To create synergies between the FISSAC H2024 and the TRIS Interreg Europe projects, Geonardo Ltd. and the Herman Ottó Institute Nonprofit Ltd. jointly launched a forum series to improve achieving the efficiency of resource efficiency in the domestic construction industry. The first symposium was held on 13 April 2018 in the frame of the CONSTRUMA International Exhibition and Fair that is the largest annual event for the sector in Hungary.

In the first event of the forum series launched by Geonardo and Herman Ottó Institute, a dialogue was started between the construction and demolition operators, legal regulators, and academics in order to better understand and address the complex challenges facing these sectors as well as to facilitate generating responses through common thinking. Several current examples and good practices were explored to show how resource efficiency can be promoted in the domestic construction industry.

András Béres, Deputy Managing Director of Herman Ottó Institute, emphasized the importance of a circular economy. Katalin Balázs, senior project manager of the FISSAC project from Geonardo highlighted the opportunities offered by the forum series and invited the participants to actively engage and contribute. The role of best practices in moving towards circular economy were discussed in the presentations of the FISSAC, TRIS, and SYMBI projects that are currently running in Hungary in this topic.

László Skultéti, Head of Department of the Department of Waste Management of the Ministry of Agriculture, presented the compulsory recovery targets for construction and demolition waste. He argued that Hungary is performing well in this regard, with a recovery rate of 65.2 percent in 2016 (63.7 percent in 2015), but of course further improvement is still needed. In his presentation, he emphasized the need for a change in attitudes. The Ministry of Agriculture is working on the draft government decree that provides the legislative background for the activities related to the prevention of construction-demolition waste generation and activities related to the materials generated during the constructions.

István Asztalos, member of the board, office manager, CeMBeton: Hungarian Cement Concrete and Lime Association, presented the protocol for the management of construction-demolition waste based on the expectations of the European Union. He underlined the European Commission’s Construction and Demolition Waste Protocol, which he strongly recommends to be translated into Hungarian and disseminated among Hungarian stakeholders. The document is based on independent research that does not contain binding guidelines. It is part of the building industry’s 2024 strategy and the circular economy package. Its purpose is to strengthen confidence in the quality of recycled materials.

Gyula Pekár is an external expert of ÉMI Nonprofit Ltd. gave a presentation on the experiences of the certification of products from the recycling of construction-demolition wastes. He presented the technical possibilities for (re)utilization of construction-demolition wastes and transformation, preparation process of demolition materials.

The presentations are available in Hungarian (see conference programme):