A Comprehensive Summary of Available Legislation and Practices in Demolition and Construction & Demolition Waste Management in the Arctic Region

The need for better natural resource use is currently increasingly recognised, and high emphasis is given to the circularity of building materials and the reduction of activities with negative environmental impact. Legislation, guidelines, and other documentation play an important role in improving demolition activities and construction and demolition waste (CDW) management. Good practices in CDW handling is not achievable without knowledge about CDW recovery techniques described in guidelines and other documents.

Demolition activities in arctic regions could be more challenging due to harsh climate conditions, and therefore the cooperation between Russia, Norway and Finland was established to boost the uptake of good practices in demolition activities and CDW management. The main subject of this article is an overview of presently used demolition practices, CDW management, and verification of areas where practices with lower environmental impact and increase of material circularity could be utilised. Two fundamental documents, namely “EU Construction & Demolition Waste Management Protocol” and “Guidelines for the waste audits before demolition and renovation works of buildings” [1, 2], were published by the European Union (EU) in 2019 and serve as a foundation for changes in demolition activities and CDW management in EU and adventitiously also in the Russian Federation and Norway.