Rebecka Lundgren defends her doctoral thesis with the title Adaptive Reuse and Shared Spaces as Circular Business Models

The real estate and construction sector is a major contributor to climate change, however, there is a substantial reduction potential. Circular economy has strong links to sustainable development, although focus has been on economic and environmental dimensions, neglecting the social dimension. Additionally, the uptake of circular economy business models is slow and fragmented in the built environment industries which could be caused by a lack of knowledge of impacts and benefits. Combining the circular business models of adaptive reuse and shared spaces could present the opportunity to significantly contribute to sustainable development. Adaptive reuse saves a large amount of material, energy, and consequent carbon emissions. Adaptive reuse already contributes to a positive social impact, however when including shared spaces this is further increased. The addition of shared spaces also allows more value to be captured by the developer. Thus, adaptive reuse and shared spaces is a way of combining two circular economy business models in the built environment context to deliver sustainability across all three dimensions. Further, existing frameworks can be employed to characterise and conceptualise circular economy business models, and life cycle assessments can with favour be carried out to assess the environmental, economic, and social impact to increase the knowledge of impacts and benefits.

Faculty opponent is Associate Professor Tove Malmqvist, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

Grading committee

• Associate Professor Marwa Dabaieh, Malmö University
• Associate Professor Mina di Marino, Norwegian University of Life Sciences
• Senior Expert, Docent Suvi Nenonen, University of Helsinki

Associate Professor Stefan Larsson, LTH will chair the session. Warmly welcome!

Link to thesis