Maurice Linders and Niels van der Hulst winners Concrete Game

Maurice Linders, HBO Built Environment student at Associate degrees Academy, and Niels van der Hulst, general manager at Swaans Beton, are the winners of the Concrete Game. They were drawn from nearly 300 participants and win a balloon ride.

"During the sustainable month of October, two players, a student and a professional, could win a balloon flight by playing the Concrete Game. Getting a low score was not a barrier to participating anyway," says Cindy Vissering of Betonhuis. She was closely involved in the development of the game. "While playing, the players were able to put themselves in the different roles of the construction process. The players' answers gave a surprising overall picture. Players from the contractors' group and the designers' group can easily put themselves in the role of clients but know less about the possibilities of making concrete more sustainable."

Role client well understood

The answers from the concrete game provide insights into how different parties view sustainable construction with concrete. Vissering: "If we can get to 60% of CO₂ want to reduce from 1990 levels and bring back 100% of all circularly demolished concrete into new concrete products, we need better collaboration and accelerated implementation of innovations. It is surprising to see that many players have little knowledge of concrete. The data shows that players score poorly on that part of the concrete game. On the contrary, the role of the client is very well understood. "

Working together to become more sustainable

Better collaboration can mean that clients have to abandon plans or invest more money in certain things. But it also means that builders and designers must hold their methods and plans up to the light, arrange waiting times differently, adjust structures, reuse or construct more leanly. "We see that the players with the role client know themselves very well, but the client knows other roles much less. So the key is to get client, designer and industry together at the table to take steps toward a sustainable concrete sector and building sustainably with concrete." 

Impact session Concrete House

Betonhuis invited Thijs Struijk, director of Sustainability Games, to discuss the answers from the game. In a short 20-minute battle session, Cindy Vissering asks for more explanation. Thijs gives the overview of scores and a heatmap of the answers is shared. According to Thijs, the answers are less clear than previously thought. Besides students, contractors, designers and people from their own industry played the concrete game the most. In the hitting session, they also explain about playing in teams within companies.

The recorded battle session can be viewed at concretehouse.co.uk