News
How do surplus materials stop being treated as waste and start being traded as resources? This was the question at the heart of Olav Bjerke Soldal’s doctoral thesis, Circular market shaping: The emergence of markets for residual materials, which he defended at BI in September 2026. Olav was an active contributor to the Centre for Sustainability and Energy. His work reflects the Centre’s purpose of producing research with real-world impact, and it offers practical insight for businesses, public authorities and policymakers working to make the circular economy happen.
From ambition to action
Ambitions for a more circular economy are everywhere, from European and national strategies to local initiatives and industry programmes. There is broad agreement that materials should be reused instead of ending up as waste. In the building and construction sector in particular, there is growing interest in markets for secondary raw materials such as surplus soil, stone and demolition materials.
Putting these ambitions into practice is difficult. Circular markets require changes to regulations, standards, procurement and business models, and many actors need to move at the same time. Authorities often wait for industry to take the initiative, while industry waits for clearer frameworks from the authorities. Everyone agrees on the goal, yet few take the first steps.
What the research found
Olav studied three cross-sector collaborations in the building and construction sector. He looked at how the people and organisations involved built a shared understanding, developed new ways of working together, and tested solutions that made it possible to reuse materials previously treated as waste.
For surplus materials to be recognised as valuable raw materials, technical solutions and financial incentives alone fall short. Actors need to agree that reuse and recycling are desirable and legitimate. They also need to agree on how materials should be classified, assessed and traded, and develop common standards that build trust in quality, value and use. Over time, this makes circular solutions “the natural choice”.
The thesis shows that circular markets grow step by step. New market practices, digital platforms, meeting places for collaboration, and links between value chains that used to be separate gradually make it easier to match supply with demand.
Collaboration is the key
The main conclusion is that circular markets are created through long-term interaction among many different actors. No single organisation can build them alone. Local partnerships and experiments can turn circular economy ambitions into real market practice. Lasting change requires continued effort, coordination and investment from government, industry and civil society, across regional, national and European levels.
In short, the thesis shows how surplus materials become tradeable goods through collaboration, experimentation and new market practices. Circular markets are about material flows and their recovery, yet they form through the people, organisations and practices that make such materials flow.
BI and the Center for Sustainability and Energy has been quintessential for writing this thesis, providing an ideal learning environment and incubator for generating the novel concepts, ideas, and theories on how to we succeed in the transition to circular business models and markets.
The research was part of earthresQue, a Centre for Research-based Innovation (SFI) funded by the Research Council of Norway and partners from 2020 to 2028. BI is one of the research partners, alongside NMBU and several national research institutes. Industry and public sector partners include Skanska, Stena Recycling, Oslo Municipality and Akershus County Municipality.
The Centre for Sustainability and Energy congratulates Olav on his PhD and thanks him for his contributions to the Centre.