The VGR circular kitchen demonstrator (CIK)

Research Project, 2021 – 2023

The way housing components are currently made, sold, placed, used and discarded contribute to resource depletion, environmental pollution and avoidable GHG emissions. With respect to anticipated stronger legislative and economic policy to reduce the resource intensive building sector, the research community and the building- as well as the production industry is searching for theoretical
knowledge and definitions for circular industrial processes and business models as well as lighthouse project examples to implement these in practice. The kitchen has been pointed out as one of the most resource intensive functions of the home. Kitchens lead to unnecessary resource flows, both from daily activities and from frequent and often premature home-makeovers and replacement of kitchens, which in the business-as-usual scenarios, likewise as other building components, are not designed and marketed to facilitate circular economy loops. A project consortium of six different stakeholders from VGR-region is involved to
complement and continue ongoing research from “The Circular Kitchen (CIK)” project, funded by the EIT Climate-KIC, together with one more application submitted to HSB Living Lab Research Fund. The aim of this project is to finalise the new circular kitchen design and construction of CIK 2.0, to build three different prototypes of CIK and implement them for usage-, material-, and service-testing,
for further experimental development and dissemination of the results in three different demonstrators within VGR, each of which with a specific research focus. One location will be a real home for long-time action research-testing in the HSB Living Lab on Chalmers Campus; the two others are located in a new-constructed complex of 29 rental apartments for 65+ residents on the island of Tjörn – one guest apartment for shorter-period user-tests involving other user targets (diverse visitors to the residents), and one community apartment for shared spot-usage by residents and also external focus group workshops. The VGR-support will co-finance these first three demonstrators of the CIK and related R&D- and PR-activities to give VGR a head start on the necessary transition to circularity in the construction sector and thus help to realise VGR’s climate change mitigation targets 2030 (‘VGR ställer om*) to cut CO2 emissions by half. The project will lead to broad out-reach to both industry, academia, and citizens, and deliver deeper knowledge on user insights, as well as collaborative research and development for sustainability and circularity to pave the way for the circular transition in VGR, Sweden and beyond.