Moving Together Toward a Circular Construction Hub in Munich
How can circular construction work at the urban scale?
This question was at the heart of the 3rd stakeholder workshop of the EU project CirCoFin, held in Munich in November 2025. Representatives from the construction industry, public administration, research and innovation came together to shape the next steps toward a Circular Construction Hub (CCH) for Munich – an infrastructure designed to enable reuse, establish functioning circular value chains and creates new markets for secondary building materials.
The workshop built on the current project progress, including first insights from material analyses, site assessments and the development of a viable business model. It quickly became clear that the challenge goes beyond individual solutions: a Circular Construction Hub needs to function as an integrated system. It combines physical and digital marketplaces, logistics, quality assurance and services into one coherent ecosystem for reusable construction materials.
The real value emerged through collaboration. In interdisciplinary group sessions, participants brought in their expertise and perspectives, working along key questions:
Which services can be economically viable?
Which materials offer the greatest potential for circular use?
What does a suitable site and operational setup need to look like in practice?
The discussions highlighted how closely these aspects are interconnected, and how essential cross-sector collaboration is to make circular construction work.
Among the key outcomes, a key shared vision was shared among workshop participants: Munich’s future circular construction hub is envisioned as a central hub for materials, knowledge and stakeholders across the entire building lifecycle. At the same time, concrete key elements became more tangible – from digital marketplaces and logistics solutions to quality assurance and refurbishment services. Step by step, the idea of a functioning city-level secondary market for construction components takes shape.
At the same time, the workshop also made challenges visible. In particular, participants discussed the tension between economic viability and the need for early-stage risk-taking. Questions around material flows, operational feasibility and regulatory frameworks remain critical to scaling circular solutions in the construction sector.
The outcomes of the workshop will now directly feed into the next project phases, which ranges from refining the use case and business model to developing a feasibility study until June 2026.
The path toward a CCH is iterative by design. But one thing is clear: the foundation must be built collaboratively.
Credit: Landeshauptstadt München
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