Minister Hugo de Jonge (Public Housing and Spatial Planning) wants to reach agreements with parties in the construction sector about setting up new supply chains for bio-based and circular construction. These agreements must be recorded in a so-called Building Materials Agreement.
“The use of more bio-based and secondary materials, more sustainable concrete or other construction materials such as more sustainable steel, glass and ceramics, should lead to a significant reduction in environmental pressure during the new construction and renovation of buildings,” De Jonge wrote in his letter to Parliament of 9 June on the structural scaling up of (re)construction capacity.
Incentives
According to the minister, the Building Materials Agreement must set long-term goals for circular construction, which the market needs. He wants to make sector-wide agreements on this and also encourage the upscaling of biobased and circular building materials through several tracks, such as:
- encouraging the production and application of biobased insulation and panel material (made from, for example, hemp, flax and elephant grass);
- increasing various subsidies from 2024 for insulation materials with a (very) good environmental performance;
- the use of resources already reserved in the spring memorandum for setting up innovative production lines by the processing industry, for the formation of chains of farmers, processors and builders, and for creating additional biobased product cards for the National Environmental Database.
Purchasing policy
“Setting up the chains is important because farmers, processors and builders will only invest in bio-based materials if there is certainty about supply, quality and price in the longer term,” said the minister. The cabinet also wants to encourage reuse and recyclate in building materials through Government Purchasing. This process runs until 2023 and provides an impetus to the market through the exemplary role and purchasing power of the government with circular purchasing and tendering.”
Read the full letter to Parliament on the government website.
Source: Agro-Chemie.nl
