The construction industry is changing. Climate targets, new regulations, and growing pressure to use materials more wisely are reshaping how buildings should be designed, built, dismantled, and reused in the future.
No company can solve these challenges alone. Progress requires cooperation between industry, education, research, and the next generation of professionals. This was the starting point for Peikko’s collaboration with Laurea University of Applied Sciences during the PIONEER program in 2026.
A real challenge for a changing industry
Construction accounts for a large share of global emissions and resource use. Yet valuable building materials are still rarely reused after demolition.
Composite beams are a clear example. They are essential structural components in countless buildings across Europe, but after a building reaches the end of its life, beams are usually melted down instead of reused. This consumes energy and loses much of the value already created in the original product.
To make reuse possible at scale, the industry needs better ways to track materials, recover them, certify them again, and create business models that make reuse attractive.
For Peikko, this is both a practical challenge and a strategic opportunity.
Peikko has been developing DELTABEAM® Green Reuse with circularity in mind. The reuse concept explores how composite beams could one day be returned, checked, re-certified, and used again in new buildings. But this cannot be solved through engineering alone. It also requires new thinking around ownership, logistics, data, incentives, and customer value.
That is where students can bring something valuable.
Fresh thinking through the PIONEER program
In April 2026, Peikko joined the PIONEER intensive week as one of the challenge partners. The program brought together more than 120 students from universities in Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Slovakia, and France.
During the week, student teams worked on an essential question posed by Peikko:
How could DELTABEAM® Green Reuse add value and encourage buying behavior as a circular product that retains value across several building lifecycles?
The teams explored four approaches:
- a buyback model with financial incentives
- a digital material passport and tracking platform
- a product-as-a-service ownership model
- modular systems designed for disassembly
The results were not expected to be ready-made strategies. Their value was in the process: asking different questions, testing ideas quickly, and looking at the challenge without the same assumptions that established companies may naturally have.
Some proposals were bold. Some were still rough. Some offered practical ideas that could be developed further. Together, they gave Peikko new input on where circular business models for structural products could go next.
“This gives us an idea of a direction to head.”
— Diego Ferrer, Product Manager, DELTABEAM® and Composite Frames, Peikko Group
Learning by working on real problems
Laurea’s approach is based on Learning by Developing, or LbD. In practice, this means that students learn by working directly with companies on real business questions.
Instead of solving fictional case studies, students face actual expectations, limitations, and uncertainty. They need to combine theory with practice, communicate their ideas clearly, and adjust their thinking as the work develops.
“Project-based learning is an efficient way to adopt the skills the work-life requires.”
— Elina Wainio, Senior Lecturer, Laurea University of Applied Sciences
Laurea has over 15 years of experience managing this kind of company-student collaboration, and the results speak for themselves. Partner organizations consistently rate the value of student projects at around 4.5 out of 5. Graduate employment rates remain high. And students repeatedly report that project-based industry work is among the most formative elements of their education.
Why diversity matters
One of the strengths of the PIONEER program is the mix of people involved.
The teams included students from business, engineering, architecture, and sustainability. They also came from different countries, bringing their own cultural backgrounds, study paths, and views of the construction industry. This matters because circular construction is not only a technical issue. It touches business models, regulation, design, customer behavior, logistics, and long-term ownership.
“I have studied theories of the benefits of multicultural teams brainstorming, but it is eye-opening to see that it really works in practice.”
— Raija Ally, Student, Laurea University of Applied Sciences
Stanislav Bugala, a civil engineering student from the University of Žilina in Slovakia, described being surprised by the group culture: how different ages and backgrounds opened his mind not just to new approaches to the problem, but to entirely different ways of engaging with ideas.
For Gabriela Ismael, a business student from Bern University of Applied Sciences, the biggest learning came from moving from theory to practice. Her studies had focused on concepts and frameworks — here, she was required to find solutions that could actually be implemented. That distinction between knowing and doing is at the heart of what makes this kind of collaboration valuable for the students — and for the companies that engage with them.
Barbora Bandíková, also a student from Žilina, described how the work impacted her thinking: "Through this work, I have understood that this is all actually happening now — we have to start reusing materials. The change of the system is the future. We can’t just turn our backs; we need to change our minds and our ways of thinking."
Building the future together
For students, the project offered a chance to apply their knowledge to a real sustainability challenge. For Peikko, it brought new ideas and approaches, and direct contact with future professionals in the built environment.
“During our collaboration, the students showed strong initiative and were quick to generate their own ideas on what is missing from the current value chain.”
— Jaakko Yrjölä, Senior Manager, Product Development, Peikko Group
This collaboration model shows how industry and education can work together in a practical and meaningful way. The future of construction will not be built only through better products, but also through better systems, partnerships, and ways of thinking.
The students who took part in the project will soon enter an industry under pressure to change. What they carry with them from this experience, the ability to question, rethink, and work across cultures, is exactly what the sector needs.
About the collaboration
Peikko Group is a leading global supplier of slim floor structures and connection technology for concrete construction, headquartered in Finland. DELTABEAM® Green Reuse, a slim-floor structure made 90% of recycled materials, supports the development of more sustainable construction. DELTABEAM® Green Reuse is designed according to the principles of Design for Disassembly (DfD).
Laurea University of Applied Sciences is a Finnish university of applied sciences with long experience in work-integrated, project-based education. Its Learning by Developing model connects students with real company challenges.
The PIONEER program is a European collaboration focused on sustainable built environment education. It brings together Laurea University of Applied Sciences in Finland, Avans University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, Bern University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland, Université Gustave Eiffel in France, and the University of Žilina in Slovakia.