W/E CONSULTANTS FIRST PARTNER OF MADASTER
Netherlands, Utrecht – 11 April – Today, W/E consultants signed an agreement with Madaster Services as its very first partner — thus, contributing to Madaster’s development. Madaster is an independent public platform for generating ‘material passports’ with the ultimate aim of eliminating waste, on a global level. Madaster can be used by private citizens, companies and government administrations, and is being developed by Madaster Services, under supervision of the Madaster Foundation.
Madaster was founded to promote the reuse of materials and to invest in smart designs, promoting circularity and eliminating waste. Madaster operates as an online library in which materials as well as whole buildings are documented, in a way that is similar to how land and land ownership are registered at land registry offices. All types of building owners may use Madaster to generate a material passport for their buildings.
‘Madaster’s material passports contain large amounts of information about the quality and origins of materials and their current location. This makes it much easier to reuse materials in cases of renovation and to recover them in cases of demolition. Buildings are turned into registered ‘storage locations’ of the materials within them. Collaboration with relevant parties, such as W/E consultants, enables us to offer the Madaster platform users the services and functionalities that will strengthen circular business models. Users may, for example, approach W/E consultants for environmental performance (MPG) calculations that are based on Madaster data, to indicate the environmental burden of the materials applied in a building — something that is an important measure of sustainability. The lower the MPG, the more sustainable the use of materials.’ Martijn Oostenrijk, Director-General of Madaster Services
‘The MPG is an important step towards the effects of resource use in the construction sector being accepted as a serious criterion. Fortunately, the value of the MPG goes beyond that of compulsory regulation. The MPG and associated national environmental database (NMD) are also included in the government’s transition agenda for a circular economy in construction (Transitieagenda Circulaire Bouweconomie), as building blocks towards achieving a circular economy by 2050. And this is a logical link to Madaster, which is an initiative intended to make a true contribution to circularity in the built environment.’ John Mak, Director-General of W/E consultants