Founded in 2019, London Climate Action Week (LCAW) is one of the world's largest

independent climate change events. It brings together representatives of businesses,

NGOs and civil society on a global platform to explore and promote solutions to

climate change for London and beyond. As part of this year’s activities, Reusefully

hosted a very well attended online event to explore new thinking in circularity for

buildings under the heading

“There’s No Such Thing As Waste – Making Circularity

Happen”.

Katherine Adams of Reusefully opened the session and reminded everyone that whilst the title of the event said there is no such thing as waste, the truth of the current situation is that the total UK waste in 2018 was 222 million tonnes, with 138 million tonnes of that coming from construction, demolition and excavation.

Even though a lot of construction waste is recovered, it is often downcycled and if you look at annual figures over the last 10 years or so, there has been little improvement. Circularity, she said, is not just about reuse and recycling, it is about increasing the productivity of materials by doing more with less. It is about maintaining or increasing the value of materials from both a financial and environmental point of view.

MBA conducted extensive site investigations and auditing at 22 Baker Street, creating a material inventory of the building, then identifying routes for reuse, and in the process developing a system for material passports. They are currently working with an industry working group who are looking to standardise in this area. They estimate they spent an extra +20% of time on systematising the process of reuse upfront in RIBA Stages 1-3, which was partly funded by the client and partly by their own R&D. However, moving forwards they foresee considerable time and economic savings on other projects, as new material costs rise, lead in times are extended causing programme uncertainties, circular infrastructure starts to be established and by initiating a process of pre-occupancy material auditing.

One of the early challenges in the project was the issue of availability of physical storage space to store materials in between building programmes. Certification and warranty issues also caused potential barriers to reuse which had effect on the costs and time spent trying to facilitate reuse; particularly with regards to internal fire doors. However, the importance of cross-industry collaboration ensured the project was ostensibly a success; working with an excellent deconstruction – not demolition – contractor and industry experts. They are now working with Lawmens, the deconstruction contractor, to create a ‘pocket book’ providing tips and tricks for specifying materials for reuse and evaluation the feasibility of on-site reuse. 

The project recorded a number of big successes, in both carbon and cost terms, particularly around the reuse of raised access floors and MBA have created a material reuse pathway for critical items, including potentially problematic items such as fire doors.

Sandra Sezgin is sustainability manager for British Land. She described their approach to circularity and work that is being undertaken on material passports. British Land have a strategic objective of reducing carbon, and, to achieve this, they recognise they will have to embrace circularity, making much more use of existing buildings and materials.

This can include retaining the shell and core of buildings, or retaining whole structures and only undertaking light touch refurbishments when absolutely necessary. Examples include 1 Triton Square, where British Land worked with the original contractor to carefully remove, refurbish and replace a worn-out façade in the building, reinstalling with the same glass. For the refurbishment of Exchange House, they secured a supply of reused raised access flooring. They have also reused marble flooring and granite cladding on other projects. They have disassembled structural steel and worked with the supplier to use on other buildings or offer as a reused product. They have made extensive use of material reuse portals such as Globechain.

Repurposing a building starts with an understanding of what is in a building, and treating that building as a material bank, she said. However, Sandra highlighted lack of data on buildings as a major challenge. Material passports will help with this and are an important development especially as British Land are starting to experience shorter lease periods and higher turnover rates in the buildings and spaces they let. 

Whilst they are currently internally collecting and storing information on their own buildings , they are looking to more public shared sources of data such as the Madaster platform. Sandra potentially sees a future whereby building owners can share and trade materials in future, but this will need a strong collaborative approach.

Daniel Doran of Lifecycle Sustainability described how LCA (life cycle assessment) can support more circular design. Circularity and carbon go hand-in-hand, and if you are more circular in your design and thinking, you will produce less carbon. Daniel outlined how an LCA analysis will produce a lot of numbers and indicators for you, many of them related to circularity and resources, which can provide a strong motivation and driver for clients to embrace circularity. LCA will also give you a genuine cradle to grave ‘whole picture’. However, there are challenges in using LCA to support circularity, one of them being the lack of information on ‘end of life’ and demolition/deconstruction, which often does not help in modelling reuse options. LCA has a well-defined and standardised approach, which is not yet the case with circularity although that is starting to change he said.

A lively discussion and debate followed the speakers’ presentations, with a discussion on issues such as providing products such as lighting systems as a service on a lease or rental basis, to the challenges of logistics and providing storage space, and the need for more comprehensive data and material inventories for existing buildings. Attendees reaffirmed their commitment to working together to share the principles and positive benefits of circularity for the construction sector, and work collaboratively in areas such as data sharing and standards which are crucial for success.