Ver 1.0 (May 23)
Confidential & Proprietary | 2023 CBRE Inc.
Linear
- From goods and products
- From low-skilled, low-paid = social risk
- From single-use and waste management
Example:
- Buy new furniture
- Buy new phones
- Focus on business travel and fleet management
Countries that historically took the world’s recycling have stopped in a bid to reduce pollution locally, this means developed countries can no longer export waste and have a waste surplus
Circular
2. The Challenge
The circular economy is a system where there is no waste. It redefines the economy around principles of designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use for as long as possible and regenerating environments.
From Linear to Circular
- To services and solutions
- To skilled, well-paid = social value
- To circular models: Regenerative, reusable, symbiosis
Example:
- Furniture as a service
- Repair cafes
- Mobility
1. The Circular Economy
A move to a circular economy in the built environment is vitally important. Curbing unnecessary material use in the built environment will help reduce GHG emissions that contribute to climate change. Recycling alone will not help companies meet net zero or other carbon reduction commitments. Taking steps towards zero waste and addressing Scope 3 emissions means moving material consumption from linear to circular. The focus should be finding solutions upstream to create added value for businesses and communities rather than solutions to dispose of materials at the end of life. This requires connecting stakeholders through the lifecycle of a project and having a plan for what will happen at the building’s end of life.
- The built environment produces a third of the world’s waste
- Every year about 100 billion tonnes of raw materials are extracted for use across the buildings and construction sector (1)
- Annually, buildings are responsible for about 39% of energy-related global carbon emissions, one-quarter of which comes from embodied carbon or the emissions associated with the entire lifecycle of building materials and construction. Extracting and transporting materials used in the built environment contributes to biodiversity loss and resource depletion. Moreover, a large amount of the extracted resources will become waste, exacerbating environmental impacts (2)
- One area in the building sector where resource consumption and waste generation are a challenge is space fit-outs, which are responsible for a third of emissions over the life of a building. A fit-out is a process whereby interior building materials and components are installed, including flooring, wall and window coverings, partitions, doors, furniture and equipment. On average, fit-outs happen every eight years (3)
- Before each fit-out, interior spaces are stripped of their components, with most products are considered waste. By adopting a circular approach to building fit-outs, we can eliminate waste across the value chain and limit the negative impacts associated with the over-consumption of materials
Circular building fit-outs: The opportunity
Page 2: The Built Environment
There are three principles to a circular economy:
- Design out waste and pollution,
- Keep products in use for as long as possible
- Regenerate natural systems
Considering these principles, the built environment can reduce waste and embodied carbon while creating jobs and new capabilities locally through promoting repair, reuse, remanufacturing and closed-loop recycling.
Reuse creates over 200 times as many jobs as landfills and incinerators.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Useful Information
Waste Services & Circular Economy
What Is A Circular Economy?
Useful Information
Page 1 of 2
Ver 1.0 (May 23)
Confidential & Proprietary | 2023 CBRE Inc.
Countries that historically took the world’s recycling have stopped in a bid to reduce pollution locally, this means developed countries can no longer export waste and have a waste surplus
3. The Built Environment
The built environment can solve its waste issue with a circular economy design lens and connected procurement strategy. This means breaking down the silos between the stakeholders involved in fit-outs and strip-outs: designing spaces with a waste reduction mindset and working with material suppliers to close the loop on end-of-life materials so fewer materials will need to be used. During strip-outs, end-of-life materials can return to the supply chain as second-hand components, salvaged materials or recycled as feedstock for new products. This is a prime opportunity for the building and construction industries to create jobs. Studies show that a circular economy could create as many as 45 million new jobs in the waste management sector (4). Repair jobs create 200 times more jobs than landfills and incineration and recycling create 50 times more jobs (5).
Below are some examples of where these strategies are already in use at CBRE:
- Closed-loop recycling: Recycling carpet tiles as feedstock for new carpet:
Through the Interface Re-Entry Programme, CBRE helped a technology client prevent about 1,700 square meters (11.24 tonnes) of carpet from going into a landfill using closed-looped recycling. About 35% of the old carpet was turned into “fluffy yarn” and incorporated into engineering plastics and materials. In comparison, 65% of it was made into crumbs which were converted into Glasbac RE sheets, a material to create a brand-new carpet tile - Reuse programme: Repairing furniture to be sold back into workspaces or donated:
CBRE partnered with Crown Workspace to assist a life science client in diverting unwanted furniture from a landfill. This reuse program generated £40,000 in resale fees and £12,000 worth of donations, providing a second life and reducing carbon emissions to approximately 10,800 square metres of cleared fixtures and fittings
There have been several companies leading the exploration of circular business models to support more sustainable building fit-outs, such as Steelcase offering used office furniture management solutions (6), HermanMiller keeping materials in use with the re-Purpose programme for furniture (7) and Saint Gobain taking back glass for closed-loop recycling (8). In 2021, CBRE saved nearly 315,000 pounds of emissions by using recycled content to furnish our offices. Additionally, innovative organisations such as Globechain or Rheaply are enabling material marketplaces, and ByFusion is compressing single-use plastics from buildings to use as building blocks. There are also organisations such as Waste to Wonder, who support the re-distribution of unwanted office furniture and equipment to schools and charities.
Yet as a whole, the building sector has not yet adopted a circular approach that goes beyond recycling, as it requires the collaboration of multiple stakeholders within the value chain from upstream to downstream with a focus on eliminating waste at the different stages of the fit out: design, material procurement, end of life and renewal.