And that blind spot is becoming a European problem — not only for sustainability, but for resilience and long-term competitiveness.
With the built environment responsible for nearly 40% of global CO₂ emissions, Europe cannot meet its climate ambitions or protect scarce resources without making materials visible and reusable at scale.
This week, Madaster launched a new public investment campaign to accelerate the shift toward a transparent and circular built environment — and invites industry professionals, partners, and citizens to help build the digital backbone that makes circular construction possible.
“Europe is investing billions in renovation, housing and infrastructure, but we still don’t have a clear view of what we’ve already built,” says Martijn Oostenrijk, CEO of Madaster. “The built environment is Europe’s biggest material bank, yet we keep demolishing value because we can’t see it. If we want circular construction to become the standard, we need transparency at scale. This campaign is about building that future together — by the crowd, for the crowd.”
A moment Europe can’t afford to ignore
From housing shortages to infrastructure renewal, Europe is building and renovating at an unprecedented scale. At the same time, critical materials are becoming more expensive, supply chains are under pressure, and industries are forced to rethink dependency on virgin resources.
Yet valuable building materials are still treated as waste — not because reuse isn’t possible, but because the data that enables reuse is missing.
Without reliable material intelligence:
- reuse remains slow and small-scale
- embodied carbon reductions remain guesswork
- renovation becomes more wasteful than it needs to be
- Europe continues to lose valuable resources already inside its cities
From demolition to value preservation
Buildings are not disposable products. They are long-life shared assets that shape our cities for decades.
Madaster makes buildings and infrastructure visible by creating material passports: structured insights into what an asset contains, what impact it has, and what value can be retained through reuse and smarter choices.
Not another tool — a system change
The construction sector doesn’t need more reports, more PDFs, or more disconnected datasets.
It needs a shared foundation: reliable material intelligence that can travel with an asset across its entire lifecycle, from design to renovation and reuse.
Madaster’s mission is to give every material in the built environment a digital identity.
The public investment campaign will accelerate product development, expand international growth, and strengthen the ecosystem required to make circular construction the standard across Europe.
Join the campaign
Madaster invites asset owners, developers, contractors, architects, suppliers, policymakers, investors — and everyone who believes Europe can build differently — to join the campaign.
Campaign information is available at: https://europe.republic.com/madaster/
About Madaster
Madaster is the platform for construction material intelligence, enabling transparency in the through material passports for buildings and infrastructure. Madaster helps organizations understand what assets are made of, measure environmental impact, reduce waste, and unlock circular value through reuse and smarter decision-making. Madaster operates across Europe and supports a growing network of asset owners, developers, architects, contractors, suppliers and public institutions working toward a circular economy.
For campaign information:
Martijn Oostenrijk, CEO Madaster
Email: invest@madaster.com
For media enquiries:
Jessica Al, Head of Marketing
Email: jessica.al@madaster.com
