West Sussex, UK - As we witness the devastating effects of climate change with every news cycle, coverage is now focusing in on all aspects of human activity and what impact that is having on the planet. It makes for some uncomfortable reading, the built environment is responsible for 45% of the UK’s total carbon emissions, and accounts for 60% of all materials used whilst creating a third of all waste.

The need for action has now become urgent, which is reflected in the recent number of articles centred on the creative minds striving to decarbonise the building industry by considering reuse as the solution.

In The Architect’s Journal, Fran Williams asked “can reusing building materials in new projects go mainstream?” The article is part of the AJ’s new campaign RetroFirst; which is championing reuse in the construction industry. Alongside proposals to alter building regulations, they are campaigning for changes to the current distorted VAT system that incentivises new builds over renovation projects. Williams describes the channeling of waste back into construction as a possible “game-changer.” Adoption of large scale reuse would certainly help to curtail the construction industry’s huge carbon emissions, if you consider that to manufacture 10 bricks uses the energy equivalent of a gallon of petrol.

Salvo’s CEO, Sara Morel highlighted that the “the salvage sector has been an under-utilised resource for decades, supplying less than one per cent of the construction materials market since Salvo started in 1990.” Almost all reuse is currently dependent on the client’s lead, this is wholly inadequate if the industry wants to strive for higher environmental standards, Morel went onto say: “Reclaimed materials should be mandated, not an option, for any LEED [the North American environmental building standard] or BREEAM building. All buildings should aim to outperform the national average by including 5 per cent – by value, volume or mass – reclaimed building materials.”

Reuse seems like the intuitive answer to the industry’s problems given the escalating climate emergency, so what are the obstacles that stand in the way of reclaimed materials being adopted by the mainstream? Williams stated insurance and product warranties to be clear big issues. Architect and Senior Lecturer at the School of Architecture and Design, and FCRBE colleague, Duncan Baker-Brown affirmed that “until there is more transparency with this, it will be hard to implement this process on a bigger scale.” Also citing the need for implementation in the UK for a structured system that would support circular construction, a resource management scheme that would organise collaborations between all the parties.

Williams mentioned the work of the FCRBE, which is aiming to increase the amount of reclaimed building materials and architectural salvage being circulated in the NW Europe region by more than 50 percent. Despite the obvious potential for the creation of a circular economy, salvage dealers face significant challenges: visibility, access to important projects and integration in contemporary building practices. Without a strong reuse market potentially high value materials will follow lower waste routes such as crushing, composting, waste to energy or worst of all - disposal to landfill.

Michael Ghyoot from Rotor, the FCRBE project’s lead noted that many salvage dealers are struggling in the current climate with many ceasing trade over the past few years, which is a paradoxical situation, Ghyoot explains: “There has never been so much talk about circular economy, yet operators fully active in this field are struggling to conduct their business.”

In the article’s conclusion Williams argued that to push the agenda forward “requires a shift in industry culture involving hard work, flexibility and some risk-taking…But more wide-ranging transformative change won’t happen until architects and others properly engage with material reclamation.”

“The case for ... never demolishing another building” was put forward by Oliver Wainwright in The Guardian, who asked “could we continue to make and remake our cities out of what is already there?” Amid the climate crisis he pointed out we may not have any other option “On our current course, we are set to triple material extraction in 30 years, and triple waste production by 2100. If we stand any chance of averting climate catastrophe, we must start with buildings – and stop conceiving them in the same way we have for centuries.”

The Guardian piece featured Dutch architect Thomas Rau, who developed the concept of “material passports” which act as a digital record of the specific characteristics and value of every material in a construction project, thereby enabling the different parts to be recovered and reused. “We have to think of buildings as material depots,” said Thomas Rau. The concept is being endorsed by the Dutch government who have introduced tax incentives for developers who register material passports for their building. Rau sees a future where every part of a building would be treated as a temporary service, rather than owned.

Wainwright argued that this radical change from the industry’s current model cannot purely rely on a handful of progressive architects or the moral conscience of a few enlightened clients: “For a more circular conception of construction to take off, there must be an economic incentive.”

In The Financial Times, Edwin Heathcote shined a light on the work of Rotor Deconstruction (an autonomous side-project of FCRBE lead Rotor). Describing demolition as something architects usually prefer to turn a blind eye to, “the profession’s dirty secret” stated Heathcote and praised Rotor DC’s efforts to minimise waste and damage to the environment by promoting reuse.

Rotor DC’s founder Maarten Gielen and his colleague Lionel Devlieger, who described their practice as a “pilot project” and said “Architects sometimes don’t understand the power they have. They are diverting huge streams of money towards new materials when they specify and there are social, environmental and economic consequences of those decisions.”

Shifts in public policy and regulation is required to establish this “circular economy of architecture” within cities. Demolition is subsidised, Gielen explained: “What if developers had to pay the real costs? What if they had to pay for all the pollution, the dust, the noise they create? What about the business on surrounding properties that are damaged? The wear on roads when trucks take away thousands of tonnes of rubble? That would make the importing of new materials more expensive and reuse cheaper.”


To read the articles in full click on the links below.

Salvo is calling for reclamation-friendly architects, designers, restorers, builders and demolition contractors with experience in reusing salvage to consider getting involved with the FutuREuse project. If you are interested please contact the Salvo team via [email protected].