ROUND TABLE REVIEW: PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS FOR HARNESSING THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY AT SCALE 41
Edward Jezeph of Homes England gave a revealing insight into the incentives that the agency was providing for smaller developers to embrace circularity, in the form of “alliances with lenders, to increase their risk appetite to lend support to SMEs, and embed sustainable objectives.” He added: “There are a lot of developers out there who do want to deliver better, more sustainable housing, but the economics are challenging. So we can create those incentives, especially with institutional capital.” Gary Wilson of sponsor Amtico said that the French Government was using taxation as an incentive to drive upcycling of product back into the supply chain, but it was imposed on fl ooring businesses. He said “at the moment they’ve got a lot of material they don’t know what to do with” as a result, but questioned whether companies would invest without such a ‘stick’ being applied.
Solutions: Sponsors’ Question Time Our two sponsors, Amtico and Soprema UK proposed two very different questions for the panel, the former looking at what business models could be developed to help incentivise circular procurement. Amtico’s Gary Wilson posed his fi rm’s question to the group as follows: “How do we design circular business models that work for long-lifecycle products such as fl ooring, where replacement may happen only every 10-20 years?” He also asked a related question: “What would it take to make closed-loop takeback systems commercially viable across the UK and beyond – possible incentives?
The answers delved across the subject and encompassed many of the previous practical factors discussed, in even more depth in terms of delivering the information on assets and materials the industry needs to fully take up circularity opportunities. Stephanie Palmer said that “looking at the internal structure was super important, because although 20 years might be long life for an interior fi xed product, it’s not for the structure.” She recommended an ISEP publication on business models and proposed more manufacturers could set up processes to accept ‘second life’ materials, and “share the value with customers” (of offsetting cost of raw materials.) Also, manufacturers needed to look at incentives for customers to return materials, as they “can’t wait for you to come and pick them up.” Architect Simon Foxell said the “most obvious business model” was
the “well developed rental market for fl oor fi nishes, a direct transfer of new for old products.” Wilson said that Amtico’s takeback scheme saw around 20% being recycled due to the products’ installation methods, with around 80% downcycled. He said there were challenges with recycling at scale due to bespoke designs, but that using a certain screed interface would enable a product to be lifted for reuse as “pretty much virgin material.” Foxell agreed that the systems where “materials get locked together,” were where problems with recycling arose.
Mike Leonard said that reusing products raised issues around their traceability, once a building was sold for example, and wondered whether Golden Thread approaches to asset management could be the answer. Wilson said Amtico’s takeback scheme included the company recycling other fi rms’ products when required. Olivia Daw cited the example of Saint-Gobain providing “skips and segregation advice” to contractors, as well as “making it very clear what needs to happen early on for them to be able to take
THE POWER OF ASSET DATA
The round table discussed how building audits could provide the details on existing assets to unlock the benefi ts of circularity
back that product.” She said that this helped reduced the “friction” which was caused by adding “any additional processes” for contractors, and avoided arguments later on in projects. She also advocated similar clarity in possible incentives introduced for manufacturers, to help them drive circularity within individual product lines.
Soprema directly levelled their question at the Government, asking whether there was a need for a more legislative ‘stick’ based approach to drive circularity in construction. Umendra Singh from Soprema asked: “Does everyone feel there needs to be more done through legislation? They have probably lost the appetite for carrots, or a certain size or shape, so some stick is required?” Nick Haughton of Sapphire said that the amount of new requirements being imposed on the sector recently could be endangering businesses’ sustainability, and that circularity was competing with a range of other priorities. “The average manufacturer who supplies into HRBs has roughly seen about 40% of their revenue slip, which means that they’re not being able to invoice 40% of what they have in factories.” He added, “It’s a huge challenge to the industry.”
Umendra Singh pushed back against the idea of an opposition between driving circularity and the building safety agenda, saying “circularity is also saving life.” Debbie said that labour “should be viewed as a renewable, and hopefully what we could end up with is that the actual end cost isn’t any different, but you’re actually penalising harmful products, harmful materials, harmful practices.”
Mike Leonard steered the topic away from legislation towards incentivising building users – “rather than handing over lots of new technology and kit and hoping everything will be fi ne, can we work more collectively with the people who are living in our buildings, and make them think about what they do around the circular economy that could have a huge effect, without legislation, without more regulation, more with nudges?”
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