Short abstract:

Using academic research and development of a material flow simulation for urban planning as a case study, I examine how the two objectives of assetizing building materials and regulating carbon emissions produced by the construction industry are being jointly pursued through data practices.

Long abstract:

Proponents of digital urban planning simulations believe that understanding the material flows in and out of the city—as buildings are constructed and demolished—will stimulate sustainable urban planning and green economic growth. Researchers studying material flows and the waste economy expect that monitoring the locations and quantities of different building materials will contribute to the circular economy: through this monitoring, so the idea, one can build an accounting system that allows the assetization of buildings beyond their value on the housing market. This trend is emphasized by the discursive redefinition of buildings as “material banks”.

Studying academic research and development of a material flow simulation for urban planning, I examine how the two parallel promises of spurring economic growth and regulating carbon emissions produced by the construction industry are being connected through data practices. Concretely, I look into the proposed transition from submitting images of architectural plans to building inspection, to machine-readable materials data in the shape of XML files—and the promise of integrating materials’ life cycle data into these.

I explore what enmeshing these two mechanisms—accounting for material flows for the circular reuse of building materials and monitoring CO2 emissions produced during the life cycles of building materials—enacts. I hope to unveil hidden articulations of climate action in planning research practices by examining how mechanisms to regulate CO2 emissions are being smuggled into public construction files amongst promises of data driven assetization.