Reuse Now campaign
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[edit] Calls for urgent action from the construction sector to tackle the climate emergency
in 2022, the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products (ASBP) launched a campaign to encourage greater reuse of building materials within the construction industry and to accelerate the transition to a more resource efficient, circular economy.
Around 60 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste is created annually in the UK. Whilst much of this is recovered and recycled, only a small percentage is reused, even though reuse sits at the top of the waste hierarchy. Material reuse can substantially reduce the need for new products and their associated embodied carbon emissions. Estimates suggest that 22.3 MtCO2e of GHG emissions could be saved over 9 years by increasing our reuse of construction products.
[edit] Reuse Now
Planned activities for the campaign include knowledge-sharing webinars, new reuse case studies, freely available and topical briefing papers and factsheets, regular blogs and thought pieces, and networking events. To reflect the ASBP’s diverse membership and maximise impact, the campaign will focus on a wide range of materials and applications, and also technical solutions which can aid reuse.
The campaign builds upon the ASBP-led DISRUPT project, which is exploring the innovative reuse of structural steel in construction through the creation and adoption of new circular business models. Project partners and supporters include reuse stalwarts Cleveland Steel & Tubes, global construction specialist ISG, National Federation of Demolition Contractors, and Grosvenor, the world’s largest privately-owned international property business.
ASBP has been working on the topic of material reuse for nearly 10 years, with past activities including the Re-Fab House feasibility study, research with University of Cambridge identifying the barriers to structural steel reuse, and more recently, a sold-out Reuse Summit.
[edit] In-house expertise
This previous experience is further enhanced with in-house expertise from Technical Director Dr. Katherine Adams and Research Associate Dr. Asselya Katenbayeva, who bring 25+ years of academic and industry-focussed research and development on the topics of waste, reuse and circular economy.
The campaign officially launched on 29th September 2022 at an online event showcasing learnings from the Entopia building, the ‘new’ HQ of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. The ground-breaking refurbishment project meets EnerPHit and BREEAM Outstanding standards, as well as championing low carbon bio-based materials and material reuse.
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings
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[edit] About CIRCuIT
The Circular Economy wiki is supported by the Circular Construction in Regenerative Cities (CIRCuIT) project, which is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. CIRCuIT is a collaborative project involving 31 ambitious partners across the entire built environment chain in Copenhagen, Hamburg, Helsinki Region and Greater London. Through a series of demonstrations, case studies, events and dissemination activities, the project will showcase how circular construction practices can be scaled and replicated across Europe to enable sustainable building in cities and the transition to a circular economy on a wider scale.