In early February, we visited CapMan Real Estate’s large-scale renovation project at Sørkedalsveien 6 in Oslo, as part of the Nordic Circularity Piloting Program. By choosing to refurbish the 20,000 m² and 18-storey flagship building rather than demolish and build new, CapMan is significantly reducing embodied carbon emissions while simultaneously achieving a major leap in energy performance, with an ambition to lift the building’s EPC from E to A. The project will be completed for the new tenant by Q3 2027.
Sørkedalsveien 6 also serves as a ground for two exciting circular pilots under the program:
KONE and CapMan are modernizing five elevators by retaining and upgrading existing equipment instead of replacing everything.
CapMan and Staaltro are testing the reuse of cable trays, exploring what it takes to turn this seemingly simple component into a circular product at scale.
Progress, learnings, and next steps at the site
KONE x CapMan: modernizing five elevators instead of replacing them
When CapMan acquired the building in 2022, it was clear that a full refurbishment would be needed to meet the expectations of the new tenant and to bring the building up to modern ESG and energy standards. Initially, the plan was straightforward: remove all five existing elevators and install completely new ones.
During early discussions, KONE and CapMan started to question that default. Using people-flow and CO₂ analysis, KONE’s team showed that a modernization solution can match the capacity in terms of speed and waiting times of a full replacement solution, but at the same time, enabling significant CO2 savings by retaining more than 60% of the existing materials.
The agreed solution is a deep modernization of the five elevators that:
Increases elevator speed and optimises people flow to handle a building population of up to around 1,100 people at full occupancy.
Retains more than 60% of heavy steel components in the shafts, such as guide rails and counterweight frames, instead of replacing them.
Upgrades interiors, doors and signalisation, and will be equipped with more energy-efficient drives and control systems, reducing operational emissions as well. Thus, the old drives from the site will be carefully dismantled and refurbished, to potentially reuse the drives in other sites in the future.
The embodied carbon calculations show that this modernization approach saves around 60% of embodied emissions compared to a full replacement alternative.
At the time of the visit, the project was in the engineering and planning phase. Next, KONE’s Norwegian engineering unit is preparing the detailed design, with installation scheduled to be done during 2026–2027 in sync with the rest of the refurbishment.
CapMan x Staaltro: exploring reuse of cable trays
The second pilot, together with CapMan and Staaltro, is testing what it takes to dismantle and reuse steel cable trays at scale. Staaltro focuses on circular steel products, with cable trays as their first product category.
For the Oslo pilot, CapMan offered two garage levels with extensive cable tray runs as a test case. Staaltro collaborated closely with the demolition contractor to dismantle the trays so they could, in principle, be reused rather than scrapped.
The pilot had already been executed by the time of the visit:
The dismantling itself became a learning lab. Starting with two workers and then experimenting, the contractor eventually found that a one-person method using a dedicated work frame was more efficient.
From this, Staaltro and the contractor were able to collect practical data on how dismantling should be done for reuse rather than demolition, including what methods are most efficient—work that resulted in a dismantling guide.
Using these cost and time data, Staaltro worked with a wholesaler to define a realistic price point for reused cable trays that the market would accept, and the proposed price level was positively received.
However, the Oslo garage also surfaced a critical constraint. Because the garage environment was humid and far below ground, several cable trays had visible corrosion. When Staaltro and the manufacturer inspected the material, they concluded that these specific trays could not be safely resold.
Despite that setback, the environmental potential remains strong. Based on work with SINTEF, Staaltro has calculated that reusing steel cable trays in suitable conditions can deliver around 99% CO₂ reduction compared to manufacturing new ones.
The Oslo case, then, became less about closing a full loop at this site and more about understanding design, timing, logistics, and quality requirements for circular cable trays – learnings that Staaltro is now applying as they map future demolition projects with developers. In parallel, Staaltro is already thinking beyond cable trays, using this first product category as a template for scaling to other product categories.
Scaling the Pilots
Technically, the elevator modernization concept is very scalable. Many high-rise buildings face similar constraints: aging elevators, growing tenant populations, and limited shaft and headroom that make full replacement difficult. The main drivers to scaling are organisational rather than technical: the need for faster, standardised CO₂ analysis, clear internal guidelines on when modernization is preferable, and well-prepared communication materials for building owners and tenants for convincing that modernization can be both high-performing and low-carbon.
The cable tray reuse concept also has strong potential to scale. Cable trays are modular and standardised, and their design has changed very little over the past decades, which makes them ideal for reuse. The main bottleneck today is supply: Staaltro already sees more demand than available material. At the same time, many renovation and demolition projects still send substantial volumes of robust steel cable trays directly to scrap. This is where timing becomes critical. To scale, reuse needs to be built into project planning well before demolition, with clear responsibilities for developers, demolition contractors, logistics partners, wholesalers, and manufacturers.
Three key lessons learned so far
Across both pilots, three overarching lessons stand out.
1) Start early and include the whole value chain.
Both pilots highlight the importance of engaging all relevant stakeholders early in the process, before key design and demolition decisions are finalised. In Oslo, late engagement meant that some cable trays were dismantled only after demolition had already begun, limiting the available material. For elevators, early access to people-flow and CO₂ analysis helped avoid a default full-replacement path.
2) Use existing channels wherever possible.
Rather than building parallel markets, try to route circular products through the channels stakeholders already use. For cable trays, a big enabler is making reuse materials available via the same purchasing routes as new products (“one-stop shop”), so installers can buy reused and new materials together, with shared logistics and documentation.
3) Evidence and communication make or break the case.
In both pilots, analytical evidence (CO₂ calculations, people-flow analysis, dismantling time and cost data) combined with clear communication was crucial for building trust and helping stakeholders see modernization and reuse as high-performance solutions, not compromises.
Advice for anyone launching a circularity pilot
At the end of the visit, we asked the pilot teams what they would recommend to others considering their own circularity pilot in technical building systems. Their advice echoes, but also expands on, lessons from other NCPP pilots:
1) Bring the whole value chain along – and give them a role.
Map all relevant actors early (owners, tenants, OEMs, contractors, wholesalers, logistics partners, researchers, financiers) and think explicitly about how each of them can benefit from and contribute to the circular model.
2) Integrate analysis and documentation into the core of the project.
Calculate and document CO₂, performance and costs across scenarios (e.g. full replacement vs. modernization; demolition vs. dismantling for reuse). This makes it easier to convince internal decision-makers, tenants and authorities – and to replicate what works in future projects.
3) Accept that the first pilots are learning exercises.
Not every loop will close perfectly. In Oslo, corrosion prevented cable trays from being reused, but the pilot still yielded invaluable learning on dismantling methods, costs, pricing and market acceptance. Treat such “imperfections” as part of building capability rather than as failures.
4) Don’t underestimate the power of storytelling.
Circular solutions often challenge expectations: tenants may assume that only fully new equipment can deliver the performance they need. Investing in clear, data-backed storytelling – from people-flow simulations to CO₂ savings to user experience – is essential to get buy-in.
Thank you to CapMan, KONE, and Staaltro for the insightful and inspirational site visit!