Big role for management and maintenance of concrete structures: The circular economy is coming

The ambitions of the Government-wide Program "The Netherlands Circular in 2050" are high. So is the reduction in the consumption of primary raw materials, which must be halved by 2030. Whether we will achieve these ambitions, we will definitively know in 7 and 27 years. But we will make it difficult, if not impossible, for ourselves if more attention is not paid to maintenance, argues the Concrete Maintenance Platform (BOP). That's why the concrete repair industry is hosting the Southern Concrete Repair Afternoon on March 30 in which it aims to show policymakers, property owners and managers in particular how to make a greater contribution to a circular economy. "No circular economy without concrete maintenance." 

Everyone is talking about circular thinking and a circular economy. Circular construction is also on the rise. According to the BOP, the focus is then generally on designing new sustainable, adaptive and life-resistant buildings and new civil constructions with a low MKI score or even completely climate neutral. "Maintenance gets unjustifiably little attention in this," argue Anthony van den Hondel, chairman of BOP and KB knowledge center and Jelle Lecluijze, BOP board member. Lecluijze: "Everyone knows the butterfly model of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The right half describes the technical cycle that deals with constructions and consumer goods. The inner circle of this technical cycle is about renovation and maintenance. This very circle provides the most value retention and thus contributes the most to the circular economy. Despite this, maintenance is still not taken for granted and considered too much as a cost to be minimized."

Concrete occupies a special place in this story. It is the most widely used building material worldwide and also in the Netherlands. "It can have a very high lifespan," Van den Hondel explains. "The Panteon in Rome has been standing for 1,800 years and in the Netherlands much of our prosperity and wealth has also been built with concrete over the past 150 years. But the quality of concrete is mostly mediocre, so it is expected that already in the age of twenty to forty years corrosion of the reinforcement will occur while these structures should last at least a hundred years! Moreover, in the Netherlands we are facing an enormous replacement task in, for example, infrastructure and with a growing number of buildings that are nearing or have already reached the end of their technical lifespan. The question is whether this replacement task will succeed. Does the Department of Public Works have the budget to carry it out over the next decade? And how will corporations deal with the nitrogen crisis? With the upcoming carbon restrictions and the expected inconvenience of construction work, the pressure on conservation is getting bigger and bigger. I think at the moment there is too little effort to maintain buildings, artworks and other structures."

Lecluijze illustrates this with a graph plotting maintenance costs over time. "Structures made of concrete remain good for a very long time until damage occurs. In 75% of cases, this damage is caused by reinforcement corrosion, popularly called concrete rot. This is the beginning of the ascending line. In that ascending line of increasing damage is the point where action is taken, usually too late and forced because it becomes too dangerous, for example. Timely maintenance would have limited or even prevented the damage. Preventive maintenance would have moved the entire line to the right. That means longer life and less use of scarce resources. What we still see too often is that damage is observed, that is still low on the upward curve, but then people say: leave it as it is, it can last a while longer. Certainly if it poses little risk, people do nothing about it."

According to Van den Hondel, maintenance is too little part of the system. "Take the Concrete Agreement, which focuses almost entirely on new construction. Then it is mainly about the composition of concrete mixtures, slimmer profiles in the supporting structure or demountable construction, but not about the positive environmental effect of the structures that are already there. That's the CO2 we've already spent once. Look, sometimes erecting a new building makes more sense, for example if it is much more energy efficient in use. But judged purely by the material, leaving it standing and maintaining it well is always better. What bothers me is that in all sustainability calculations for new buildings, you get a smaller footprint through a slightly slimmer construction, but a slightly heavier construction that lasts twice as long results in a points deduction. Conservation is not in the system; you are not compensated for it. But what you don't emit, now or in the future, is real savings that you have to make visible."   

The BOP wants the greater focus on maintenance to land property managers as well. "Annually, more billions go into maintenance than into new construction," Van den Hondel continues. "In the profitability mindset of developers, however, maintenance often still plays a secondary role. You put something up and after 50 years, or even earlier, you demolish it again. Economically it has then already proven its worth to the owner. This is no longer tenable for a number of reasons. First, the cost of CO2 is very low now, but it is going to rise significantly in the foreseeable future. Then short-term strategies of demolition and new construction will suddenly become unprofitable and sensible maintenance will become much more attractive. Second, we have to deal with an increasing scarcity of resources and materials. We want to build some 900,000 homes in the Netherlands by 2030. We're already not going to achieve that. So why should corporations demolish tens of thousands of homes for replacement new construction? That will be on top of that. I would say: renovate as much as possible, that way you are working in a circular way as far as the construction is concerned, and perhaps you should be more creative with functionality - often a reason for demolition. Third, with the current replacement rate, homes should not last a hundred years but should be stretched to even 150 years. That means: longer and better maintenance. And not the old form of maintenance, which mainly consists of putting out fires and solving emergencies, but more attention to preventive and predictive maintenance. That saves enormously in costs." 

With small things, oddly enough, things are often different, Lecluijze compares. "If the engine failure light in the car comes on, we drive to the garage right away, otherwise you might drive the engine into soup. Wooden window frames we have painted every five years, otherwise they rot out at some point. But this logical way of thinking does not seem to apply to buildings and works of art. There is relatively little budget for maintenance, while for all objects it is true that everything can be maintained and that small, timely investments prevent large expenses in the future."

With the 2030 and 2050 deadlines looming, we must change course. Van den Hondel: "We have to move from the linear economy to a circular economy. The price for CO2 that we will soon be paying is going to provide the compulsion for this. By extending the lifespan of structures, we can make a substantial contribution to these tasks. As a collective, the BOP has the knowledge to realize this and we want to spread the word. That is why we have focused the program of our upcoming Concrete Repair Afternoon on building managers and other future makers, as Daan Fousert calls them. Before the break, the program consists of society-wide stories about climate and leadership: how can we deal with the Climate Agreement? After the break, listeners are treated to success stories from the field. These include, for example, the high-quality reuse of the concrete girders of a viaduct in a new viaduct, a complex case of housing corporation Bo-Ex that reused materials from old flats, Vestia that cleverly managed to extend the lifespan of thirteen residential blocks, and a project at Chemelot where, on the basis of research by TNO, the lifespan of sixty-year-old industrial columns was extended by at least 25 years. Great examples from which policy makers, decision makers, executives, property owners and developers can learn a lot."   

BOP
In the Concrete Maintenance Platform, or BOP for short, four industry associations work together. They have one mission: together to be the best in the field of concrete repair and let the market benefit from it. The industry parties are: the Association of Certified Concrete Repair Companies (VBR), the Association of Advisors in the Field of Concrete Maintenance and Repair (VABOR), the Association of Suppliers of Concrete Repair and Protective Products (VLB) and KB Knowledge Center (experts in the field of cathodic protection).

Thursday, March 30, 2023 at the LocHal in Tilburg 

12:00 p.m. Reception with sandwiches 
12:45 p.m. Welcome 

PART I

Climate agreement and leadership future

1 p.m. Gerard van der Steenhoven (University of Twente and former KNMI chief director): The climate is changing; now what? "Why are we sure that climate change is caused by increased greenhouse gas emissions, what are the consequences and how is the climate expected to evolve over the next hundred years? In addition to answers to these questions, there is also a focus on ways to mitigate the consequences and - better yet - eliminate the cause of climate change."

1:45 p.m. Daan Fousert (author and change professional): How to deal as a leader with the Climate Agreement, and how Ecologically Intelligent are you as a futurist? "A change is needed in leadership and in our thinking. An awareness of what Ecological Intelligence means and what impact it has on all aspects of ecology. How wonderful it would be if this industry becomes leading in understanding that repair and reuse is the way to an ecological economy, where sustainability, nature and culture are the basis of innovative designs and circularity is linked to principles from biomimicry."

2:30 p.m. Break

(Networking, interaction sustainable projects and products from booths with snacks and drinks.

PART II 

Practical concrete maintenance

3:15 p.m. outcomes footprint

3:30 p.m. Wouter van den Berg (Nebest Advisory Group): Reuse of existing bridges and viaducts. "What developments are taking place in the field of circularity and specifically reuse? What opportunities does this offer for the concrete maintenance sector? Closing the Loop is a consortium whose goal is to close the circle for high-quality reuse. In order to determine the reusability of existing object parts of structures such as viaducts and bridges, the reusability scan was developed."

3:50 p.m. Martijn Broekman (Bo-Ex Housing Corporation): High-level reuse. "In the new building plan for the Ivoordreef, the choice was made to reuse materials from the old flat instead of using new materials that cost a lot of CO2. A unique collaboration between Bo-Ex and the Municipality of Utrecht."

4:10 pm Pascal van Montfort (Royal HaskoningDHV) and Joep Lemmens (Sitech): Why does it have to be different from what we've always done? "On the Chemelot site there are 3,500 old columns of concrete, which support the vital network of product and utility lines. Proper maintenance is needed on these 'aging assets' to ensure an undisturbed and integer location of pipes and cables for the next 25 years. Together with TNO, a plan has been developed to carry this out safely and at the most optimal cost."

4:30 p.m. Eric Parel (Hof Wonen, formerly Vestia) and Chris Uittenbogaard (BOP): Flat saved from demolition by repair and maintenance plan balconies. "The 328 balconies of a total of 13 residential blocks in Delft's Industriewijk were in poor condition. Owner Vestia was looking for ways to preserve the balconies, and thus in effect the homes. Through inventive solutions for the various defects, we succeeded in extending the lifespan."

5:00 - 6:00 p.m. Networking and closing with snacks and drinks

Location: 

LocHal, Burgemeester Brokxlaan 1000, 5041 SG Tilburg

For tickets: email [email protected] or call Angelique Nagtegaal at 0642316931. For more information, visit www.betononderhoudsplatform.nl