Stroomstart, a serious game about circularity in area development

Together with the municipality of Breda, Witteveen+Bos has developed the serious game ‘Stroomstart’ to provide project teams with an accessible overview of how to steer integrally for circularity in area developments.

The Netherlands is facing a major housing challenge and also has the ambition to become fully circular by 2050. The large demand for housing and the limitation of primary raw material use in area developments are not always approached integrally. Building so many homes offers the opportunity to tackle these challenges integrally and to reduce both the demand for materials as well as CO₂ emissions of construction at an early stage. However, a change in thinking is needed to seize this opportunity together: from linear to circular.

The serious game Stroomstart gives project teams a playful insight into how they can steer towards circularity in every phase of area development. In the game, participants are given the assignment to limit primary raw material usage by choosing certain measures. Each measure has a different impact on, for example, climate adaptation, energy use and/or the environment.

An area development is in itself already a complex project, in which different interests, objectives and ambitions come together. In addition, circularity often remains a catch-all term, the meaning of which can always differ slightly. The most important challenge is therefore to maintain sufficient complexity in both subjects, while the participants are set to thinking about circularity.

In the development session, of which Stroomstart is a part, the participants jointly search for a way to create as much value as possible for the area. Afterwards, we evaluate the results and see how the created value can be optimised. This way, participants get concrete tools for circular area development.