buildings that existed in 2021 can also be further explored by the type of building. For this stock, nine different typologies exist, as can be seen in the chart. It shows that holiday homes are dominant with 78%, although they are in practice also used by residents, just not as permanent dwellings. The other dominant non-residential building types are agricultural and fishery buildings and industrial buildings that comprise 11% and 3% of the total non-residential building stock respectively.

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The actors of the construction sector

Data source

There are 4,812 construction companies in Nord-Norge as of 2019 (source), with 2,398 of them situated in Nordland (source) and about 489 in Bodø (source). Of those in Bodø, 34 companies were identified to be of particular importance and which in turn were further analysed.

The construction companies in Bodø are pretty much clustered and close to the city. The actors are construction companies, contractors, entrepreneurs, and construction consultants. The primary actors associated with material flows in the construction sector are: Nordasfalt AS, Gunvald Johansen Bygg AS, Boligbyggelaget Nobl AS, Byggmester Fritzøe AS, Byggmester Erling Skipnes AS, Nordanlegg AS, Veinor AS, and Gunvald Johansen Support AS. As for waste management companies, there are two main ones in Bodø: Retura-Iris and Østbø.

Extraction

There is no extraction of building materials currently being done in Bodø. Up until recently, gravel mines were being operated by two companies in Bodø - Nordland Betong AS and Nordasfalt AS.

Nordland Betong, one of Nordland’s largest concrete producers and established in 1947 in Bodø, operated two gravel mines in Bodø, in Vika i Misvær and in Kvikstad, see map below. These are now almost closed. According to Mr. Tore Mosand, the General Manager of Nordland Betong, the mine in Vika i Misvær still has at least one million tonnes of sand (grade 0-8) left in it, but the land owner does not want more to be removed.

Nordasfalt AS, established in 1988, which works in road and highway construction, also operated a gravel mine until 2018, however its mine is no longer operational.

Data source

Manufacturing

Manufacturing of construction materials and products in Bodø spans asphalt, concrete, glass, and insulation materials, along with products such as prefabricated concrete pipes and fire-safety doors. There are 7 major companies involved in manufacturing.

Nordasfalt AS and Nordland Betong, have been mentioned under extraction as well, and manufacture asphalt for road and highway construction, and ready-concrete and concrete products respectively. They also work in the production and laying of asphalt, milling, rehabilitation of concrete structures, tunnel washing, production of bitumen etc. Loe Bodø Betong AS also produces concrete products such as prefabricated pipes.

Bodø Glass & Ramme AS and Glassproffen AS are both glass manufacturers. Bodø Glass & Ramme AS was established in 1981 and operates a glass and aluminium workshop in Bodø. It provides interior solutions using mainly these two materials. Glassproffen AS also has a workshop in Bodø, and provides interior solutions in glass, plexiglass (acrylic) and lexan (polycarbonate). They also offer repair and replacements of broken glass.

Løvold Industri AS is a company that was established in 1950 and currently produces fish-packaging boxes and building insulation in EPS-expanded polystyrene under the brand name Termopor.

Rapp Bomek AS manufactures heavy-duty door, window, and wall safety solutions for applications where security is important. Their products are used in commercial buildings, airports, banks, embassies, prisons, hospitals, etc.

Retail

Bodø has several actors selling building materials and products. Some of these are outlets of larger chains operating nation-wide, while some are Bodø-based. Some of the latter manufacture or extract the building materials as well.

Companies such as Bygger'n Bodø, Byggmakker, XL-BYGG Kåre Abelsen and Julius Jakhelln AS are building material and hardware stores, of which the last is a locally owned store. Specialised retailers operating in Bodø are Asak Miljostein selling concrete products, Acrylicon Nord-Norge AS selling flooring, Byggesystemer Bodø AS selling scaffolding, and Ventistål AS selling ventilation and plumbing.

The manufacturers retailing their products include Løvolds industri AS selling insulation, Bodø Glass Og Ramme AS selling glass and aluminium solutions, and Nordasfalt AS selling gravel and crushed stone.

Use

The list of construction actors responsible for the use of materials in Bodø is quite long. These actors can be broadly categorised into four major activity groups - construction, renovation & interiors, excavation & demolition, and construction machinery.

Nordasfalt AS which constructs roads and highways for public and private projects is the largest construction employer in Bodø with 180 employees. It delivers approximately 200,000 tonnes of asphalt for public and private projects annually.

Then there is Gunvald Johansen Bygg AS which is one of Nord-Norge's leading construction companies developing residential, commercial and public buildings and employing 152 people.

Boligbyggelaget Nobl is a housing society that builds and manages housing across the country since 1946 and currently employs 43 persons. They assist over 290 housing companies across the country with financial, technical and legal management as well.

Byggmester Fritzøe AS is a dealer for Systemhus in Bodø with 31 employees. It was founded in 2002 and specialises in interior and exterior carpentry work for home construction.

Nordanlegg AS is a local Bodø contractor with 22 employees. They own machines and equipment that allow them to perform a variety of activities such as excavations, building construction, as well as renovation.

Amongst renovation and interiors companies, Byggmester Erling Skipnes AS is an important one that specialises in carpentry and woodwork. They are a subsidiary of Norgeshus and employ 27 people in Bodø.

VeiNor AS is one of the largest excavation and demolition contractors in the Salten Region with 40 employees. They recently purchased all the shares in Bernhardsen Entreprenør AS, another prominent demolition contractor in Bodø.

Aside from the listed and described companies that engage in the use of construction materials, there are certainly a great many more of them in the municipality. However, for this report, only the main players as specified by the Bodø Kommune were included.

Waste collection and treatment

Construction and demolition waste in Bodø is largely handled by three companies, Iris Salten IKS (and its subsidiaries), Østbø AS and Bodø Energi Varme AS. (The companies and their collection and/or treatment facilities are shown on the map below.) While Bodø municipality is a local waste authority and has the formal responsibility for waste disposal in the municipality, it rents services from Iris Salten.

Iris Salten IKS is an inter-municipal waste management company with its head office in Vikan outside the city of Bodø. It serves the nine municipalities in Salten, which also own the company. The company’s main activity is the collection and treatment of both household and corporate waste, through three subsidiaries that have been established to perform this service; Iris Service AS, Iris Produksjon AS, and Retura Iris AS. However, the final waste treatments are left to their partners.

• Iris Service AS, founded in 2001, focuses on household renovation and operation of the environmental squares. It also operates all of Iris “Miljøtorg”, two of which are in Bodø. Miljøtorg Bodø is not relevant for CDW collection, as it accepts wastes from other categories. However, Miljøtorg Vikan is relevant for CDW, and especially for wood waste.

• Iris Produksjon AS handles all waste that comes through the Iris Group and operates Salten's only landfill. At this location, they also prepare waste for the local district heating plant, for energy recovery.

• Retura Iris AS, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Iris Salten IKS Group, is a part of the national franchise chain called Retura Norway, a waste management company. Retura Iris offers waste solutions to companies and institutions. It offers complete waste solutions, from waste planning to collection and treatment of the waste throughout the Salten region. It offers rental services for waste containers for different types of waste streams such as industrial, hazardous and CDW. It also provides courses and sorting guides to corporations.

Østbø AS is Nord-Norge's largest commercial waste and environmental company. It offers total waste services throughout northern Norway and provides the following services: Business renovation, household renovation, industrial service, environmental mapping and environmental remediation, transportation, transport of dangerous goods, consultancy, car wreck reception in Bodø and Fauske, and solutions for the oil and gas industry as well. The waste categories they deal with are hazardous waste, iron and metals, and electronic waste.

Bodø Energi Varme AS is a subsidiary company of the Bodø Energi group. The company is headquartered in Bodø and 100% owned by Bodø Municipality. Bodø Energy Varme AS supplies heat from the Keiseren Bio plant at Rønvikjordet to the district heating system in the municipality that has been in place since 2015 (source). The biomass heating plant uses locally recycled wood (pallets, demolition wood, kitchen fittings, etc.) as feed, which it receives in about equal parts from the two waste management companies, Retura Iris and Østbø. After four years of operation, by 2019, 96% of Bodø’s energy needs in 2019 (i.e. 53,859 MWh of energy) were met by bioenergy.

Data source

Indicators

To monitor the progress of this economic sector towards circularity, a number of indicators were proposed and measured. Altogether, these indicators depict several facets of circularity of the sector. As such, they need to be considered in combination rather than in isolation when assessing circularity. In addition, these indicators can be compared to other cities or spatial scales (such as the country level). However, this has to be done with great care and use of the contextual elements in the previous sections of the report. Finally, the value measured from these indicators can be traced over time to track the sector’s progress towards circularity.

The indicators chosen for the SCA of the construction sector in Bodø are focused on construction materials, their end-of-life treatment, sectoral circularity, and resilience in the sector.

Domestic material consumption (DMC) of Bodø is the sum of total building raw materials extracted within and imported into Bodø, minus the building raw materials exported by the municipality. It amounts to 15,065.6 tonnes or 0.28 tonnes per capita. This value is significantly lower than the DMC of ​​13.4 tonnes per capita for EU-28 in 2019 and even lower relative to the 25 and 31.6 tonnes per capita for neighbouring countries Denmark and Finland, respectively.

Circular Material Use rate (CMU) for Bodø is 0.02% which indicates that there is very little circularity in the sector currently. Its CMU value is much lower than the 2019 CMU of ​ EU-28 at ​12.4% and also lower compared to the 2019 CMU values of 7.6% and 6.3% for Norway’s neighbouring countries Denmark and Finland respectively.

EU self-sufficiency for raw materials measures how independent a city is from importing raw materials from the rest of the world. Bodø’s self-sufficiency indicator is very low with 0.91%. Unfortunately, there is no national value to compare it to. And since the data completeness was lacking in terms of differentiation of the single materials, this indicator couldn’t be calculated for them individually to determine the various self-sufficiency levels.

EOL recycling rate (EOL RR) for Bodø is negligible at 0.0009%. The EOL Processing Rate here has been assumed to be 80%. The low EOL RR can be attributed to the fact that reliable recycling data was only available for insulation materials that are produced in very low quantities (3 tonnes) compared to the total EOL mass collected (260,680 tonnes). EOL RR should potentially be higher as high recycling rates were reported by the local waste management company Iris, however, quantitative values for those are unavailable as well. What would increase this value is the inclusion of metals in this calculation. However, data on those were not made available.

Amount of sector-specific waste that is produced is 141,182 tonnes. This waste is largely incinerated or landfilled. The incineration rate is 14.8% while the landfilling rate is extremely high at 86.85%. These add up to more than 100% as they also include the imported waste.

Visualisations

Measuring circularity is a data heavy exercise. Numerous datasets were collected and visualised throughout the sector-wide circularity assessment process. To synthesise these findings, a Sankey diagram illustrates how material flows from the studied economic sector are circulating from one lifecycle stage to another. The height of each line is proportional to the weight of the flow. This diagram therefore helps to quickly have an overview of all the materials flows that compose the sector and their respective shares. The flows that are coloured in light blue in the Sankey diagram, are return flows. This means that they flow in the opposite direction of the lifecycle stages and are subjected to reuse, redistribution, or remanufacturing. Their size relative to the others is a good indication for the materials' circularity.

The Sankey diagram is built from the data collected from Bodø’s actors, Norwegian statistics, and the indicators that have been derived from them. Therefore, one needs to take into account that the data quality influences how close to actuality and informative the Sankey is for present-day Bodø. In addition to the data quality, so-called allocation values also have an impact on the data behind the visualisation. These allocation values were employed to estimate the amounts of materials that “flow” between the single life cycle stages, since these relationships and quantities were in most cases unknown, except for waste collection going to waste treatment.

Overall, the Sankey diagram for Bodø shows that quite a lot of materials are moving around in the construction sector system of 2019.

It can be observed that there is no extraction that takes place in Bodø. This was confirmed by the Directoratet for Mineralforvaltning or the Directorate of Mineral Management for Norway as well as Nordland Betong, which was previously operating gravel mines in Bodø.

Bodø relies heavily on raw material imports for its construction sector. 584,990 tonnes of materials imported were for the sole input for manufacturing (comprising 24% of total imported material). Of this imported material, the majority (56%) went to retail, while a large quantity (20%) also went to waste collection.

60% of the manufacturing flow in Bodø were allocated towards retail, 30% were allocated to exports, 9% were allocated to be used directly (without passing through retail) in local construction projects, and 1% was allocated as waste.

With regards to retail in Bodø, it was estimated that 22% of the materials came from local manufacturing, while the remaining 78% were imported from outside of the municipality.

A data gap existed for use and therefore there is no relationship between use and stock, for materials which are needed to realise construction activities. However, through an interview with the waste management company Iris, the information was received that 5,840 tonnes of concrete were resold for reuse to other construction sites and so a reverse flow of material, from stock to use, can be observed.

Although it seems that most of stock goes to waste collection and a little bit gets reused, this is only true in terms of the amount of flows. It might seem that all buildings and infrastructure get demolished again, but this of course is not the case. It is just that the Sankey diagram does not depict the stocks, the materials that stay in a system for over a year, but only the flows from the single stages.

The waste collection in Bodø, in 2019, was quite large compared to other flows. Of the total CDW collected, about 130,777 tonnes, only 5% originated from households while the remaining 95% originated from commercial sources. Although this ratio has remained almost constant since 2016, it can be seen that the production of CDW from households has increased to 10%. It is worth noting that, contrary to other regions or countries, households pay significantly less for waste disposal than commercial entities have to.

[https://cityloops.metabolismofcities.org/library/1010455/)

Aside from the distinction by waste source, in order to better understand the waste collection flows, the waste can also be broken down into materials. The most common type of CDW generated in Bodø by mass is composed of uncontaminated, lightly contaminated and heavily contaminated mass. These materials alone accounted for a combined 86% of the materials collected in 2019. As can be seen in the following graph, lightly contaminated mass is the predominant CDW, accounting for 45% of the total and showing a slightly increasing trend from 2016 to 2019, with an increase from about 40 kt to about 60 kt. However, in this same period, a significant decrease in the production of uncontaminated mass can be seen. It can also be observed that in 2019, the production of heavily contaminated mass increases considerably, quadrupling its 2016 value.

The next CDW fraction in Bodø is concrete, accounting for 5% of the total in 2019. As with mass, concrete is also collected with varying degrees of contamination. According to the waste collection company Iris, from 2019, there was a change in the regulation with regards to reusing concrete, to encourage more recycling and reuse of contaminated concrete. Nevertheless, it seems that this measure has had no effect so far, because the quantity remains constant.

Data source

Data source

The demolition of building stock contributed to 21% of the total CDW. As can be seen in the below graph, in the year 2019, 30 non-residential buildings and 5 residential buildings were demolished, which were calculated to amount to 55,942 tonnes of CDW. In summary, 32% of the collected CDW originated from construction and rehabilitation projects. The remaining 45% were imported waste and a meagre 0.5% also originated from manufacturing.

Data source

Following waste collection and the paths of materials to the right, it can be seen that the close majority of waste (49%) is exported. The other half is subjected to waste treatment locally. The two major waste treatment methods for CDW in Bodø are landfilling and incineration (energy recovery). A significant share of materials was sent to the landfill, the majority being made up of “mass”, which is basically soil, followed by bricks. Overall, it seems, however, that landfilling is on a downward trend in Bodø, when comparing it to the other years (see graph below). A smaller flow, with two important CDW fractions from the CDW, residual waste and timber, was subjected to energy recovery by the district heating plant in Bodø BE Varme AS. The residual waste, under which plastics from construction are also classified, is sorted roughly before it is ground, sieved, pressed and packaged. The timber, which also includes CCA-impregnated timber, is ground into wood chips, before being sent for energy recovery. Finally, as last waste treatment option, some of the waste is sent to recycling, however its scale is currently negligible, with only 3 tonnes of insulation being recycled every year. This value was doubled in 2021, as can be seen in the graphic below, but it still pales in comparison to the other end-of-life processes. It can be noted that for some materials different waste treatments apply, depending on their condition. For example, regarding the CDW treatment of concrete, there are three pathways. If the concrete is lightly contaminated, it is crushed, sorted, and resold and if the concrete is uncontaminated, it is resold for reuse directly to other construction sites. In the case that the concrete is heavily contaminated, it is also sent to landfill.

For the rest of the exports that are not waste materials, there should be flows from other lifecycle stages leaving the municipality, however, these are could not be allocated appropriately and therefore not be determined. They do make up significant flows however, because the total almost equals that of imports. Finally, with regards to imports and exports in Nordland, it shows that cross-boundary trade of secondary raw materials, municipal waste, and other waste materials in Nordland, between 2016 to 2020, has been increasing. As can be seen in the graph below, both imports and exports follow a similar trend, with imports being marginally lesser than exports for the most part. It could be interesting to determine the materials that are behind these amounts and if there are solutions for them to reuse them locally to avoid the trade and environmental consequences thereof.

Data source

Data quality assessment

Numerous datasets were collected and considered in the sector-wide circularity assessment. In some cases, datasets were not available for some materials or for some lifecycle stages for the studied sector. Therefore, estimations need to be done by looking at data at higher spatial scales (region or country). This section qualitatively assesses how reliable the data used is.

Data quality

Before describing data gaps and assumptions, the overall data quality is considered. It is expressed through four data quality dimensions that are depicted in the data quality matrix: reliability, completeness, temporal correlation, and spatial correlation. Each dimension has its own criteria for the ranking of high (green), medium (yellow) and low (red), which is based on this Pedigree report and shown in the table below. There can be additional explanations in some cells, as supporting information.

Data analysis

This section analyses the Sankey diagram developed in the previous section. It discusses and interprets the results for the sector-wide circularity assessment. It also reflects on how the current demonstration actions fit within the bigger picture of the sector, as well as how they could be upscaled to accelerate the transition towards a more circular sector.

References

• Norway
• Nord-Norge
• Nordland
• Population of Bodø 1986-2021 line graph
• Bodø land use map
• Distribution of activities by number of employees
• Header image: Mariusz Paździora, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons