דוקטורנטים מספרים - Adi Mager

Circular economy actions in the buildings sector

Adi Mager (Ph.D. candidate)

Supervisor: Dr. Vered Blass

Hello, I am Adi Mager, a lecturer and researcher focusing on industrial ecology and innovations in the building sector in Israel and abroad.  I work with government entities and municipalities as a construction waste treatment consultant and with the private sector as a business developer.

In addition, I am the founder and CEO of The Israeli Forum for Innovation in Raw Materials for the Construction and Infrastructure Industry (IRMI), as well as an entrepreneur in the global mentoring program "Women for Climate Change" (W4C), of the C40 organization. 

The population of Israel stands at around 9 million people this year and is expected to grow to 10 million by the end of 2024. When Israel celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2048, the population will have reached 15 million residents. With the accelerated growth in population and the extreme demand for building materials, as well as increased consumption of goods due to a rising standard of living, there is an urgent need for new raw materials. 

The mining of raw materials and the production stages in which they become products, structures, and infrastructures requires energy and also generates waste and byproducts.  As a result of this process, we are faced with higher transportation costs and environmental hazards. This has led to stricter environmental policies which will enforce regulatory compliance in green building in Israel in 2022.  The increasing demand for the supply of raw materials depends among other things on the potential of the reuse of recycled aggregates from construction waste. Also, as a small country with a rapidly growing population, we are obligated to produce innovative and sustainable solutions for the building sector.

As a PhD candidate at the Porter School for the Environment and Earth Sciences, my research deals with this field of raw materials in the building sector.