How Circular Biomass Can Create New Value for Construction
What happens when waste wood becomes a resource for the construction industry? We explored this question with BioEnergyPool, developing a circular business strategy around woody biomass, forestry residues and new ways of connecting supply and demand.
Construction is the most resource hungry activity on the planet. Building and maintaining houses, offices, roads and infrastructure consumes around 38.8 billion tons of material every year. At the same time, forestry and agriculture generate large volumes of biomass residues that mostly end up burned for energy.
In a circular economy that counts as a loss. Once wood is incinerated, the material is gone after a single use, while forests keep shrinking as demand grows.
This is the opportunity BioEnergyPool set out to capture. Together, we mapped the ecosystem around woody biomass, identified where new value could emerge and developed a future scenario for a B2B marketplace connecting regional biomass supply with demand from the building and construction industry.
The opportunity: giving biowaste a fair value
Keeping biomass residues in circulation extends their useful life, raises resource productivity and opens new value streams. Agricultural and forestry biomass can become fuels, animal feed, biobased chemicals, biopolymers and biopharmaceuticals. The strategic question is which application creates the most value from a given residue.
BioEnergyPool chose woody biomass and forestry residues as its entry point: sawdust, scrap wood, offcuts and dead wood that has no further use in the forest. The company’s vision was a more circular bioeconomy built on technology enabled price transparency for local woody biomass, a redesigned supply chain and a B2B marketplace for circular raw materials.
Understanding the biomass business ecosystem
A circular biomass business involves many players, materials and flows. Forest owners and waste collectors connect with processors, material innovators, component suppliers, construction companies, regulators and investors. Materials move through stages of processing and use, while data, services and capital move alongside them.
We mapped this multidimensional landscape for the German biomass market and worked through the customer benefits, competitive advantages and strategic paths available to BioEnergyPool. The work produced future scenarios and a clear direction: new ways of reusing and redistributing waste wood as an alternative to incineration.
Construction as a new market for biomass
Construction and building became the entry point for two reasons. The sector’s material footprint is enormous, so even a small shift toward circular inputs has a large absolute effect. And the industry is at risk of material shortages, which means it is actively looking for reliable new sources.
We developed a future scenario for a biomass commerce platform for sustainable construction. The concept connects regional biomass resources with stakeholders across the building ecosystem and enables the exchange of:
- Biomass materials
- Data
- Capital
- Services
- Supply and demand information
From waste material to circular resource
The core strategic move is to raise the value of biowaste, and that means its price. BioEnergyPool achieves this by promoting the by-products of the cascading wood system together with related services, which grows demand for renewed waste wood in construction.
Cascading use means a piece of wood moves through several product lives before it is finally used for energy: round wood, solid wood and veneers, chemicals, boards and panels, then incineration, then ash. Each stage keeps value in the material for longer and delays the point at which it leaves the economy.
Material partners play a central role here. Companies with know-how in biochar, rigid cork, liquid wood, mycelium wood bricks and ashcrete can turn residues into building components, creating circular business opportunities that did not exist while the wood was headed for the furnace.
The opportunity therefore extends beyond the physical movement of biomass. It involves building the market infrastructure around the material: knowing what is available, making pricing transparent and comparable, connecting suppliers with buyers and identifying the applications that create the greatest value.
What a circular biomass marketplace enables
At its core, the model connects three elements.
Supply Regional sources of woody biomass, forestry residues and other biowaste.
Market infrastructure Transparent pricing, data, services and the connections between participants. This is where BioEnergyPool sits.
Demand Industries looking for renewable and circular material sources, with construction and building as the entry point: private buildings, public buildings and exterior infrastructure, plus the architects, contractors, component suppliers and property owners behind them.
The Biomass Business Ecosystem map developed during the project visualises these relationships. It shows three types of flow: the physical cascade of biomaterials from forest to ash, the existing business interactions of material, data and capital, and the new interactions enabled by BioEnergyPool’s services.
Designing a circular business around biomass
The project shows how circular innovation can start with a material and grow into an ecosystem question. The strategic exploration moved through six levels:
Material What biomass resources are available regionally?
Value Where can these resources create greater economic value than incineration?
Customers Which industries have relevant material needs?
Ecosystem Which stakeholders need to be connected?
Business model What platform, services and interactions enable those connections?
Future opportunities How can the ecosystem evolve as new materials and markets emerge?
This approach translated a circular economy ambition into a concrete business opportunity around biomass, digital infrastructure and construction.
Impact across planet, people and profit
Planet Lower raw material consumption, natural resources kept in the loop for longer, and less economic pressure on virgin wood and living trees.
People Reliable, transparent and comparable pricing for biowaste, and new ways of using wood and biomass.
Profit A new material source for an industry at risk of shortages, in a sector with huge potential for sustainable improvement.
Why this matters for the circular economy
Circular innovation often starts with a simple question: how can we get more value from the resources we already have?
For biomass, the answer involves new applications, new business models and better connections between supply and demand. The BioEnergyPool project shows how regional biowaste can stay in the economy for longer while creating real commercial opportunities.
For businesses exploring circular materials, the lesson is strategic: the opportunity usually sits in the ecosystem around a resource, and the ecosystem is what needs to be designed.
BioEnergyPool at a glance
Company: BioEnergyPool (BEP)
Focus: Circular biomass and woody biomass
Market explored: German biomass market
Entry industry: Building and construction
Business opportunity: B2B marketplace for circular raw materials
INDEED scope: Circular strategy and roadmap development, foresighting and scenario creation, circular business modelling and opportunity identification
Key resource: Woody biomass and forestry residues
Frequently asked questions
What is circular biomass? Circular biomass is the use of biomass residues and biowaste in ways that keep biological resources in circulation and create additional value through new applications, products and business models.
What is woody biomass? Woody biomass covers resources derived from wood and forestry: forestry residues, dead wood, sawdust, scrap wood and by-products from wood processing. In the BioEnergyPool project these formed the initial market focus.
What is cascading use of wood? Cascading use means wood passes through multiple product stages, for example solid wood, then panels, then chemicals, before it is finally burned for energy. It maximises the value extracted from each tree and delays the point at which the material leaves the economy.
Why is burning wood a problem in the circular economy? Energy recovery destroys the material. Once wood is burned it cannot be reused, so incineration should be the last step in the cascade, after every other use has been exhausted.
How can biomass be used in the construction industry? Through a commerce platform that connects regional biowaste with construction stakeholders, and through material partners who convert residues into building components such as biochar, liquid wood, mycelium bricks or cork based materials.
What is a circular biomass marketplace? A B2B platform that connects suppliers and buyers of biomass based raw materials while providing transparency around available materials, pricing and related services. BioEnergyPool explored this model for woody biomass and forestry residues.
Why is construction an interesting market for circular materials? Construction requires substantial quantities of materials and faces supply risks. The project explored it as the entry point for increasing the use of regional biowaste.
