We know how to design buildings for circularity, now we need the systems to make it happen

This post is by Matthew Morris, low carbon manager at the construction group Galliford Try.

Developing circular construction systems means prioritising reuse and renovation of existing buildings before replacement is considered. We should learn from the successful projects that have achieved this to change conditions for those that follow.

In practice, the conventional route – replacing old buildings – is easier and choosing it can be perfectly rational. The client wants cost certainty, the contractor needs to programme, the designer needs reliable evidence and insurers need understandable risk. None of them has to directly oppose circularity for this choice to win out.

The construction sector needs to build confidence in new systems
Conventional construction has a system architecture built up over decades, around specifications, warranties, insurance terms, valuation habits, established supply chains and procurement routines. These inherit confidence from the systems around them, while emerging ones, like those associated with the low carbon transition, often have to rebuild confidence with each transaction. Circular economy options can therefore carry extra cost due to the absence of certainty, through additional testing, specialist assessment, negotiation, contingency and programme risk assessment. It might appear that two price options are being compared on an equal basis but, in reality, new systems are up against those with decades of certainty built into them.

Insurance illustrates this. Research from Facilitating the Circulation of Reclaimed Building Elements (FCRBE), drawing mainly on French cases, has found that established techniques are embedded in insurers’ general terms, because standards, codes and track records already exist, while reuse may require case by case assessment.

The current method of resolving technical questions one scheme at a time, then hoping a market develops around the answers, starts too far downstream when many of the conditions shaping a project are already in place. The alternative is to start designing at the start around the final outcomes wanted, including designing different standards, insurance, procurement and finance. The conditions that make replacement easier than reuse are not fixed. They are shaped by procurement, standards and fiscal policy, which gives the government a pivotal role in determining how quickly circular construction methods can scale up.

Existing value in materials or a building should be assessed before the brief stage, as the business case and procurement assumptions tend to harden around the idea of replacement early on. The point is not to have more assessment, but to do it early enough to change what gets commissioned and designed. A requirement that is known early can be priced and planned for, but if it’s introduced later, it brings extra costs, delay and risk, which will be seen as a loss compared with the original proposition.

Fiscal reform can change the economics of reuse but is just one factor. A new tax incentive can’t tell an engineer what evidence is sufficient or create the infrastructure needed to make reuse dependable in their eyes. Suppliers are more likely to invest in material recovery, testing, storage and brokerage when repeat clients, estate owners or groups of procurers make credible commitments: on what they expect to buy, performance and quantity requirements etc, and be clear who carries the risk if demand changes.

Retaining value in materials depends on having good systems to do it
What material is recovered depends on what it is, its condition and when it will be available. Investment in improving recovery, assessment, storage and matching can prevent usable components from being lost and bridge the timing gap between one site releasing them and another needing them. Scaling up, in this sense, is not making existing resources infinitely available, but just getting better at finding, preserving and transacting value already there.

A reused beam, brick or façade needs to be assessed appropriately for its condition and intended use. All projects should use the same process for reaching a judgement, ie the evidence required, who commissions and reviews it, which tests apply, who accepts responsibility, and how the conclusion is reflected in procurement, warranties, finance and insurance. The same principle applies to retaining whole buildings, where valuation, finance, warranty and insurance need to be decided while the redevelopment decision is still open.

New projects need to be able to learn from what works
Recurring uncertainties shouldn’t force project teams to start from first principles each time. Successful projects should leave behind evidence others can rely on, a process others can follow and capability retained in the supply chain. Someone should own what has been learned and update it as evidence accumulates. An example of this is the Steel Construction Institute’s 2019 reuse protocol which informed the industry’s 2022 model specification for purchasing reclaimed sections. Aviva’s subsequent loss prevention guidance expects suppliers to comply with both. This is guidance rather than an underwriting commitment, but shows a technical approach beginning to move into procurement and insurer risk practice.

Iteration will help to make new projects easier to justify. Circular construction is unlikely to follow the steep cost reduction curves of technologies like solar panels or batteries. But progress can still be seen in less friction for transactions, ie with less bespoke assessment, fewer case-by-case approvals and fewer avoidable delays.

No single actor can drive the changes alone: clients are needed to create credible demand, the supply chain must build the capability, and standards, insurance, finance and policy can all help to turn circular construction into normal practice.

We’ve spent years learning to design buildings for circularity. Now we must design the system to make it ordinary. The real test will be whether we can reach the point where the 100th project doesn’t have to work as hard as the first to justify circular construction practices.

Matthew Morris is also chair of the CIAT Climate Society and author of the ACAN ‘Circular economy design guide’. He contributes to the development of circular economy construction standards through the British Standards Institution (BSI) and the European Committee for Standardization (CEN).