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Glossary

This glossary explains the terms retail chains use to manage their store fit-outs across the entire portfolio: from residual value and strip-out to reuse. It is written for expansion, construction, procurement and controlling teams. The perspective: circular fit-out is first a question of capital management and only then one of sustainability. It is based on 15 years of practice in retail interior fit-out and my master’s thesis (2026).

Cradle to Cradle in Shopfitting

Cradle to Cradle in shopfitting is the application of the Cradle to Cradle principle to store fit-outs: after use, materials are returned to biological or technical cycles without loss of quality.

Deconstructability

Deconstructability is the ability of a fit-out to be removed at the end of its use with reasonable effort, without damage and separated into single materials.

Depreciation of Shop Fit-Outs

Depreciation spreads the cost of shop fit-outs over a set useful life. It often differs from the lease term and from the actual service life of the components.

Green Lease

A green lease is a lease agreement with sustainability provisions, for example on sharing consumption data, materials used in the fit-out, and strip-out and handover of the premises.

Pre-Demolition Audit

A pre-demolition audit is the systematic survey of a leased space or building before strip-out: type, quantity and quality of components and materials, hazardous substances, and the potential for reuse and recycling.

Restwertrückführung

Restwertrückführung (residual value recovery) is the decision at the time of a remodel about which recovery option preserves the value embedded in store fit-outs: continued use, relocation to another store, return to the supplier or sale instead of strip-out and disposal.

Retail Rollout

A retail rollout is the serial planning and delivery of new stores or remodels to a uniform standard across several locations and years.

Retail Strip-Out

Retail strip-out is the planned removal of store fit-outs when a store closes or is remodelled, with materials separated for reuse, recycling and disposal.

Reuse of Store Fixtures

Reuse is the renewed use of fit-outs, furniture or components from one store for the same purpose, in the same or another store, without processing them into raw material.

Store Portfolio

A store portfolio is the entirety of a retail chain’s locations, managed as one estate according to uniform criteria: building fabric, lease, remaining term, remodel need and resource balance.

Tenant Fit-Out

A tenant fit-out is the interior fit-out of a leased space carried out by the tenant at its own cost, as opposed to works by the landlord.

Tenant Fit-Out Certification

Tenant fit-out certification looks at whether and how the interior fit-out of a leased space can be assessed under sustainability rating systems such as DGNB, BREEAM or LEED.

Waste Hierarchy in Strip-Out

The waste hierarchy in strip-out is the order of priority set out in the German Circular Economy Act – prevention, preparing for reuse, recycling, other recovery, disposal – applied to the removal of shop fit-outs.

Further terms

Book Value (Buchwert)

The calculated value of a component after scheduled depreciation; it can fall to zero regardless of its physical condition. See Depreciation of Shop Fit-Outs.

CAFM

Computer-Aided Facility Management: software for managing building and asset data during operation.

Circular Construction (Kreislaufgerechtes Bauen)

Applying circular economy principles to the design, construction and deconstruction of buildings.

German Circular Economy Act (KrWG)

The German federal law on waste management (Kreislaufwirtschaftsgesetz). Section 6 sets out the five-level waste hierarchy; the act aims to conserve natural resources. Legal text (German). See Waste Hierarchy in Strip-Out.

German Commercial Waste Ordinance (GewAbfV)

German regulation (Gewerbeabfallverordnung) requiring the separate collection and recovery of commercial municipal waste and certain construction and demolition waste. Legal text (German).

Corporate Real Estate (CRE)

Property used by a company to run its core business, not primarily valued as an investment.

Cradle to Cradle

A concept coined by Michael Braungart and William McDonough in which materials circulate in biological or technical cycles. Products are certified by the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute. See Cradle to Cradle in Shopfitting.

Design for Disassembly

A design principle in which components are joined reversibly and can be taken apart without damage so they can be reused or recycled as single materials. See Deconstructability.

EPD (Environmental Product Declaration)

A verified statement of a product’s environmental impacts based on a life cycle assessment, in construction usually according to EN 15804. Used as evidence for materials and fixtures.

GWP (Global Warming Potential)

An indicator of the climate impact of a product or process, expressed in CO₂ equivalents. A standard part of LCAs and EPDs.

Life Cycle Costs (LCC)

The monetary assessment of investment, operating, maintenance and deconstruction costs over the life cycle.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

A method for assessing the environmental impacts of a product or component over its life, from production and use to disposal (ISO 14040/14044).

Material Inventory (Materialkataster)

A register of the materials installed in a building or portfolio by type, quantity, location and condition. The basis for strip-out planning and reuse.

Material Passport

A document recording the materials and components installed in a building by type, quantity, location and deconstruction properties. Several versions exist and they are not uniformly standardised.

Product-as-a-Service

A usage model in which ownership stays with the provider and the user pays a fee, for example for leased lighting systems.

Residual Value (Restwert)

The material and use value still embedded in an installed component, regardless of its book value. See Restwertrückführung.

Material Purity (Sortenreinheit)

The state in which a material or component consists of a single substance, or its substances can be separated without composite bonds. A prerequisite for high-quality recycling.

Urban Mining

Viewing the built environment as a store of raw materials, and recovering secondary raw materials and components from strip-out and demolition.

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