On 27 January, Circular Reno partners and stakeholders from across North-West Europe gathered online for a policy workshop dedicated to one of the most pressing challenges in the transition to a low-carbon built environment: how regulation and certification can better enable circular, biobased renovation.
Organised by the project partner Building Balance as part of the INTERREG NWE Circular Reno project, the workshop brought together policymakers, industry experts, and project partners to discuss policy guidelines on embedded carbon and the certification of innovative biobased materials.
Why this workshop mattered
Biobased construction materials are no longer experimental. They are safe, reliable, scientifically validated, and ready for large-scale deployment. Yet, across Europe, their uptake remains constrained by fragmented regulation, inconsistent carbon accounting methodologies, and certification systems that struggle to keep pace with innovation.
The workshop aimed to:
Raise awareness of regulatory barriers and opportunities for biobased construction
Influence national and regional authorities to adopt improved whole-life carbon (WLC) methodologies
Build a cross-border coalition of policymakers aligned on circular renovation
Ultimately, the goal was clear: unlock climate, economic and regional development benefits by making regulation work for circularity, not against it.
From energy performance to embedded carbon
The session opened with a presentation by Sacha Brons (Building Balance) on embedded carbon regulation. Drawing from Circular Reno’s policy analysis, he outlined how EU and national policies are slowly shifting focus from operational energy to whole-life carbon emissions, including emissions from material production, installation, and end-of-life.
Key EU frameworks such as:
the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD-IV),
the Construction Products Regulation (CPR), and
the Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming Regulation (CRCF)
offer a strong foundation. However, their implementation remains uneven across Member States.
The presentation highlighted a core issue: current methodologies often fail to properly recognise biogenic carbon storage and realistic end-of-life scenarios for biobased materials, creating an uneven playing field compared to conventional construction products.
Certification: enabling innovation instead of blocking it
In the second presentation, Sander Rutten focused on certification challenges for innovative and biobased building materials. While certification is essential for safety and market trust, today’s systems can be slow, costly, and poorly adapted to circular and bio-based innovation, particularly for SMEs and regional producers.
Circular Reno’s policy recommendations call for:
streamlined and harmonised certification pathways,
better alignment of national databases,
improved access to Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), and
regulatory clarity that supports innovation rather than penalising it.
The message was clear: certification should enable market access, not delay climate action.
National perspectives: one challenge, different realities
A core strength of the workshop was the country-specific breakout discussions, bringing together stakeholders from France, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Each group explored which policy measures could have the highest short-term impact (within 12–24 months), where current bottlenecks lie, and who needs to act.
Key national narratives emerged:
Netherlands: alignment with circularity goals, nitrogen reduction, and agricultural transition agendas
Germany: performance-based regulation, fire-safety innovation, and support for Mittelstand manufacturers
France: alignment with RE2020, dynamic carbon weighting, and regional development of biobased material
Ireland: accelerating housing delivery while meeting national climate targets and supporting regional economies
Despite different starting points, participants identified common challenges: lack of harmonised data, unclear end-of-life assumptions, administrative burden for SMEs, and slow regulatory feedback loops.
From dialogue to action
The plenary discussion highlighted strong alignment across countries on the need for:
whole-life carbon methodologies that fairly value biogenic carbon storage,
clearer and more predictable regulatory frameworks,
cross-border cooperation on certification and data harmonisation.
Circular Reno will build on this input through follow-up stakeholder engagement in the coming months, including a questionnaire to track real-world implementation progress and policy uptake.
Success will be measured not only in discussions held, but in concrete outcomes: policy references, regulatory updates, improved market access for biobased materials, and stronger alignment between climate, housing, and agricultural objectives.
A shared conclusion
Circular renovation is not held back by technology. It is held back by rules designed for yesterday’s materials.
Workshops like this demonstrate that with targeted, pragmatic regulatory adjustments, biobased construction can simultaneously support climate goals, regional economies, farmers, industry and housing providers.
Circular Reno will continue working with policymakers at regional, national and EU level to turn these insights into action. Next steps are coming beginning of spring! here...