A construction waste traceability model in France: a study headed by DÉMOCLÈS in 2019
Although the French law Against Waste and on the Circular Economy was promulgated and specifies expectations in terms of waste from a building work site, it is worthwhile looking back at how DEMOCLES participated in this work that put traceability at the heart of the debate.
The final version of the study report is available here: “ Étude préalable d’un dispositif de traçabilité des déchets de chantiers du bâtiment ”.
This study results from the participation of Démoclès, as from 2018, in works on the Circular Economy Road Map in the “recovery of construction waste” working group, chaired by Jacques Vernier.
During these works a note with proposals entitled: “Traceability, a necessary step towards better management of work site waste” was submitted by the DEMOCLES collaborative platform and resulted in the launch of this study (co-funded by the ADEME, ecosystem and USH).
This study enabled a European benchmark to be established in order to identify best practices in terms of traceability, be this for construction waste or not, as well as in other sectors other than waste.
This benchmark demonstrated that there were two types of tracking systems possible: systems that are similar to a certification system and systems that physically track streams accompanied by documents and a “third party guarantor” for this tracking.
This identified the building industry’s needs in traceability and enabled specifications to be defined on what this tracking should be like from the point of view of those requiring it and those who need to implement it.
This study revealed that only a model with physical traceability of streams, tracking notes and a third-party guarantor would be able meet stakeholder requirements.
To conclude, the study enabled a traceability process to be defined by describing the information to be tracked, the role of each stakeholder in this process and the role the “third-party guarantor” multi-stakeholder entity managing this traceability.
