Creating materials passports with Madaster

We will now operate as a Madaster Max partner in Belgium with the aim to lead the push for more circular construction projects. We were already one of Madaster’s first clients when we launched its materials passport in the Netherlands in 2017 via funding of the Redevco Foundation. In that same year, our Belgian shopping centre The Leaf in Ternat scored 58% on the Madaster Circularity Index – a measurement that reflects whether the building materials can be recycled. This was quite an impressive score for a retail building back then.

Nele Schelfhout, Head of Project Management at Redevco Belgium: “Redevco aims to be a leader in the field of circularity in all our projects. That was why we already contacted Madaster back in 2017 to create a materials passport for The Leaf, our 28,000 m2 retail park. By documenting the building products used and registering the passport on a public platform, we created the possibility to re-use the materials later as well as measure the financial value of a circular property. We are keen to share our experience with other companies in the construction sector, to collectively promote circularity within our industry. The Leaf serves as a benchmark to increase the circularity potential of our future projects.”

Madaster is the online registry for materials and products. In Madaster, data is recorded on all materials and products that are incorporated in a real estate or infrastructure object, such as buildings and bridges. Registering every component provides insight, for example, into the degree to which an object can be dismantled, its embodied carbon, or the toxicity of the materials and products used. It also enables determining whether materials and products can be reused after disassembly. Building in such a circular way means that we are drastically reducing the amount of waste and CO2 emissions and are taking better care of our planet.