LONDON: The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) has published a comprehensive toolkit, titled “System Enablers for a Circular Economy“, aimed at helping the construction industry move towards a circular economy. A circular economy is a sustainable economic model where resources are kept in use for as long as possible, minimizing waste and maximizing value. The current linear model of take, make, and dispose is contributing to the climate and biodiversity crisis, high emissions, and excessive waste.
The toolkit highlights the systemic barriers and market-based solutions that need to be addressed in order to achieve a circular economy in the built environment. It identifies eight key enablers that are necessary to encourage the shift from the current linear economy:
- Greater collaboration and early engagement between industry stakeholders
- Establishing a marketplace for secondary construction materials
- Architecture practices that follow circular economy design principles
- Expanded use of green contracts and leases
- Tax, legislation, and policy systems that direct industry and markets towards circularity
- Scaling up of green finance to support a circular economy
- Consistent metrics, benchmarks, and indicators to measure progress
- Education for practitioners and decision-makers on circular economy principles
The toolkit emphasizes that the transition to a circular economy requires a fundamental change in the economy and requires involvement from all levels of government, industry, and society. The UKGBC also highlights that many of the solutions required to achieve a circular economy are available in the market today and can be implemented immediately.
The guidance in the toolkit is designed to be relevant for a wide range of stakeholders in the built environment, including national and local authorities, clients and developers, asset owners, designers, product manufacturers, builders, insurers, demolition contractors, and recyclers. The toolkit provides practical guidance for different sub-sectors in the built environment on how they can play their part in moving towards a circular economy.
The UKGBC’s new toolkit is a comprehensive guide for the construction industry on how to make the necessary changes to create a resilient, collaborative, and thriving construction sector for the future. It aims to overcome key barriers in the market and provide practical steps for industry and government to support a circular economy.
Yetunde Abdul, Head of Climate Action at UKGBC:
“Our built environment currently relies on a linear economy, where a take-make-dispose approach to construction is common practice. This approach is accelerating the climate and biodiversity crises and actively contributing to higher emissions, unsustainable levels of resource use and unnecessary levels of waste.
“Industry can either keep trying to tweak business-as-usual and make minor improvements to a failing system, or we can make fundamental, systems level changes and create a resilient, collaborative, and thriving construction sector fit for the future. UKGBC’s new guidance aims to catalyse this change through confronting some of the key barriers that exist in today’s market and signpost industry and government to the practical steps they can take to support a circular economy.”
Nicoletta Michaletos, Senior Consultant at Buro Happold:
“This report outlines the very important step-change in how we need to think about sustainability and cities. Systemic thinking puts things into perspective: it focuses on a better understanding of the problem rather than providing quick fixes or solutions which, if you’re aiming at the wrong thing, might cause more harm than good in the long term. Understanding how specific industries like architecture and the built environment work almost indistinguishably within other sectors, all in line with bigger societal goals and priorities, opens our eyes to the ways in which we might need to change not only our industry tools, but reasons for building in the first place, and the lifestyles these buildings and cities support.”
Georgina Elliott, Head of ESG at Revcap:
“The finance sector has a crucial role to play in supporting the transition to a circular economy, which will require mobilising long-term, patient capital and sustained green financing from across both the private and public sector. UKGBC’s report is an important piece of work with practical industry guidance which highlights the inherent, and often unidentified risks, that conventional linear ‘take, make, waste’ business models present, whilst identifying the opportunities circularity offers in helping to deliver shareholder value, support ESG objectives, align with new sustainable finance reporting regulations and mitigate physical and transition risk.
Download the Tool Kit
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