New ISO 59000 standard family: A global integrated framework to guide the transition to CE

Our guest speaker for the December 2024 Lunchtime Webinar was Prof. Mohamed Osmani, Professor of Sustainable Design and Construction in the School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering at Loughborough University and co-director of the UKRI Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centre for Mineral-based Construction Materials, leading challenge 3, looking at systemic enablers to circular construction materials. 

He has over 20 years’ experience in material resource efficiency, designing out waste, and construction and demolition waste recovery and optimization. He is currently leading two EU projects on ‘Circular Economy Business Models’ and ‘Circular Building Materials’ respectively. He sits on the UK Government Green Construction Board Task Group that developed The Routemap for Zero Avoidable Waste in Construction to achieve the UK Government’s Resources and Waste Strategy target ‘to eliminate avoidable waste of all kinds by 2050’ in England.

He is the Committee Chair of BS 8885 Series on Designing for material efficiency in building projects. He is a Member of the British Standards Institute (BSI) CED/1 Committee, which is responsible for standardization in the field of circular economy, including providing the UK input to ISO Technical Committee 323 'Circular Economy’ that developed ISO 59000 standard family.

His presentation outlines the structure and content of the recently published ISO 59000 family of Circular Economy (CE) standards. These focus on the standardisation of CE principles, implementation, and measurement. A viable CE can only be achieved through global collaboration and standards, which ISO 59000 series epitomised. These complementary international standards, which align with the UN's Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, provide a harmonised CE implementation and assessment framework for organisations globally to drive the transition to sustainable and circularity practices.