When we set out to design the Nordic Circularity Piloting Program (NCPP), we knew that circularity in technical installations would mean different things to different actors. Eight pilots later, covering HVAC, elevators, access systems, sanitary equipment and electrical systems across Finland, Sweden, and Norway, we have seen circularity emerging in three distinct, new flow types — each with its own logic for who leads the take-back, who carries the risk, and where the new business value lies. Recognising them helps all the value chain members, property owners, manufacturers, contractors and installers, analyse where their current role sits today, where the biggest opportunities lie for them tomorrow, and how they can actively engage in circularity rather than wait for others to move first. It also makes clear where the gaps in today's market are, and in which roles the new operators and enablers, from reuse platforms and dismantlers to certification and matchmaking services, are needed to make these flows work at scale.
Figure: The three new flows for circulating technical building solutions and how the pilots represent them
1. Producer-led flows
In the producer-led flow type, the manufacturer takes ownership of the circular loop. Products are collected back, refurbished in the manufacturer's own facilities or with trusted partners, and reintroduced to the market with full warranty — sometimes to a completely new customer, sometimes through a distributor, and in the boldest cases through a service-based model where the producer never gives up ownership in the first place.
Five NCPP pilots follow this logic:
The HVAC disassembly pilot with Swegon, Lindab, Skanska Sweden, Demontera and Vasakronan tested the full take-back process for diffusers, air handling units and ducts — from inventory and dismantling through to factory refurbishment — with reused HVAC products shown to deliver up to 95% lower climate impact than new equivalents when refurbished and re-warranted by the manufacturer.
Abloy's pilot with the City of Tampere and Tampereen Tilapalvelut tested whether dismantled locks and cylinders from an old school being replaced in Tampere could be refurbished at the factory and reinstalled in the new building, with surface treatment as the main refurbishment method delivering promising coating quality and durability results.
ASSA ABLOY and Certego mapped the current flow from manufacturer to distributor to end customers and designed an improved future-state flow for refurbished access products, since existing sales channels are designed for new products and refurbished units tend to remain in stock.
KONE's elevator modernization pilot with CapMan Real Estate in Oslo retained shafts and major load-bearing steel structures while replacing only outdated components, with old drives planned to be dismantled for potential second-life use in other KONE projects.
Oras and SRV went a step further with their Faucets-as-a-Service pilot at a public learning centre in Kirkkonummi, where Oras delivers the products, installation, lifecycle maintenance, repair and refurbishment as a service throughout the contract period.
The strength of producer-led flows is deep product expertise and ability for quality assurance — no one knows the product better than its maker. The product volume potential is high, since producers in theory know where their installed base is and how to retrieve it. The persistent challenge is not technical execution but inflow: getting enough installed products back through incentivised, well-organised value chain action.
Figure: Producer-led flow
2. Flows within one property owner
The second flow type happens entirely within the portfolio of a single property owner. A unit is dismantled in one building and reinstalled in another or repositioned within the same building to better match a new use. There is no need for resale, no new contract with an unfamiliar buyer, and no warranty negotiation across organisational boundaries. Decision-making is internal, which simplifies governance and makes circular value visible directly in the portfolio's climate and cost KPIs.
Two pilots represent this flow:
In nolla_E's pilot with Kotkan Julkiset Kiinteistöt Oy, an air handling unit inside the Kotka Concert Hall was dismantled, modified for higher energy efficiency and relocated within the same building, as part of a wider energy renovation using nolla_E's software to find the optimal combination of measures.
Multiconsult's reuse tool for electrical equipment, tested with Norwegian Property and Trondheim Municipality, supports this flow from the design side — providing a structured methodology to systematically assess and visualise the reuse potential of electrical components within an owner's own buildings, with one pilot site identifying potential savings of 123 tonnes of CO₂ and approximately 23 million NOK.
The big advantage of this flow type is that risk stays inside one organisation. Costs, benefits, warranties and decisions all sit with the same actor, which dramatically reduces transaction friction. The limitation is equally obvious: it only works when a property owner has both a donor and a receiver in the right place at the right time, which puts a premium on portfolio-level planning — including portfolio-wide material audits, often with support of external service providers and consultants.
Figure: Flows within single property owner’s portfolio
3. Flows between different property owners
The third and most demanding flow type is when products move between organisations, from one property owner, via a dismantler and often an intermediary, to a completely different building owned by someone else. This is where the new actors of the circular economy are emerging, and where the systemic gaps in the current market become most visible.
Two pilots illustrate this flow:
Staaltro's pilot with CapMan Real Estate dismantled 145 metres of cable trays from an Oslo site and piloted the full dismantling-to-distribution process, including quality assessment and documentation. In this specific case, visible corrosion combined with assessment happening after dismantling meant the trays could not be safely resold, and the team chose to continue the pilot as a process and documentation case — with one of the key learnings being that quality assessment must happen before dismantling, not after.
nolla_E's cross-portfolio case with Skanska Sweden sought to prepare an air handling unit dismantled from a Skanska site in Stockholm for reuse in a different owner's building in Uppsala. The transaction ultimately could not be closed, as a workable dismantling price could not be agreed, and nolla_E is now building the matchmaking and timing logic — including a platform for reused HVAC equipment — that cross-portfolio reuse requires.
The opportunity here is scale: this is the flow with the largest theoretical product volume, as the whole Nordic building stock becomes the donor base. But the demands are also the highest. Contracts must span multiple organisations, quality and warranty responsibilities need clear allocation, and intermediaries have to build trust on both ends of the chain. Almost every structural barrier the pilots raised — CE marking for refurbished products, insurance, need to incentivise every value chain member, and documentation standards — bites hardest here.
Figure: Flows between different property owners
All three matter
The three flow types are not mutually exclusive. They can complement each other — for example, manufacturers certifying units that independent reuse providers resell — or compete, as when manufacturer take-back and independent reuse providers chase the same inflow. For the Nordic industry, this is healthy: it creates multiple routes to scale and multiple entry points for new business.
A mature circular ecosystem for technical installations will need all three: producer-led flows to anchor quality and bring entire product categories back into circulation, internal flows to capture the low-hanging fruit inside large property portfolios, and cross-owner flows to create a real secondary market. The pilots showed that the technical side is rarely the blocker. The work ahead is mostly about structures — contracts, incentives, regulation, and the new roles that make these flows reliable enough to scale.