38 ROUND TABLE REVIEW: PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS FOR HARNESSING THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY AT SCALE
the importance of government policies to unlock supply chain barriers and support reuse infrastructure, and the conversation also highlighted challenges in data collection for material passports and the need for better information and transparency. Design teams are increasingly designing out waste in projects using not only reuse and recycling approaches, but also digital tools which can obviate the waste traditionally taken for granted in construction. Integrating supply chains can also assist project teams and housebuilders, but is not a simple solution.
NUDGES TOWARDS CIRCULARITY
Mike Leonard of Birmingham University advocates encouraging building users to embrace circularity via ‘nudges,’ rather than legislation for the market
The group gave some positive views on measurement and reporting options, such as material passports, LCAs, but pondered how the resulting data be managed, and made available to specifi ers in a credible way. But Mike Leonard of Birmingham University said the parameters being used for data made it “suspect in huge areas – we’re not really tracing the source of products, where they’re coming from; the whole journey, we still think that it’s appropriate to measure carbon from the port of entry to the UK.” He added: “We’re not necessarily thinking about the longevity of the product, and end of life reuse in full terms, so we’ve got a lot to do. I think that’s why embodied carbon is not part of the Future Homes Standard at the moment, because the government actually understands that the data isn’t, isn’t complete.”
this was setting a precedent on projects meaning design teams “are expected to go through the same process in the next application.” However, she said that more broadly, across Government, this clear
defi nition of circularity policy was lacking. “I appreciate that that needs to be tailored for different sectors of the construction industry, but if there is an overarching defi nition and a goal set behind that, then actually everyone can use their skills towards meeting that.” She also cautioned that such a goal should “not be prescriptive about how it’s achieved.”
Palmer said that she had attended a meeting with Government representatives who said they weren’t planning to put a defi nition into the upcoming circular strategy, and she “would be really disappointed if that doesn’t happen, because it will mean that everyone outside of London, where standards are being developed through their planning system, will treat every project on a case by case basis.” She said this would mean “the learnings aren’t shared as well, because every contractor will treat different projects differently.”
Raising reuse & data’s potential
The evolution of data on reused materials – as well as more standardisation of reused products and grading systems – was beginning to address structural and other considerations. Delegates said this was particularly needed given a heightened focus under the newly toughened safety criteria across the industry, particularly for taller residential buildings. The conversation also covered the importance of centralising data on materials used, the need for better construction data repositories, and the potential of legislation and policy to drive sustainable practices.
There was consensus on the need for comprehensive ratings that include circularity, energy performance, and other factors to drive market demand for sustainable products. The delegates emphasised
Edward Jezeph said that lack of data on homes’ construction and makeup was a fundamental challenge for Homes England, apart from information submitted for planning – “We build a home, and immediately afterwards, we don’t know how it was built; we have no construction information register.” He asked how data could be harnessed in products and materials to provide this in future, such as using RFID, to “transfer construction information into operational information,” and therefore “unlocking the commercial reality of reusing materials.”
Thomas Hesslenberg of Elliott Wood wondered why this was the
case, and explained how they had developed ‘The Building Archives’ – a digital platform aiming to provide a comprehensive resource of structural drawings of existing buildings to assist designers proposing reuse by giving them hard-to-fi nd information. He said that the fi rm was now looking to grow this collaborative endeavour via engaging structural engineering practices, “and hopefully architects” to place their drawings on platform to make it “an essential database of major buildings.”
Simon Foxell said it was “a very big question, it would be a system with a lot of parameters, and there are questions around the accuracy and accessibility.” He gave an example of the “very fragmented” TV and fi lm industry which was making a concerted effort to bring in a more coordinated data approach to solving circularity challenges. On individual product data, Umendra Singh of Soprema mentioned that CPR, the European product regulation system, had developed a digital product passport, which will also be a model used in the UK for centralising data.
Creative approaches & incentives
The round table delegates delved into the realities behind the principle of building reuse, and agreed that a maxim of ‘reuse fi rst – don’t see demolition as a default’ should be applied. The key was in identifying how best to assess existing assets and materials, in order to drive mainstream design for disassembly and reuse. However currently, the
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