The way we build must change. Construction of buildings and infrastructure has major environmental impacts: globally it is responsible for 13% of greenhouse gas emissions and 30% of resource use. Within the UK, the construction sector is responsible for 62% of waste generation.
Embedding circular economy strategies into the construction sector means maximising the built environment assets we already have; reusing our existing materials; and designing for an adaptable and zero-waste future. These approaches allow us to build the thriving, resilient cities we need, while addressing the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis.
How is ReLondon working to drive a circular built environment?
The ambition of our built environment programme is to:
- Develop the evidence base for new policy
- Facilitate knowledge sharing and capacity building
- Support practical implementation through collaboration with industry
- Partner with industry leaders
The goal of the programme is to activate a vast and accelerated system change towards circular construction through the levers available to local authorities:
What progress has been made?
ReLondon’s built environment programme has taken on a number of philanthropically-funded and private projects.
This project aims to use London as a testbed to define a circularity metric along side achievable but ambitious targets, analysing the current and future capabilities of the construction industry to build circular buildings. This project is funded by Ramboll Foundation.
We are actively looking for recently completed construction projects to test run a number of metrics – please get in contact with tessa.devreese@relondon.gov.uk if you’re interested in collaborating.
We have convened local authorities to support the mainstreaming of circularity in construction since 2019. The group supports the co-ordination of local authorities implementing circular economy initiatives for the built environment space.
ReLondon was commissioned by the London Borough of Hounslow to inform the council’s thinking on circularity as it delivers a feasibility study for the ‘Net Zero Neighbourhood’ residential scheme.
ReLondon’s focus was to explore the potential to incorporate circular economy principles that could minimize embodied carbon, extend the longevity of net zero energy interventions, and minimise future waste creation.
ReLondon conducted interviews, a site-visit and desk-based analysis to establish suppliers’ understanding of and attitudes towards circular economy approaches in retrofits; as well as assessed market readiness of circular solutions for the typologies and upgrades under consideration.
ReLondon led the London consortium of CIRCuIT, a Horizon 2020 project that ran from 2019-2023 across four cities – Copenhagen, Hamburg, Helsinki and London. The project produced significant library of findings on how to mainstream circular construction in cities.
As part of the CIRCuIT project, ReLondon developed the Material Reuse Portal – a proof of concept aggregator portal for construction material exchange.
