Material Passports and Digital Documentation
This is the second paper in Pascall+Watson’s four-part insight series on Circular Economy in Transport Infrastructure, drawn from the Interchange 2026 Roundtable. Part One explored the foundational principles of the circular economy. This paper examines how material information can be captured, managed, and used to enable circular outcomes in practice. Each paper in this series focuses on one of the four core themes discussed.
- – Material Passports and Digital Documentation
It is impossible to manage what you cannot measure. The circular economy depends on knowing which materials exist, where they are, what condition they are in, and what their potential for future use is. Material passports are the mechanism through which that knowledge is created and maintained. Yet despite growing awareness of their importance, material passports remain inconsistently implemented, frequently siloed from the broader project information environment, and understood only within the sustainability profession.
This paper sets out a more practical, integrated, and forward-looking approach, treating material passport data not as a sustainability add-on but as the foundation for better, more informed, and more valuable decision-making across the full lifecycle of transport infrastructure.
Consider the scale of opportunity:
- – Around 80% of the buildings that will exist in the UK in 2050 are already built today, and the materials are already in the ground [1].
- – About 85% of EU buildings were built before 2000, representing an enormous potential resource if the right information systems are in place to identify and access it [2].
- – Recycled and secondary materials already supply more than 28% of total aggregates demand in Great Britain, demonstrating that secondary material flows at scale are already a reality [3].
WHAT REALLY IS A MATERIAL PASSPORT?
The discussion opened with a deliberate reframing of the material passport concept: material passports are, at their core, information. They are data that can and should be used to optimise decisions across a project, not just for sustainability or circularity, but also for cost, performance, aesthetics, and long-term value.
This matters because the tendency to treat material passports as a new, standalone sustainability tool, siloed from the broader project information environment, is a primary barrier to their adoption. If material passport data cannot be easily accessed by procurement teams, cost managers, and design software, it will remain peripheral rather than transformative. The goal is not a new platform or a new process. It is better, more accessible, and more actionable data.
“…let's remember that the point of it [material passports] is the usefulness of that information rather than some new concept that we're introducing within the circular economy.”
Phanos Hadjikyriakou | 2050 MaterialsLESSON FROM PAST PROJECTS
The concept of the product passport is not as new as it might seem. During the Jubilee Line Extension in the late 1990s, product passports were developed for all major components along the line, covering not only material composition but also health and safety, access and maintenance, and installation requirements. These passports enabled whole-life cost analysis and supported robust, evidence-based discussions with Transport for London about long-term value.
By contrast, newer projects have begun with a whole-life cost brief that was not carried through to the procurement stage, and with it the potential value of product passport data was largely lost. This contrast is instructive. Material passport commitments made early in a project can be undermined by delivery pressures if they are not embedded in procurement requirements and client briefs from the outset. The lesson is not simply to collect the data; it is to protect its value throughout the project lifecycle.
“…as designers and architects, sometimes we can't control how these projects are procured or how they are approved. What we can do is use our creativity and intelligence to look at how we design these pieces of infrastructure in their locations.”
Julian Maynard | Maynard Design
INTEROPERABILITY: THE CRITICAL ENABLER
The most significant practical challenge identified in the discussion was interoperability, the ability to use material passport data across the tools, platforms, and systems practitioners use every day.
Currently, many material passport platforms operate in isolation from cost, procurement, and design tools. This leads to duplication of effort, inconsistent data, and a practical barrier to adoption for teams already under significant pressure. The ambition should not be to create a new comprehensive platform, but to ensure that material data flows freely between existing systems as a common, accessible dataset, with the same data feeding design software, procurement tools, and cost systems simultaneously.
“No matter what format it exists in, I should be able to use it in whatever tool or format I need. So, whether the material passport is on a specific platform, I should be able to export it into my design software, my costing or procurement system.”
Phanos Hadjikyriakou | 2050 MaterialsHOW COMPREHENSIVE DO PASSPORTS NEED TO BE?
An important nuance emerged in the discussion of comprehensiveness. The view expressed was that material passports need not be 100% comprehensive to be useful, and that treating completeness as a prerequisite for action is itself a barrier to progress.
Different materials and components require different levels of detail: what is needed for a structural frame differs significantly from what is needed for an air-handling unit or a signage system. A blanket approach risks creating unnecessary complexity without commensurate benefit. The practical recommendation is to start with the most critical data points, learn from use, and expand over time.
“It needs the main data points that we're looking to utilise and then we'll expand on that. But for me, the idea that we have to reach perfection or like completeness before we start using these things is also a barrier to actually progress.” Phanos Hadjikyriakou | 2050 Materials
“for a structural frame, we need to know its structural performance characteristics, and the material provenance is less critical. But with an air conditioning unit, you need to know who made it, so you can return it back to them for remanufacturing. We need to beware of a blanket approach”
Andrea Charlson | Concrete CentreGOVERNANCE
Alongside practical and technological considerations, governance was identified as a significant and largely unresolved gap. The question of who is responsible for maintaining, updating, and ensuring the accuracy of material passport data over the full lifetime of a transport infrastructure asset, which may span decades or centuries, remains one the sector has not yet adequately addressed. Without a clear governance framework, material passport data risks becoming incomplete, outdated, or inaccessible precisely when it is most needed.
DESIGN FOR DISASSEMBLY AND STANDARDISATION
Material passports are most valuable when the assets they describe are designed for reuse. Standardisation and design for disassembly were identified as essential companion principles: common, standardised components that can be manufactured in controlled factory environments, installed efficiently, and subsequently disassembled and recovered offer the greatest potential for material reuse at scale.
The transport infrastructure sector’s tendency towards bespoke solutions, while sometimes justified, represents a significant barrier. Participants highlighted that the Elizabeth Line’s consistent, network-wide design language demonstrated the value of standardisation not only for operational wayfinding but also as a foundation for future material recovery and component reuse. Furthermore, it was emphasised that designing aesthetically pleasing components is important to ensure a desire to reuse them.
An inspiring example emerged from the design of a major metropolitan rail project, in which the proximity of a recently closed automotive manufacturing plant presented an opportunity to channel existing industrial expertise and workforce into the production of infrastructure components. The proposal, presented to the local government as an opportunity for regional economic regeneration, illustrates how circular design thinking can generate value that extends far beyond the individual project.
“This whole idea in our construction sector, that everything needs to be bespoke, is crazy. However, we still need to understand the sense of place and have aesthetics and beauty, because beauty actually is a really important component in the circular economy, because if we don't value and enjoy using something, we won't want to see it there.” Paul Toyne | Grimshaw
“Down in Melbourne…they just closed the Holden manufacturing plant…Immediately, what sprang to mind is…How can we utilise that skill set of the workforce and the technology that they've been used to, even though quite basic, how can we bring that in to influence our design response in fitting out the stations?”
Julian Maynard | Maynard Design
CONCLUSION
The discussion concluded with a practical examination of the requirements to build a functioning secondary materials market in the transport infrastructure sector. A useful framework was introduced: the three-sided marketplace, comprising buyer, seller, and a specialist third-party intermediary, a trade partner, who takes materials off-site, processes them to the required quality, and returns them to the market.
This intermediary layer is essential. It is rare that materials leaving one building or infrastructure asset will be of sufficient quality to move directly into another. The timing, storage, and warranty challenges are all substantially resolved when specialist trade partners are part of the system.
Pre-demolition audits were identified as an important practical tool: essentially a material passport conducted at the end of an asset’s life, providing the data needed to quantify and value the materials available for recovery. Quality and quantity are the two essential conditions for a functioning marketplace: buyers need confidence in the standard of what they are procuring, and they need to know that sufficient volume is reliably available.
“We believe having trade partners and businesses that deal with secondary materials, to take those materials off-site and do something to them, is key… … pre-demolition audits are essentially a material passport you're doing at the end of a building’s life, rather than at the start. It's about understanding the urban mine, which is key for understanding the supply of materials available for reuse via a marketplace like ours”
Rob Smith | Material Indexkey takeaways
- – Material passports are fundamentally about data interoperability. They should be integrated into existing project information workflows rather than treated as a standalone sustainability tool.
- – Governance frameworks for material passport data over the full asset lifecycle need to be developed and require urgent attention.
- – Standardisation and design for disassembly are essential enablers of material reuse at scale in the transport infrastructure sector.
- – A three-sided marketplace model, incorporating specialist trade partners who process and remanufacture secondary materials, is the most viable route to scaling secondary material reuse in the infrastructure sector.
PART THREE: PROJECT DELIVERY AND LOGISTICS
What happens when circular economy ambitions meet the realities of live infrastructure construction, and how can the sector close the gap between intention and delivery?
CHAIRS |
|
|
| Nimit Raval | Pascall+Watson | Associate: Sustainability |
| Eamon Nolan | Pascall+Watson | Project Director |
|
|
|
PARTICIPANTS |
|
|
| Phanos Hadjikyriakou | 2050 Materials | Co-Founder & CEO |
| Paul Thompson | Assa Abloy | Head of Specification |
| Georgina Chamberlain | Buro Happold | Associate Director |
| Andrea Charlson | Concrete Centre | Senior Sustainability Specialist & Circular Economy Lead |
| Craig Holding | Dolphin Solutions | Client Relations Executive |
| Carl Waring | Frazer Nash | Principal Consultant |
| Paul Toyne | Grimshaw | Head of Sustainability |
| Rob Smith | Material Index | Managing Director |
| Julian Maynard | Maynard Design | Managing Director |
| Heather Evans | RLB | Partner – National Head of Sustainability |
| John Porter | SAS | Sector Development Manager |
| Anthony Arkle | Skanska | Head of Public Affairs |
| Neil O’Sullivan | Shay Murtagh | Group Business Development Manager |
| Mark Wolfe | WSP | Director, Aviation |
|
|
|
IMAGES & PLANNING |
|
|
| Alberto Roa | Pascall+Watson | Marketing Manager |
| Kazz Kumar Williams | Pascall+Watson | Marketing Manager |