Constraint

Material requirements

Biobased and circular

More clients are requiring a share of biobased or circular material in their tenders and land tenders, on top of the national MPG ceiling. There is no dedicated register for this: Modou reads it as dated text in the policy agreements, land tenders and specifications that set the requirement.

What is this constraint?

The national MPG ceiling sets a floor for how much environmental impact a building's materials may cause in total. On top of that, a growing number of clients ask for a specific share of biobased or reused material: timber, flax, hemp, straw, reused facade elements, recycled concrete. That share is a separate requirement, written into the tender or the land tender alongside the MPG number.

These requirements are moving from ambition to policy. Regional pacts and municipal sustainability agreements increasingly set a hard percentage for biobased or reused material in new build, with a delivery date attached. Once an agreement like that exists, the land tenders and specifications that follow it inherit the number, long before a contractor is anywhere near the project.

For a supplier that changes who gets listened to first. By the time the requirement is in the specification, the choice of material family is largely made. The moment that counts is the policy agreement or the land tender that sets the percentage, not the tender that later enforces it.

There is no dedicated register tracking which projects carry a biobased or circular requirement. Modou has no monitor for this. What it does have is the constraint written as dated text in the policy agreements, land tenders, specifications and sustainability reports it reads every working day, the same documents that carry the MPG ceiling itself.

Which documents it shows up in

Policy agreements and pacts on biobased building: Why that is a reason to callThis is where a hard percentage and a delivery date get set, years before it reaches a single tender. Whoever is at the table when it is signed helps decide the number.
Municipal land tenders and selection documents with a biobased or reused-material share: Why that is a reason to callThe requirement is written out here as a concrete percentage, with a closing date. That is the last moment to have influence over which material family qualifies.
Tenders and specifications with a circular or reused-material clause: Why that is a reason to callOnce it is in the specification the demand is fixed, with a date on which the client awards.
Sustainability reports and progress updates from signatories to a biobased pact: Why that is a reason to callThese show how far a signatory has translated its commitment into actual programmes and budgets, which is where the buying starts.

Who sells into this

Construction suppliers

Biobased materials: timber, flax, hemp, straw
Reused and circular facade and building products
Biobased insulation and building boards
Products with their own record in the national environmental database

Energy companies

Heating and ventilation systems with a documented low environmental impact
Engineering advice for meeting a biobased or circular share in a specification

Example from a public document

Construction supplier

What happened

More than a hundred parties in a metropolitan region sign a pact: from 2030 at least twenty per cent of new build has to be timber or other biobased material. The pipeline already holds more than 12,000 timber homes.

Source:: Policy agreement
Date:: November 2025

Why this matters to you

Twenty per cent of new build in a single region is a volume the market does not supply today. If you make biobased or timber products, that pipeline buys from you.

Why now

The signatories are now translating the pact into their own land tenders and programmes. The requirements that go into them are being written this year.

Who to call

Sustainability adviser or municipal project lead at a signatory

Phone number, where publicly findable
LinkedIn, where publicly findable

This example comes from a public document.

Frequently asked questions

Isn't this the same as the MPG requirement?

They travel together but are not the same number. The MPG is the building's overall environmental score. A biobased or reused-material share is a separate, specific percentage some clients add on top, naming the material family rather than just the outcome.

How early do I see a requirement like this?

Before the tender. A pact or policy agreement states the ambition and the delivery date, often years ahead. The land tender or specification that follows it just enforces a number that was already decided.

Want to be there before the pact becomes a tender?

Plan a six-week pilot. Every working day you get the agreements, land tenders and specifications where the material requirement is written, with source, date and who to call.

Plan a pilot Run the opportunity check