One Brussels-based startup is looking to tackle pollution caused by the construction sector one brick at a time. The innovative method transforms excavated soil into circular building materials to lower its price.
On the global scale, urbanisation contributes the equivalent of one surface of new buildings the size of Paris every day. From the construction to the operation of buildings (heating, cooling and lighting), emissions from these structures account for almost 40% of the total global output, highlighting the need to make the sector more sustainable.
The Belgian capital is becoming a global pioneer on this front with Brussels-based BC (short for Brussels Cooperation) Materials pioneering new techniques.
Upcycling waste
In Belgium, about 37 million tonnes of excavated earth goes unused each year. But a new project called Léém transforms this into building materials, greatly reducing waste and removing the need for a large amount of polluting and CO2-intensive building materials.
While a traditional brick or concrete block has a CO2 cost of 77-170 kg per square metre, a Léém brick emits just 3–10kg. It composed of 80% secondary raw materials; in traditional building materials this is just 0-10%. The bricks also help improve the air quality and the acoustics of buildings.
Credit: BC materials
Despite the environmental savings, construction companies are often put off by the higher price and slower production of circular building materials. To overcome these challenges, BC materials collaborates with industrial players to cut prices for the compressed earth blocks by 39%.
"Léém collaborates with industrial partners to revalorise 'waste' – like excavated earth – into plasters, paints, blocks, etc. In this way, we can make circular materials as accessible as possible," BC Materials' CEO Ken De Coom told The Brussels Times.
The company has also stepped up production hugely, from 1,000 blocks per day to 80,000 blocks per day. It hopes this will see more projects adopt circular building materials.
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De Coom added that Brussels' attitude towards sustainable architecture helped birth the idea. "We don’t think there’s another city – with its amazing architectural diversity and polyvalent spaces – where we could have started this whole project."
"It's no coincidence that architects all over the world visit us – from Copenhagen to Cambridge and from Canberra to L.A. – talking about Brussels as a 'Mecca of re-use and circularity'."
