Educational needs in deconstruction and reuse of precast concrete elements

The ReCreate project researches reusing precast concrete elements, not originally designed for disassembly, through real-life deconstruction and reuse pilots in four European countries. The current report sheds light on the main learning issues that emerged from the project’s deconstruction pilots.

The transition to the circular economy will need new skills: either reconfiguration of existing skills, or fully new skills (and jobs). The European Union has emphasised the importance of the construction sector in the Green Transition. The current report is based on empirical material from ReCreate’s deconstruction pilots. It takes a look at the skills needs in the circular construction sector for the most relevant actors. In ReCreate, very few completely new skills have been identified. Most skills needed in the pilots have been reconfigured skills. These are skills that can be found in the linear economy but can be reconfigured for circular work processes. This is good news from the viewpoint of the Green Transition because it enables existing and future construction sector employees to work in the circular construction economy with their current skills. This may also bring new kind of people into the sector, including women, as the goal of the work has changed; the creation of new meaningful work is important for e.g. Millennials. However, there are certain skills that must be developed further, which may also bring new people in the sector and create new jobs. Prime among these are data management, environmental impact assessment and Building Information Modelling based skills in relation to material passports/digitalisation for deconstruction planners, authorities, structural engineers, and architects.

One overarching (transversal, i.e. generally applicable) skill need relates to communication and knowledge. The success of circular processes lies in knowledge and information sharing. ReCreate’s pilots have shown that information (about materials, processes, etc.) may have to be shared between actors at a very early stage because acts at one stage may affect later stages. This kind of ‘path dependency’ of materials and information requires a kind of ‘forward and backward thinking’ that may be new to project management, as actors may have to consider what information may be needed at a certain stage. It can be aided by knowledge of the requirements of public authorities, too. Assessment criteria and permit processes change and may require new information about materials and processes. As these criteria are to some extent in flux and certainly not settled, it is useful if the project manager has access to experts in public policy. A previous ReCreate report (Halonen et al., 2024) provides a broad overview for ReCreate pilot countries to aid this part of project management.

The current report concludes with recommendations for educational institutions. Most of them should be valid for circular work in any complicated value chain. The main recommendations are to increase collaboration projects between universities, universities of applied sciences, and vocational education institutions (aimed at transversal skills), and to integrate engineering and architecture studies to a greater extent with public administration courses and vice versa (aimed at technical skills).