Digital material passports could transform the way the construction industry manages waste and reuse. Heather Evans, national head of sustainability at RLB, explains why we need them, some of the challenges of incorporating them and the need for standardisation
Those of us working in the built environment know that our industry is responsible for 40% of global carbon emissions, primarily through the embodied carbon in building materials.
To meet sustainability targets and reduce environmental impact, the industry must embrace practices that promote circularity and resource efficiency.
One way we can do just this is through the adoption of material passports, a digital solution that could transform the way we manage materials in construction, helping to reduce waste and improve material reuse.
What are material passports?
A material passport is a comprehensive digital record that contains information about materials, products and components used in buildings. The material passport will be accessible through an online platform and these records will provide detailed data on material types, quantities, embodied carbon, environmental impact, health and safety certifications and reuse potential.
Much like a travel passport tracks a person’s journey, a material passport records the lifecycle of materials, from their procurement and use to their potential for reuse or recycling.
Material passports can be applied at different scales, ranging from individual materials and products to entire buildings, and support lifecycle thinking, enabling the creation of material banks.
These online platforms store recovered building materials for reuse, overall promoting the circular economy by facilitating material exchanges and reducing the need for new raw materials.
Benefits of material passports
Data transparency and access: Material passports will consolidate scattered data, providing easy access to essential information about materials throughout a building’s lifecycle. This includes data such as embodied carbon, certifications and reuse potential.
By offering real-time, accessible information, material passports help a wide range of stakeholder from developers, contractors and suppliers to make informed decisions that support sustainability goals.
Facilitating material reuse: In demolition and retrofitting projects, one of the primary challenges is identifying materials that can be reused. Material passports address this by maintaining up-to-date records of all materials used in a building.
This detailed information supports material recovery efforts, ensuring that valuable resources are reused rather than discarded. Material passports also enable better due diligence by providing detailed material histories, making it easier to transfer materials to secondary markets.
Preserving material value: Documenting the quality, certifications and reuse potential of materials in a material passport helps preserve their value after the building’s lifecycle ends. This ensures that reclaimed materials retain or even increase in value, making them more appealing to contractors and designers who aim to lower the embodied carbon in new construction projects.
As demand for sustainable materials grows, material passports make reclaimed resources more accessible and valuable.
Reducing waste and environmental impact: The construction industry generates significant waste. Material passports help reduce this waste by enabling better planning for material recovery during demolition or redevelopment.
By tracking materials throughout their lifecycle, these passports make it easier to divert materials from landfills, supporting efforts to reduce the industry’s environmental footprint.
Encouraging sustainable manufacturing: As material passports become industry best practice and work towards increasing transparency between clients and developers, manufacturers will be incentivised to produce materials that align with circular economy principles.
Materials designed with longer lifecycles, greater durability and recyclability will be favoured, creating a systemic shift in manufacturing toward sustainability.
Challenges and considerations
Despite their potential, material passports face challenges that prevent widespread adoption. A lack of standardisation in the creation and management of material passports has led to inconsistency in the data collected.
Manufacturers need to adopt the use of standardised product data templates (PDTs); there are standards such as ISO 23387, which have been developed for this reason.
This doesn’t just help with material passports but allows designers and procurers to compare products for specs and cost and improves data interoperability between manufacturers databases and the data that represents built assets (information models).
Ownership of the data and access rights remain unresolved, as well as collaboration between different platforms. To overcome these barriers, collaboration among developers, contractors, manufacturers and technology providers is essential.
Material passports are a powerful tool in the construction industry’s push toward sustainability. By enabling data transparency, facilitating material reuse, preserving material value and reducing waste, they help to advance the circular economy in construction.
Digital Product Passports (DPPs) play a key role in advancing the ability of the industry to improve data. DDPs have the regulatory framework backing, due to enabling trade with the EU.
With DPPs, there is the need for persistent unique identifiers such as a barcodes/QR codes, which should provide better data ownership and access rights. Ensuring correct product
data is key, contributing to the overall digital landscape in the built environment.
However, to fully unlock the potential of material passports and digital product passports, the industry must work together to establish standardised frameworks, improve data integration and overcome challenges in passport ownership.
