Active Team
How investing in an advisory support service can increase 0.WASTE.LAND’s value proposition
Introduction
From October to December 2020, second-year MA Architecture students of the Royal College of Art engaged in weekly-based workshops and conferences entitled Radical Practice Studio. The studio invited students and practitioners to think of new and/or improved built environment models, adequate for a 21st-century society that is transitioning towards a climate-just future[1]. Students were split into groups and were encouraged to collaboratively think, discuss and imagine long-term solutions through social, environmental and economic justice lenses.
Myself and the other members of 0.WASTE.LAND, were particularly concerned with the environmental issues raised during the conferences and workshops about the construction sector and the waste it produces. Our work developed on the following initial questions: how much building material waste does the construction industry produce? What happens to the waste after construction is complete? Can this waste be re-utilised and re-implemented within new constructions?
The group developed 0.WASTE.LAND after researching building material waste in the UK and its repercussions on the environment. The group also considered already existing initiatives currently acting on waste and proposing a circular approach to construction in Europe. 0.WASTE.LAND is a digital and physical service that connects designers, contractors, architects and builders to exchange waste materials from construction and demolition sites. It aims to boost material waste reuse as part of a circular design strategy rather than a linear one. Doing so, 0.WASTE.LAND contributes to fuel a market for secondary materials by developing a physical and digital infrastructure to, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, “enable material circulation and job creation”[2]. 0.WASTE.LAND, along with similar initiatives, acts in response to the construction industry as “the single largest global consumer of resources and raw materials” [3] and that it is expected to produce 2.2 billion tonnes of waste by 2025[4]. We wish to look at building material waste as a resource that could significantly lower the Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions[5], decrease disposal fees, construction costs and develop new revenue streams[6], getting closer to environmental and economic justice goals.
One of the immediate questions raised by a guest that participated in 0.WASTE.LAND’s pitch day was: how does your development model differentiate from what is already available? In other words: what makes 0.WASTE.LAND unique? Acknowledging our inexperience and limited time at our disposal to build the initial pitched idea, each of 0.WASTE.LAND’S members wishes to critically assess our development model and/or suggest an element that could be improved or added to it. Taking the question above — what makes 0.WASTE.LAND unique — as a starting point, this critical written appraisal identifies 0.WASTE.LAND’s need to be integrated with a coordinative and active advisory service that can provide practical support to customers on non-virgin materials and how to appropriately use them. The following paper will go in-depth on why and how this active advisory service should be included in 0.WASTE.LAND’s development model, to enhance the project’s management strategy and augment its value proposition towards stakeholders, the ecosystem and the wider public.
[1] Carlotta Conte, ‘Radical Practice 2020/2021 Studio Brief’, 2020.
[2] Ellen MacArthur Foundation, ‘Build Back Better with the Circular Economy’ <https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/our-work/activities/covid-19/the-built-environment> [accessed 2 January 2021].
[3] Peter Fabris, ‘Global Construction Waste to Almost Double by 2025 | Building Design + Construction’, Building Design Construction Network, 2018 <https://www.bdcnetwork.com/global-construction-waste-almost-double-2025> [accessed 2 January 2021].
[4] Fabris.
[5] Fernanda Cruz Rios, Wai K. Chong, and David Grau, ‘Design for Disassembly and Deconstruction — Challenges and Opportunities — ScienceDirect’, Procedia Engineering, Volume 118 (2015), 1296–1304.
[6] Crus Rios and others.
Understanding the industry and how 0.WASTE.LAND can stand out
This paper proposes to incorporate in 0.WASTE.LAND’s development model an active advisory agency, that we would like to call Active Team. The Active Team will behave as the middle man, a mediator between material providers and buyers, conducting research and offering assistance to customers on a material’s quality and its compliance with regulations.
As part of the background research to support the integration of an Active Team, a survey was prepared to understand the specialist opinion. I conducted the survey between the 28th and 29th of December 2020 through Google Forms. A small convenience sample of 14 people was picked. The sample was composed of 1 Part 1 Architecture Student, 2 engineers, 3 architects and 8 Part 2 Architecture Students coming from the UK, Switzerland and Italy. 92.9% of participants to the survey agreed they would feel more confident in using building waste materials if they had an expert consultancy team to help them with the process.
The survey further investigated what kind of services would the customers require the consultancy team to provide in order to help with using building waste materials? The question’s goal was to acquire the participants’ first impression on the services that the Active Team could provide to customers. The services highlighted from this question were the following:
· Advice on how to use the material appropriately and if it is suitable for the project
· Advice on material performance, lifespan, quality, and compliance with specific statutory requirements I.e. fire retardancy, level of VOC’s
· The safety use of the material
· Where to source waste materials and how can they be implemented
· Verifications, specification and quality measurements
· A sort of catalogue to explain what might be available
· Research and understanding of reusable waste materials and know-how of how best to implement the waste materials in new projects.
· The logistics of converting waste to usable products and demonstrate the safety/ regulation compliance of products
· Material assessment, testing and Certification for usability
· Detailing
To the next survey question choose maximum three services from the list below that you think the consultancy team should provide, the top three services selected were (see Figure 2): verify regulations and that waste materials comply with them (85.7%), certify the quality of the required waste materials (78.6%), support designers/constructors with specific requests on building materials waste and their use (50%).
92.9% of the sample said they did not know of any existing consultancy teams that help in the use of building waste materials. 7.1% said they knew of similar initiatives and referred to Re-fabricate. Re-fabricate is a London-based educational “collaborative research project calling for architects and designers to craft and innovate new materials and uses from waste production”[1]. Re-fabricate is organised by recently graduated architecture students, in collaboration with RIBA London. Re-fabricate has been selected as RIBAJ Rising Stars 2020 and has the ultimate goal of promoting a cyclical approach to the construction sector[2]. It wishes to tackle the “take, make, waste” current economic model[3] via a hands-on production approach focused on specialisation and manufacturing of new materials. Although Re-fabricate and 0.WASTE.LAND share a similar goal, they seem to differentiate on their deliverables. While Re-fabricate delivers an educational hub aimed at raising awareness and producing new materials from waste, 0.WASTE.LAND comprises a material exchange platform, a physical storage space and a practical advisory service (the Active Team).
Further market research was conducted to identify existing initiatives, within the secondary materials market, that deal with transitioning to a circular construction sector, like 0.WASTE.LAND is proposing. Through the analysis of similar initiatives, I aim to argue the added value that a practical advisory service, like the Active Team, would provide to 0.WASTE.LAND’s development model. CIRCuIT was identified as the largest initiative, at European level, dealing with implementing “circular economy in the value chain”[4]. CIRCuIT, short for Circular Construction In Regenerative Cities, is a collaborative project funded by the European Commission 2020 Programme (€10 Mio[5]), undertaken by four cities — Copenhagen, Hamburg, Helsinki’s region of Vantaa and Greater London — and involving 29 partners. CIRCuIT identified existing barriers within the legislation system and the sector’s lack of knowledge on circular construction. Thus, “CIRCuIT aims to bridge the gap between theory, practice and policy”[6], says the project’s mission statement. It aims to do so from an educational and regulatory point of view, through the development of “solutions” such as pilot projects (case studies), urban planning instruments, re-use methodologies, urban mining techniques and more[7]. CIRCuIT takes inspiration from similar research projects such as BAMB (Buildings As Material Banks), also funded by the EU Horizon 2020 program since 2015. BAMB shares a similar goal to CIRCuIT of “enabling a systemic shift in the building sector by creating circular solutions”, as well as finding ways to “increase the value of building materials[8]. BAMB aims to reach its objective through the development of tools such as material passports and reversible building design techniques, demonstrated through six pilot projects[9]. BAMB sees buildings as material banks from which non-virgin but re-usable materials can be extracted and upcycled. BAMB promotes what CIRCuIT calls “urban mining and reverse cycles (Dismantling buildings to re-use and recycling of materials)”[10]. According to Andrea Charlson, the Built Environment Project Manager, Circular London (LWARB), CIRCuIT wishes to bring what BAMB tested, on a pilot scale, “to become the new norm, rather than the exception” [11]. Overall, large EU funded projects such as CIRCuIT and BAMB, take a wider theoretical approach to the implementation of a circular economy through the creation of open-source educational, regulatory and methodological strategies and tools. Here is where 0.WASTE.LAND’s Active Team comes in, aiming to aid and assist individual customers with the practical application of non-virgin materials while guarantying their suitability for construction and applying methods and strategies learnt from initiatives such as CIRCuIT and BAMB.
The market research identified existing initiatives that deal with connecting suppliers and buyers of building material waste, like 0.WASTE.LAND is proposing. Oogstkaart is an online platform, founded by Superuse Studios in the Netherlands and now collaborating with New Horizon (urban mining in NL), “where the construction and real estate sector, as well as third parties, can easily offer and/or search used materials and raw materials”[12]. This digital tool has a user-friendly interface that places all materials, offered by producers or suppliers, on a map. Once a material is selected by the potential customer, an inquiry can be made about it. Oogstkaart has a team of “material scouts”[13] that supports suppliers, from a “donor building”[14], in identifying which materials are suitable to be re-used, along with its potential applications for a secondary material market. Oogstkaart, with the English name Harvest Map, attempted to launch in the UK in 2013[15] and seemed to get attention at first by the Olympics leftovers. However, the website is not in function anymore. With the missed opportunity for Harvest Map to successfully launch in the UK, space is left for new platforms to be created at a nation-wide scale. 0.WASTE.LAND. is trying to fill this gap and meet the secondary materials market needs. Separately from the Oogstkaart’s platform, its founder Superuse Studios offer a number of services for circular and sustainable design, supporting “architects, contractors and producers,” offering their “knowledge about materials to help developing new applications for waste flows within architecture”[16]. Superuse Studios’ services and Oogstkaart platform offer a practical and hands-on approach to customers that wish to contribute to a circular economy through the use of non-virgin or surplus resources. The two Dutch platforms were extremely influential in the development of 0.WASTE.LAND’s model idea, as well as in the proposition of an Active Team. However, through an examination of the two websites, while Superuse Studios seems to separate its consultancy and architectural services from Oogstkaart’s material platform, 0.WASTE.LAND aims at combining the two services in one digital infrastructure for the UK construction sector, within the British secondary material market.
The survey conducted confirmed an interest, by members of the construction sector, in regards to an active advisory service on non-virgin material’s quality and use. The market research highlighted the absence of such a service in the UK, but it found valuable projects at European level. Thus, 0.WASTE.LAND’s Active Team, can fuel its knowledge from CIRCuIT’s tools and initiatives and gain a better understanding of material performance and use through BAMB’s material passports. The Active Team can then combine what learned from the Dutch-based Oogstkaart platform and Superuse Studios’ services, to form a strong UK-based practical advisory service for 0.WASTE.LAND’s customers and help achieve their upcycling goals. The Active Team can add a value proposition to 0.WASTE.LAND’s model, as well as engage in new forms of project management through an open-source, collaborative approach with material suppliers and buyers within the UK construction sector.
[1] ‘Re-Fabricate: Waste Reuse Design Challenge’, Re-Fabricate <https://www.re-fabricate.co.uk> [accessed 31 December 2020].
[2] Re.Fabricate.
[3] WorlDynamics, Construction Industry & Circular Economy, 2018 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XYbqLbeiL8&feature=emb_title> [accessed 31 December 2020].
[4] CIRCuIT, ‘Circular Economy Built Environment’, Circuit <https://www.circuit-project.eu> [accessed 31 December 2020].
[5] CORDIS, ‘Circular Construction In Regenerative Cities (CIRCuIT) | CIRCuIT Project | H2020 | CORDIS | European Commission’ <https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/821201> [accessed 2 January 2021].
[6] CIRCuIT, ‘Circular Economy Built Environment’, Circuit <https://www.circuit-project.eu> [accessed 31 December 2020].
[7] CIRCuIT.
[8] BAMB, ‘About Bamb’, BAMB <https://www.bamb2020.eu/about-bamb/> [accessed 2 January 2021].
[9] BAMB, ‘About Bamb’, BAMB <https://www.bamb2020.eu/about-bamb/> [accessed 2 January 2021].
[10] CIRCuIT, ‘Circular Economy Built Environment’, Circuit <https://www.circuit-project.eu> [accessed 31 December 2020].
[11] Andrea Charlson, ‘Circular Construction and the EU Funded CIRCuIT Project’, London Waste and Recycling Board, 2020 <https://www.lwarb.gov.uk/we-need-to-go-big-on-circular-construction/> [accessed 2 January 2021].
[12] Oogstkaart, ‘Diensten’, Oogstkaart <https://www.oogstkaart.nl/diensten/> [accessed 2 January 2021].
[13] Oogstkaart.
[14] Oogstkaart.
[15] Oliver Wainwright, ‘Superuse: Meet the Dutch Architects Transforming the World with Waste’, The Guardian, 5 June 2013, section Art and design <https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/jun/05/superuse-architecture-design-recycling-waste> [accessed 2 January 2021]
[16] Superuse Studios, ‘Services’, Superuse Studios <https://www.superuse-studios.com/services/?lang=en> [accessed 2 January 2021].
Active Team: a guiding blueprint
Through conducting a survey, reading, researching and analysing the industry, the previous section of the paper identified how 0.WASTE.LAND can stand out within the secondary material market, through the integration of the active advisory service. The following section explains how the Active Team works within the proposed development model.
By creating a platform that connects suppliers’ non-virgin materials with customers, 0.WASTE.LAND aims to encourage circular solutions and reduce the quantity of demolition waste that goes to landfills. The Active Team becomes pivotal in guarantying the material’s quality and advising customers on how to utilise such material resources. The survey, discussed in the previous section of this written appraisal, highlighted the Active Team’s contribution to meeting potential customers’ needs through the identification of the team’s key services. The survey identified the following three services as the most urgent to meet: verify material compliance with regulations, guarantee a material’s quality, support designers/constructors with specific requests on building materials waste and their use. To carry out these services to a high standard, the Active Team will have a research hub in charge of constantly investigating, updating and verifying the supplier’s materials compatibility with current regulations and their performance. The Active Team will also refer to the valuable knowledge shared by projects such as CIRCuIT and BAMB. By providing these services, the risk of purchasing non-virgin materials falls on 0.WASTE.LAND rather than on the customer. Doing so will boost sales, but most importantly, it will ensure the public’s correct use of materials to appropriately tackle climate change and the ecological emergency.
0.WASTE.LAND’s Active Team is a key integration to the development model, as it takes the role of the middle man, the mediator between suppliers and customers, to optimise supply and demand. The Active Team, along with 0.WASTE.LAND’S material sales (through the website and warehouse), promotes an interrelation between all parties involved in the success of a systemic transition to a circular construction sector. Incentivised collaboration between parties and the digitalisation of 0.WASTE.LAND’s contribution, to the secondary material market, allows to free up and widely spread information.
The survey highlighted that 100% of participants agreed they would like to see a section dedicated to the Active Team’s projects on the 0.WASTE.LAND’s website. This response emphasizes the importance of promoting the Active Team’s role and services within the digital platform to raise awareness among potential clients.
Figure 3,4,5 show how a link to the Active Team can be strategically placed in different areas of the website, to attract the customer’s attention and assist a purchase. As seen in figure 3 and 4, a link to the Active Team can be already present in the materials map section of the website, when a customer is searching for materials. A link to the team can then pop up again right before the customer proceeds to check out, as seen in figure 5. This approach can be useful to raise awareness among those who have not heard of the Active Team yet and the services it provides. Then, as seen in figure 6, a section of the website can be fully dedicated to the team and its role. The page can display the projects the team has been involved with and it can be an open-source knowledge bank that shows all research carried out to support customers. Most importantly, the Active Team page can provide direct contacts to the team via email, phone or through an online chat support service.
The service provided by the Active Team is not mandatory. As seen in figure 7, a customer can choose to continue with the purchase of materials without help. Alternatively, the customer can ask for assistance to the Active Team. The customer can do so before purchasing the materials, as well as at a later stage during construction. In the latter option, the Active Team can offer assistance to designers and contractors that wish to have extra assurance on the use of upcycled materials within a project. Through the different instances of visibility offered on the website, the Active Team can stand out to new and recurring customers and be easily contacted for assistance.
Conclusion
Overall, the paper above argues for the positive impact that the integration of a practical active advisory service, the Active Team, would have on the 0.WASTE.LAND development model. Recognising the initial limitations of 0.WASTE.LAND, for being too broad, the inclusion of the Active Team wishes to demonstrate how the model can stand out from the crowd. The survey conducted identified the lack of similar advisory services to actively support customers on the use and selection of non-virgin materials. An understanding of the industry was gained through market research which helped identify similar initiatives and that highlighted space, in the UK secondary material market, for a material exchange platform and linked practical advisory service. The Active Team will increase the development model’s value proposition towards stakeholders, the ecosystem and the wider public, through assisting with waste material’s quality checks and compliance with regulations. The team will also engage in new forms of project management through an open-source, collaborative approach with material suppliers and buyers within the UK construction sector. In this way, 0.WASTE.LAND can become a leader in the assistance and practical application of upcycled materials to new developments, reducing material waste, lowering GHG emissions, decreasing disposal fees, but especially by developing new revenue streams while tackling climate change and the ecological emergency.
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