Digitalising, quantifying, and qualifying existing building materials
About this good practice
This practice addresses resource reuse and waste management in the building industry, where materials often end up in landfills mixed with hazardous waste, making recycling dangerous. Milva is a programme that registers all building materials, both hazardous and reusable, digitalising data for easier decision-making by builders, architects, and planners. This mapping also creates safer environments for workers dismantling buildings. Complying with Danish and EU regulations, Milva applies a strict logic to assess materials, quantifying them and adding data like CO2 calculations and work descriptions. This ensures material checks, with built-in quality control and compliance incentivised by increased data collection. Milva's development has been facilitated by the Danish innovation policy, focusing on tech companies as drivers for private solutions to public challenges. The Danish Innovation Fund supported Milva's startup process, to address social challenges and boost research and innovation in companies. The fund enabled Milva to develop crucial features to tackle waste management challenges and complying with new selective demolition legislation. The program is expected to be implemented in Zealand and Danish municipalities to enhance inert waste valorisation. Beneficiaries include project owners complying with EU building waste laws, professionals in circular economy and planning, and workers and inhabitants who gain safer environments and materials in modernised buildings.
Resources needed
Milva in its current form has required 5 years of development and test-ing. Due to the focus on hazardous materials, it requires environmental specialists with a digital flair and highly skilled programmers.
Roughly 2 million euro has been spent on development so far.
Evidence of success
Milva has been used in over 1500 projects and has correctly assessed material potentials, leading to an increase in correct waste management and recycling of safe materials. It is used daily to ensure correct building waste management and most recently at Bispebjerg Hospital where the data from Milva was used in the recirculation plan of several of the materials or in Byk collaboration where Milva maps every building with the intention of maximising reuse across numerous building projects.
Potential for learning or transfer
Milva’s system can only really be transferred if you use Milva, but(!), some of the learnings can be shared with other non-Milva users. The data that Milva has gathered is specifically important to Danish or broader perhaps European building customs. If Milva was used to collect data in a specific area it could quickly be adapted to collect data on that area’s buildings. The circular networks that Milva support and underpin in Copenhagen and other Danish cities could act as inspiration for other entities in Europe, and we would be happy to share these learnings.
Milva is part of an existing infrastructure where all materials in the buildings in the BYK partnership must be registered before renovation, transformation or demolition and. This means that planners, counsellors and architects have access to several buildings’ worth of safe reusable material and can mix and match materials between buildings in the planning phase thus increasing the chance of reuse.
Further information
Good practice owner
You can contact the good practice owner below for more detailed information.
