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 seeks to develop a simple and effective way of making the circular economy, materiality, and embodied carbon data submitted at planning accessible and useful for civil society, businesses, policy makers, and advocacy groups.
This data is technically publicly available, but in practice it is obscured in poorly navigable databases, making the data unusable outside of the context of the planning review.
The goal of the project is the development of a user-friendly data store prototype, building on an existing planning portal that meets stakeholder needs.
This project runs from April 2025 – March 2026.
Build Zero is an EPSRC-funded project delivered by five universities, led by the University of Sheffield. As part of the five-year initiative, the Build Zero team is developing a Material Flow and Stock Model (MFSA), a model of all the materials held within, flowing in and out of the UK’s buildings.
ReLondon is supporting the Build Zero team with engagement, data collection, and implementation of the model at the city level.
If you are interested in participating in the project, sharing your project data and contributing to the creation of this tool, please reach out to tessa.devreese@relondon.gov.uk
This project runs until May 2026.
This project used London as a testbed to define a circularity metric alongside 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 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 minimise 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.
