C-MAF: Financing circular materials differently

Alternative financing models for circular building materials

JUUNOO creates partition walls that can be endlessly installed and reinstalled: a beautiful circular product. Yet, in large construction projects, too few circular solutions are still being chosen. Such products are newer and often more expensive to purchase, while tenders tend to focus on the initial investment (not on residual value) and the ease of copying existing methods.

To make circular building materials more competitive in large public and private projects, we looked for alternative financing models to the traditional sales model. In doing so, we hope to lower the investment threshold for the construction sector.

Specifically, in this project we financially and legally analyzed buy-back, leasing, and rental as potential alternative financing models. We further developed the buy-back-with-discount model and the leasing model with a numerical example. We held discussions with contractors, manufacturers, architects, and other materials producers to gather insights from all perspectives. Both models appear to offer many advantages (but also raise concerns).

To make the choice of financing model more transparent, we also designed a Circular Value Index (CVI).

The legal foundation was elaborated in an academic publication that links this new way of thinking to various legal domains.