FISSAC

On 9^th October 2019 ACCIONA and Fundación Agustín de Betancourt organized this second Living Lab in Madrid. The event was held in a room, recently enabled by the Craft Caminos organization, within the Higher Technical School of Civil Engineers in Madrid.

  

The main objective of this Living Lab was to explore with the academic community the needs and challenges to face the future and train professionals specialized in circular economy and industrial symbiosis in construction.

One of the challenges is to ensure that professionals who join the sector have the necessary skills to maintain and promote this type of symbiosis, which encourages the exchange of information and development of new value propositions. The education system faces the need to respond to these new professional needs, to ensure that the professionals of tomorrow are trained at the university to meet the challenges that organizations are already facing.

   

First, FISSAC project was presented by ACCIONA and Fundación Agustín de Betancourt. The conceptual framework, Circular Economy, Industrial Symbiosis and Living Lab concepts were explained. Some examples of the innovative construction products were shown as well as the last case studies and real scale demonstrators carried out in the Project. Then, Ismael Pantaleón (Ideas Infinitas) briefly described the principles of Systems Thinking, as a fundamental tool to have a holistic approach to the challenge to address. This process was complemented with group dynamics, which allowed the concept to be internalized and it created a climate of participation and co-creation. A concept map was prepared to serve as a tool for reflection and to initiate the dialogue and the exploration of alternatives among the Living Lab participants which included students and teachers of the Faculty of Civil Engineers, ex-students and current workers in sector companies. The purpose of the causal diagram was to make assumptions and models visible in the construction sector, identify which are the interdependence between the different agents involved in it and the main forces that facilitate or prevent change.

The participants, in a playful way, worked in groups to analyze the factors that more influence have to boost the Circular Economy in the Construction sector. At the end of the session, each group presented a prototype of ideas or actions to carry out and that would help to meet the educational needs of the University to train specialists in circular economy in the construction of tomorrow.

      

The Living Lab organizers, ACCIONA and Fundación Agustín de Betancourt, especially thank Craft Caminos (Daniel, Martín and José Luis) and the Directorate of the School of Civil Engineers for their dedication and participation and for facilitating the organization of the event in their facilities.