From March 31 to April 4, 2025, the third annual workshop of the CO2NSTRUCT project took place at the Ruhr University Bochum. The aim of the project is to work out the path to greater sustainability in the construction industry and to promote the introduction of the circular economy in the construction sector - a major challenge on the way to a carbon-neutral Europe.

CO2NSTRUCT brings together experts from different fields such as energy systems modeling, life cycle analysis, value chain analysis, water management and more to create a framework that identifies the best path towards a more circular economy. The project identifies, tests and quantifies the impact of the circular economy on climate adaptation for six carbon-intensive building materials: cement, steel, brick, glass, wood and insulation. Data and modeling results will be collected from the extraction of raw materials in mines, logistics and product transformation to the construction industry, covering the entire life cycle of the materials.

The project is funded by the Horizon Europe research and innovation program under the grant number 101056862 - CO2NSTRUCT and runs from 2022 to 2026. The meeting in Bochum gave all participants the opportunity to make critical adjustments between data, model approaches and different scenarios.

CO2NSTRUCT is led by the Technical University of Denmark. The RUB team consists of members of the Chair of Engineering Hydrology and Water Resources Management (Prof.'in Dr.-Ing. Martina Flörke, Dr. Husam Sameer, Dr. Hans Dürr) and the Chair of Resource Efficient Construction (Prof.'in Dr.-Ing. Annette Hafner and Simon Slabik) and is responsible for WP5, which develops the model framework for the project. Other partners come from Portugal, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and Greece.

A special highlight of the workshop was the excursion to the Brüninghoff company in Heiden on Wednesday, April 2, 2025, where the participants were able to see how companies are positioning themselves for a sustainable future.