The first housing development in Spain with 100% recycled aluminium is in Marbella
According to the real estate developer Aedas Homes, it has built the first housing development in Spain made with 100% post-consumer recycled aluminium together with Technal, which has already been using 75% post-consumer recycled aluminium for several years.
This sustainable material, which comes from the circular economy, will be used in the Soul Marbella Sunshine development, made up of 50 two, three and four-bedroom homes ranging in size from 180 to 420 square metres. More specifically, 100% post-consumer recycled aluminium will be used in the profiles of the façade joinery.
The Operations Director of Aedas Homes, Luis García Malo de Molina, stated that, with this initiative, the company «takes another step towards our ambitious objective set out in our 2021/23 ESG Plan to neutralise 50% of the carbon footprint of its developments by 2030, promoting, in this case, the use of environmentally-friendly materials».
«We continue making progress towards AEDAS Homes' ambitious goal of becoming the leading developer in sustainability,» he added.
The real estate developer explained that the material provided by Technal – a brand within the multinational group Hydro Building Systems – called Circal, is the world's first certified 100% recycled aluminium and is a new manufacturing process in Spain.
The three advantages highlighted by Aedas Homes are that it reduces CO2 emissions by 95% compared to aluminium produced in Europe and by 40 times compared to aluminium imported from China; it offers the same quality as primary aluminium; and its production means low energy use.
Applying these calculations to the residential sector, the company estimates that using it in the Soul Marbella Sunshine development is equivalent – in terms of CO2 reduction – to taking 30 cars off the road during their entire useful life (100,000 kilometres, with an average emission of 10,300 tonnes of CO2, according to the European Environment Agency).
A sustainable material to reduce the carbon footprint
Technal's director in Spain, Ferran Xipell, said that this project «marks a turning point in the development sector and strengthens Technal's social commitments, prioritising the use of a sustainable and circular material with a very low carbon footprint to combat climate change».
According to the Hydro Building System Group subsidiary, «aluminium can be recycled an infinite number of times without losing any properties, so it is a great opportunity for the construction sector to reaffirm its commitment to caring for the planet», bearing in mind that this sector produces around 40% of the world's CO2 emissions.
«Today, for example, we have post-consumer aluminium in circulation that was generated at the end of the 19th century,» said Xipell, who explained that Technal extracts its aluminium from buildings that are rehabilitated or demolished once their life cycle is over and reintroduces it as a raw material, something it calls «urban mining».