Building better, by the numbers.

Scale & opportunity

Construction is the world's largest industry by spend. Roughly half of every project budget is materials, and a meaningful share of those materials never gets installed.

1. 01$15.2T

   projected global construction output by 2030, ~13.5% of world economic output.

   Oxford Economics — Future of Construction

2. 02~50%

   of total construction spend goes to materials.

   RICS / Turner & Townsend

3. 03$2.15T

   U.S. construction spending, trailing twelve months as of April 2025.

   U.S. Census Bureau (CPIP)

4. 04~$43B

   estimated annual U.S. value of re-marketable surplus building goods — Unbuilt's curation-eligible TAM.

   Unbuilt internal model

   Derived from ~$1.08T US materials spend × ~33% unused-goods pool × 12% curation target. Component sources: Circular Online UK (stock-to-waste), Science Direct "Construction Waste" (job-site loss).

Natural resources

Construction is the single largest draw on raw materials extracted from the earth — sand, stone, timber, ore.

1. 01~40Btonnes

   of material consumed annually by global construction.

   UNEP International Resource Panel — Weight of Cities

2. 02~50%

   of all raw materials extracted globally each year are consumed by construction.

   UNEP IRP — Global Material Flows Database

3. 03~50Btonnes

   of sand & gravel extracted globally each year — the most-extracted solid material, second only to water.

   UNEP — Sand and Sustainability

4. 0424+

   islands in Indonesia's Riau region disappeared between 2005 and 2010 — destruction widely attributed to sand mining for construction.

   The Conversation (UN officials cited)

5. 05~1M

   plant and animal species threatened with extinction worldwide; habitat loss from extraction and land conversion is a leading driver.

   IPBES Global Assessment (2019)

The reuse gap

Apparel, furniture, electronics, and cars all have established secondary markets. Construction — by far the largest material category by weight — does not.

1. 01<1%

   of finished construction goods in new U.S. buildings come from secondhand sources.

   SF Dept. of Environment — Surplus Building Products Study (2021)

2. 0280%

   of excess building goods end up in landfill.

   SF Dept. of Environment — Surplus Building Products Study (2021)

3. 03~90%

   of U.K. construction & demolition waste is recovered — demonstrating the achievable upper bound, though most is downcycled aggregate rather than direct reuse.

   UK Defra C&D recovery statistics

Affordability

Material costs have outpaced wages for sixty years; recent supply shocks compressed the gap further. Reuse is one of the few cost levers buyers actually control.

1. 01~6×

   median household income now needed to buy a typical U.S. home, up from about 2× in the 1960s.

   U.S. Census / Clever Real Estate analysis

2. 02+41%

   rise in U.S. construction material costs from 2018 to 2023.

   NIBS 2024 Moving Forward Report

3. 03+160%

   rise in homeowner housing costs 1960–2021; homeowner incomes rose just 60% over the same period.

   NIBS 2024 Moving Forward Report

4. 0450%

   of U.S. renters were cost-burdened (>30% of income on rent) in 2023, up from 25% in 1960.

   NIBS 2024 Moving Forward Report

Climate

Embodied carbon — the emissions from extracting, manufacturing, and shipping building materials — is locked in before a building is occupied. Operational efficiency cannot undo it.

1. 01~40%

   of global CO₂ emissions come from the built environment.

   UN Environment Programme — Global Status Report for Buildings

2. 02~50%

   of a building's climate impact over its first 20 years is embodied carbon — locked in before occupancy.

   Architecture 2030

3. 03~15%

   of all global CO₂ emissions come from manufacturing cement and steel alone (~8% each).

   IEA — Cement & Iron and Steel

4. 04>90%

   reduction in embodied carbon when building components are reused instead of newly manufactured.

   Doors Unhinged

Construction waste

Construction and demolition debris dwarf household waste. Three-quarters of it ends up in U.S. landfills today.

1. 01~600Mtons

   of construction & demolition debris generated in the U.S. in 2018.

   U.S. EPA — C&D Debris

2. 02~145Mtons

   of U.S. construction waste landfilled in 2018.

   U.S. EPA — C&D Debris

3. 03~75%

   of construction & demolition waste — wood, drywall, plastics, fixtures — ends up in U.S. landfills.

   U.S. EPA — C&D Debris

4. 04~$543B

   projected size of the global construction waste management services market by 2028.

   Market Research Future

5. 05~$600

   average per-truckload disposal cost for construction debris.

   Schooley Mitchell (2023)

Supply chain & resilience

Tariffs, lumber shortages, port delays, and post-disaster reconstruction all strain the long supply chain that delivers most U.S. building materials.

1. 0116,000+

   buildings — mostly homes — destroyed across the two January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.

   LA County Economic Opportunity / January 2025 LA Wildfires

2. 02~$250B

   estimated total economic loss from the January 2025 LA wildfires (AccuWeather range $250–275B).

   AccuWeather / LA Times

3. 03+$9,200

   added to average U.S. single-family home construction cost from softwood lumber tariffs.

   NAHB — How Tariffs Impact Home Building (2025)

Where materials come from

Heavy commodities — concrete, lumber, aggregate — are mostly produced domestically, so construction materials look domestic in aggregate. The finishes and fixtures buyers actually choose tell the opposite story.

1. 0193%

   of materials used in new U.S. residential construction are domestically sourced — a figure dominated by heavy commodities like concrete, gypsum, and aggregate.

   NAHB Eye on Housing — Import Data for Residential Construction

2. 02~70%

   of ceramic tile used in the U.S. is imported (India, Spain, Mexico, Italy).

   Tile Council of North America — 2023 U.S. Market Update

3. 03~90%

   of marble & granite used in the U.S. is imported; net import reliance for dimension stone was 89% in 2024.

   USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries — Dimension Stone

4. 04~50%

   of light fixtures sold in the U.S. are imported, on a ~$20B market dependent on foreign manufacturing.

   IBISWorld — Lighting Fixtures Manufacturing / USITC

U.S. building stock

Demolition and renovation generate the supply side of a reuse market. Full deconstruction can recover up to 70% of a building's materials.

1. 01~105M

   U.S. residential buildings (~100M single-family + ~5.2M multifamily).

   Construction Physics — Every Building in America

2. 02~5.9M

   U.S. commercial & industrial buildings.

   Construction Physics — Every Building in America

3. 03~1.5M

   U.S. residential completions per year (SAAR, 2023–2025).

   U.S. Census Bureau (CPIP)

4. 04~400k

   U.S. structures demolished per year — roughly one demolition for every four new completions.

   Construction Physics — Every Building in America

5. 05Upto 70%

   of a building's materials are recoverable when fully deconstructed (vs. demolished) with planning.

   Wikipedia — Deconstruction (building)

Comparable markets

Other consumer categories already proved that resale scales. Construction is late, not unprecedented.

1. 0162%

   of Gen Z and Millennials look for apparel secondhand before buying new.

   ThredUp 10th Annual Resale Report (2022)

2. 02~25%

   projected secondhand share of the U.S. apparel market by 2027 (≈12% in 2022).

   ThredUp 2024 Resale Report / GlobalData

3. 03~20%

   of the U.S. furniture market is now secondhand.

   Grand View Research — Second-hand Furniture Market

4. 0415–30%

   typical e-commerce return rate across categories (vs. ~9% in brick-and-mortar).

   MeteorSpace — Returns Statistics (2025)

5. 0544%

   of returned goods are never resold.

   Ecommerce News EU (study of 630k returns)

Unbuilt today

Cumulative results through September 2025, scored by the same engine that runs on every live listing. See how we count.