Summary
- The ASBP is continuing to support its members and the wider construction industry to increase the reclamation and reuse of construction products and materials through knowledge sharing and practical guidance.
- Downcycling and recycling are not enough. Only 1% of materials from a standard demolition are reused, destroying value. It doesn’t help when waste streams are not even being accurately measured, with tonnes of materials still being buried.
- Demand for reused materials is increasing faster than the supply – we don’t have the infrastructure at the scale required. It is getting established (particularly digital, less so physical infrastructure) but requires more support.
- Grosvenor, British Land and Lazari Investments are driving reuse through their projects and supply chains, for both insitu reuse and reuse of materials away from the donor site. Improvements in the pre-demolition audit process has supported this, particularly if carried out earlier on in the project stages.
- Circularity is seen as an opportunity given the benefits it can bring over and above carbon emissions reduction including reduced pollution, supporting nature, a more resilient supply chain, financial gains and aligning with evolving legislation.
- Warranties and storage (a common theme) are still cited as potential barriers; with bringing the wider supply chain on the journey through education and early onboarding, and having a proactive and willing team, being key elements to successful reuse.
- Two sides to development – we need to maximise existing building stock but not developing anything is equally not a strategy. Consideration of what we already have is paramount, but where building new is the better option, we can keep embodied carbon low by harvesting existing materials wherever possible. Also need to ensure we design for future reuse.
- Salvage is not new, it is just being re-envisaged – with demolition methodologies, processes and techniques having improved dramatically over the years, not least to prioritise health and safety.
- The demolition sector is no longer the ‘dustman’ of the construction sector, through shared knowledge and professional dialogue the industry is now starting to receive the respect it rightly deserves.
- Deconstruct’s Giltspur Street project is a fantastic showcase of the demolition industry’s expertise and ability to innovate, and how potentially insurmountable risks can be mitigated. The project is a great example of learning by doing.
- In addition to presenting their 180 Piccadilly scheme, John F Hunt highlighted that the economy is about flow and movement and if not careful then hoarding can take place, storing materials just in case and restricting their use elsewhere or adding carbon to a process unwittingly such as having to move materials several times.
- Having earlier engagement (again a common theme) offers the opportunity for demolition contractors to add more certainty and value (cost/ logistics/ programme), ideally pre-tender to enable advice on latest CE opportunities, prioritisation of requirements and the ability to focus on the areas with more financial value or carbon value.
- The final session of the day focussed on infrastructure and the need for physical hubs, both at a community level (lower quantities, diverse stock, sold as seen) and a commercial level (processes to triage, repair and remanufacture, offer warranties, specialise) with related workflow discussion groups at the Circular Do Tank and examples from The Rebuild Site, The Reuse Hub and FIS Project Reuse.
Full Report
The Alliance for Sustainable Building Products hosted our annual Reuse Summit on the 14th November as part of our ongoing Reuse Now Campaign. We had over 100 people from across the industry representing developers, architects, contractors, demolition contractors, engineers, reuse specialists, and more. A huge thanks to our campaign sponsors – GOLD Cleveland Steel & Tubes, SILVER Optima, BRONZE Reusefully, EME, Wood Knowledge Wales and Circuland.
Our event keynote speaker was Tina Paillet, RICS President and Co-Founder of Circotrade. Tina reminded attendees of where the construction sector currently stands: emitting 40% of global carbon emissions, using 50% of primary resources globally, building urban areas the size of Paris globally every year, our industry creates 60% of UK waste, and 68% of carbon emissions in London are attributable to the built environment. Action in our sector then is crucial to the pathway to Net Zero, with the materials we use defining our emissions moving forward.
Carbon emissions in the UK have reduced since 2014 even with the increased levels of building activity, but this is mainly due to decarbonisation of energy. The more challenging piece is embodied carbon, a big issue as we continue to demolish and dispose what we have built. Tina quite rightly underlined that diverting from landfill, a key indicator historically mentioned with pride, is no longer good enough, downcycling and recycling are also not enough. It doesn’t help when our waste is not even being accurately measured, with tonnes of materials still being buried.
We need to go back to the waste hierarchy inverted pyramid, prevention is at the very top, with reuse as the second most preferred strategy – these must be fully considered before moving to recycling. The reuse of materials makes economic sense. We need to reuse materials wherever possible, and alongside that regenerate nature, then recycle and as a last resort burn or bury. Only 1% of materials from a standard demolition are reused, destroying value. For the decade running up to 2021, construction and demolition activities in the City of London generated 1.54 million tonnes of identifiable waste. That’s equivalent to 2.7 tonnes per worker in the square mile. The construction sector employs 1 in 20 people in London, creating a stronger, more widely adopted circular economy can create 12,000 new jobs by 2030.
More often than not the demand for reused materials is there but the supply is not. Tina believes that the solution is to bring the power of finance to the circular economy. The power a client can have over their entire ecosystem should not be underestimated, as the client’s imperatives cascade down – and the system follows suit. To get the key sector players on board, solutions are needed to manage future risks and be financially beneficial for both the seller and the buyer. Tina’s organisation Circotrade, is one solution which facilitates the futures trading of a buildings’ materials and embodied carbon. It creates a digital model listing a building’s materials and incorporating a digital passport to quantify, value and register a building’s circular CO2 footprint.
Katherine Adams, Debbie Ward, Asselia Katenbayeva – ASBP
The ASBP team gave a quick summary of the Reuse Now campaign and an overview of some of the work they have been doing over the last year. ASBP’s Reuse Now campaign aims to encourage greater reuse of building materials within the construction industry and accelerate the transition to a more resource efficient, low carbon, circular economy as well encourage growth of low/zero carbon industries and supply chain models.
Over 40 of our members are actively engaged in the reuse and circular economy agenda. Since relaunching the campaign in October last year we have had:
- 250+ in person event attendees
- 600 online event registrations
- 473 contacts added for our reuse focussed newsletter
- Almost 2,000 hits on our reuse/reuse campaign web page
- DISRUPT 2 beta toolkit (steel reuse) has had 93 hits so far, with 52 pdf downloads
Katherine did a quick ‘Reuse Scorecard’ to summarise the broader industry’s activities during 2023:
GREEN (good)
- Planning requirements in London (GLA and other Boroughs)
- Larger client/developers/financier’s commitments
- Exemplar case studies
- Pre-demolition audits (but variation)
- Linking with carbon
- Material exchange platforms
- Social enterprise reuse
- Established businesses/product reuse
- Raised access flooring
- Carpet tiles
- Structural steel
- Furniture
ORANGE (getting there)
- Manufacturer take back schemes
- Metrics and data
- Procurement for reuse
- Specifying reclaimed materials
- Storage
- Increased awareness
- Sharing of knowledge and greater collaboration
- Product reuse
- Timber
- Sanitaryware
- Cladding
- Bricks
RED (not great/need much more focus)
- Planning requirements, outside London
- Policy and Regulation
- Smaller/mid-sized clients
- Standardisation/protocols
- Understanding the value
- Designing for reuse/end of life
- Product reuse
- Plasterboard
- Insulation
- Concrete
- MEP
- Making it the norm!
Debbie gave a quick overview of end-of-life building glass – which despite its recyclability, end-of-life building glass is almost never recycled into new glass products. Moreover, she focused on the reuse of glass partitioning which rarely happens, some of the reasons why this is the case (including H&S and logistics issues) and what can be done to facilitate more reuse such as design for reclamation and reuse, start with small quantities and scale, early engagement (mentioned by every presenter!) and that the more frequently reclamation and reuse takes place, the better teams will get at doing it and economies of scale will more quickly be achieved. The outputs of the deep dive into glass partitioning will be published in the new year by ASBP.
Katherine then summarised DISRUPT II which Asselia has been leading on, a really interesting piece of research engaging with the demolition industry to support and drive more reclaimed steel being available for reuse. The outputs of this research are available here https://asbp.org.uk/toolkit/disrupt-2-steel-reuse-project-toolkit
The next sessions focussed on Pre-Demolition Audits with examples from three leading developers, Grosvenor, Lazari Investments and British Land.
Leandra from Grosvenor talked about their commitment to net zero, with a target of getting to net zero waste by 2030 and reuse being high on Grosvenor’s agenda. Integrating circularity principles into their business operations is fundamental, prioritising reuse – using a project in South Molton as an example where they 90% of the stone from existing facades was reused.
Circularity in seen as an opportunity given the benefits it can bring over and above carbon emissions reduction including reduced pollution, supporting nature, a more resilient supply chain, financial gains and aligning with evolving legislation. Leandra discussed several case studies including Holbein Gardens. Fivefields and Grosvenor Gardens Mews where various materials were reclaimed and reused from roof slates and steel to sanitaryware and lighting.
Challenges include availability of materials, getting the timing right and how that generally requires storage solutions – they are currently using ResourceXchange to store materials to facilitate the reuse process. Warranties are another issue that continually comes up and has to be managed around, but Leandra also made the point of how important it is to educate the whole team and get them fully on board, it’s critical that everyone knows what they doing around the reuse agenda, what materials are available and where they will/could be used.
From an opportunities perspective there has been a big improvement in the information they get from pre-demolition audits, historically they have had contractors undertake the audits but Grosvenor recognised that they need the information earlier so are now using Reusefully and Material Index for this. They are already working with second hand materials platforms such as Circotrade and have set up a task force to focus on reuse and share knowledge.
Rob Smith from Material Index on behalf of Emily Samoluk from British Land.
Rob took us through a British Land case study on glass partitioning where they worked with Cast Interiors, Deconstruct and Material Index. Some partitioning stock could be made available that Cast were happy to make work, the team used specialist contractors and glazing height was a key factor. The main enablers of this project were the use of a pre-demolition audit and a proactive and willing team, they successfully deconstructed and reinstalled 7 linear metres of partitioning, saving 719 kg of CO2e. The partitions that were not reused at Broadwalk House were reused in a project in Oxford. The easiest path of reuse is in situ, this example was site to site which had its challenges – the partitions had to be hand carried out of the building as there was no goods lift, with appropriate processes put in place – but this example showed it is possible. There is a big opportunity to do more in this area given that hundreds of thousands of linear metres of partitioning is taken out and downcycled rather than reused.
Rob then briefly mentioned a second project, Surrey Quays shopping centre which had had an initial pre-demolition audit done for planning, but British Land wanted a more granular study. The facility was a multi tenanted space and British Land wanted a comprehensive material mapping undertaken to create a material bank for the architect and to use for the fitout of future phases.
Tom Shillinglaw from Lazari Investments: Spoke about their reuse efforts across several projects, but also flagged that whilst being mindful of efforts to reduce carbon and increase circularity the organisation still needed to consider other requirements around tax, financial incentives, data collection & reporting… and the need to make a profit!
They have examples of reusing existing glass, floor tiles and raised access flooring, but fire doors are an issue, in one instance a 3mm gap caused by wear at the top of the doors would have required retesting and recertification. Lazari do have some storage, though having to constantly move things around is not ideal, digitising materials is the ideal scenario but time consuming,
Tom recognises that we need to maximise existing building stock but not developing anything is equally not a strategy – progress needs to happen as we cannot preserve every building – we equally can’t have bland building designs across the board either.
Low carbon options are high on their agenda, one of their schemes is just over 500kgCO2e per sq metre, planning is a big lever to support low carbon developments. He advocates management audits to fully understand what is in a building even before the pre-demolition audit, tracking & tracing such as mark steel visibly will help to support reuse.
Howard Button, IDE: Howard shared some historical images of secondary materials markets (from the 1950s) – salvage is not new, it is just being re-envisaged. Steel and timber were major materials for reuse in the past, and reuse was standard practice. Since then, the market has changed dramatically with demolition methodologies, processes and techniques having improved to prioritise health and safety – an important consideration when recovering materials for reuse today.
Demolition contractors have always done pre-demolition audits to manage their work, not in as much detail as now but it has always happened. The sector needs to capitalise on the demo contractor’s knowledge by bringing them on to the job as early as possible, early engagement is key to maximising reuse. The demolition sector is no longer the ‘dustman’ of the construction sector, through shared knowledge and professional dialogue they are now starting to receive the respect it rightly deserves. A reflection of their expanding role, some companies already call themselves “enabling works contractors” – when will the sector be referred to more often as Deconstruction than Demolition…?
On steel, the reuse market is very London centric, but the scope is expanding and can only grow as the reuse message is shared. The sector already has great recycling rates, if demo contractors can get more returns on deconstructing and reclaiming for reuse then it will happen more widely.
Howard showed the J Mould case study where the company reclaims and reuses as much as possible including welfare units and their solar panels. Howard also mentioned Battersea Power Station redevelopment and circular structures at Coal Drop Yard at Kings Cross as examples of insitu steel reuse.
Stephen Dorer, Deconstruct: Stephen presented their flagship project at 20 Giltspur Street. The target for steel reuse on this project was 25%, that never would have happened if their non-compliant (the compliant option was to demolish the two floors) tender option had not been taken forward. They worked very closely with Elliot Wood to work through the non-compliant option and ensure it was viable. All the elements they incorporated for the project are done every day on demolition sites, the complexity for the Giltspur Street project was the combination of a number of different aspects brought together and at a big scale!
Steelwork from the original structure was reused in the extension, and the floors were ‘jacked’ (raised). This process, which took just three days, saved approx. £2 million and 30 weeks on the program Stephen shared a video of the process which was very impressive (soon to be released publicly). He pointed out that it is fundamental to understand the logistics of the steel and take that into account, think of the journey that the steel has to go on to go out and back into the building – 76% of moving on this project was manual not by crane. They had thousands of questions from insurers – Deconstruct’s insurers and then their clients, and also the contractors, but they worked through them all. The project is a great example of learning by doing.
Dan Sweeney, John F Hunt: The definition of circular economy can vary between organisations, it is important to have clarity and agreement and make conscious choices to ensure decisions are being made for the right reasons. Sometimes need to challenge processes, economy is about flow and movement and if not careful then hoarding can take place, storing materials just in case and restricting their use elsewhere or adding carbon to a process unwittingly such as having to move materials several times.
There are different ways to redirect materials for reuse and recycling including manufacturer take back / rebate, third party refurbishment, reuse through network straight to site, reuse within own portfolio, use of a material exchanges / platforms – or failing these options then materials can be sent for recycling. Dan pointed out that different products are at different stages regarding reuse, with raised access flooring being most commonplace and ducting being the least.
He talked through a timeline which overlaid when the demolition contractor gets involved on to the RIBA stages. It illustrated – and this was a common theme of the day – how important it is to involve the demolition contractor early in the process and that this rarely happens. They are potentially involved at the pre-demolition audit stage, though this can be done by others and documentation passed on at tender stage.
There is often a very small window where – following a long lead in time with limited information or ability to get further involved in the project – the ‘button is pressed’ and everything is accelerated to get on site as quickly as possible. Dan called this the ‘sling shot effect’. It means that demolition contractors are not afforded any time to do testing in the tendering phase, and only have a small window to properly understand what is there and what could be done with it – which does not give the contractor the best opportunity to deliver circular solutions. Having earlier engagement offers the opportunity to add more certainty and value (cost/ logistics/ programme), ideally pre-tender to enable advice on latest CE opportunities, prioritisation of requirements and the ability to focus on the areas with more financial value or carbon value. Learning can then also be shared back up supply chain, giving more certainty to the market and supply chain.
John F Hunt has various processes and methodologies to support a more circular economy approach and ensure learnings are shared throughout the organisation to maximise reclamation and reuse wherever possible, including a glass reuse decision tree, a steel reuse decision tree, a CE priority matrix and a CE cost/benefit analysis looking at financial cost and carbon as drivers. Dan also pointed out the challenge of disassembling buildings not designed for it.
Dan finished with their case study on 180 Piccadilly, talking about structural steel reuse and their aim to reuse as much of the products and materials within the building as possible, collaborating with the wider ecosystem and networks to donate or sell on over 1000 different products/materials to commercial companies, third sector organisations and individuals. A key enabler to be able to do that was having a dedicated person for reuse on site as because the infrastructure is still not there for a smooth redistribution of materials it required finding suitable recipients which often involved quite a lot of work.
Debbie Ward, The Rebuild Site: Debbie talked about the need for physical and well as digital reuse hubs, and the difference between a commercial hub – larger quantities, able to support remanufacturing and rewarranty and perhaps more specialised eg flooring related or structural materials etc; and a community hub – smaller quantities, more diverse materials, sold as seen, operations include volunteer programmes. She then gave a brief overview of Rebuild’s The Reuse Hub in Wolverhampton, a community reuse initiative. If you have a construction site or related supply chain operation in the West Midlands and have surplus materials then please get in touch with Debbie. (debbie.ward@rebuildsite.co.uk )
Flavie Lowres, FIS: Flavie highlighted the reuse potential in the fit-out sector, which accounts for 11% of construction costs. With buildings undergoing around 30 fit-outs in their lifetime, and refurbishments every 5-7 years on average, the impact of reusing fit-out materials could be huge. Flavie is leading on a pilot project ‘Project Reuse’ for a ceiling tiles and luminaires commercial reuse hub. They currently have a project manager and storage and are asking industry to supply materials into the hub and consider buying materials from the hub in the near future as stock becomes available. Please get in touch if you are interested to find out more, have materials to supply or a project requiring materials. (flavielowres@thefis.org)
Darcy Arnold-Jones, Circular Do Tank – the Do Tank is a forum designed to raise awareness and drive adoption of circular practices within the built environment. The group’s aim is to support the creation of an accessible and scalable circular economy, through sharing knowledge and defining standards. The initiative has a business pledge campaign and also operates a number of workstreams – Tax and Financial Incentives, Insurance and Warranties, Planning and Building Control, Logistics and Storage, Specification and Deconstruction, and Data Collection and Reporting.
Darcy then talked in more detail about the Logistics and Storage workstream. Activities they are currently undertaking include mapping of existing storage facilities; looking at current best practice; a review of existing facilities that could be expanded/pivoted including salvage yards and waste & recycling service providers; and what options there might be for physical storage on meanwhile sites or consolidation centres. They believe biggest barriers at the moment lie around who is liable for the material between buildings; the balance between the desire to reclaim and reuse and the cost of deconstruction and level of remediation needed in terms of value retention; how to incentivise deconstruction over demolition; limits on length of time products can be stored and economic viability; how to bring reused materials into mainstream markets under existing procurement routes; and stockpiling and ensuring supply and demand.
Darcy concluded with the groups view of what a London hub might look like with a multi-use ‘circular village’, making use of London’s waterways and existing industrial infrastructure, acting as storage hub feeding into a wider circular vision and incorporating education, research, production and creation. Visit the website to find out more about making a pledge or getting involved with the Do Tank. https://circulardotank.co.uk/