Building Waste; Carbon Net Zero and Circular Economy Principles

Blog Post Topic 29.11.21

Slightly different theme coming to you all for the next few months.

I’ve been thinking about how much insightful content my colleagues (both in work and beyond) are continuously writing. I am going to attempt getting some of it out there in blogs (with appropriate references and shout outs to those creating it).

So much incredible detail and work goes into plan making that never reaches more than a few eyes. This is wasteful…

Our current Greater Cambridge Local Plan is in consultation (at a preferred options stage) — this means we have released our first proposals on the sites and places we are looking to develop for homes, jobs, infrastructure, facilities etc. over the next 20 years and all the associated policies we think we need to deliver development sustainably.

For those who want to know more on this stuff we have just completed a series of webinars on the themes of the plan which can be found here

Accompanying slides give a really good high level view of the content required to make a plan. This is the tip of the iceberg and true to the wisdom of Giles Turnbull we have hooked in some interest now we must delve a little deeper (which is what this series of blogs is going to try and achieve.

To set context; the level of evidence , topic papers, supporting documents and the actual proposals plan itself totals c.5500 pages at this stage (we have another 2 years of plan making ahead before we have a final proposed submission document). To give some comparison this is roughly equivalent to reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy plus The Hobbit prequel (total c. 1500 pages) 3.5 times.

So lots then….

Starting with a topic that was slightly inspired this week by an article I read on URBAN MINING (thanks to Mikael Seppälä) who signposted the article in his blog here.

This really stimulated my thoughts on how aligned the policy approaches we are bringing forward under the climate change theme within the emerging plan are and how we could really double down on this if we start sharing our findings. Hence a bit of background to get you started, special kudos to my superstar colleague Emma who wrote most of the policy content in the emerging plan for this area…..

Also (late Monday edit) there has been a bit of noise around this over the weekend after the The Guardian article on the proposed demolition of the Oxford Street Marks and Spencer building.

Circular Economy in relation to development, what do we mean?

The construction sector is the largest user of materials in the UK and produces the biggest waste streams in terms of tonnage. The way we are approaching this in the emerging Greater Cambridge Local Plan is to craft policy which seeks to ensure that construction waste is minimised, giving consideration to accentuate the role of Construction Environmental Management Plans and Circular Economy Principles.

In our collective efforts to respond to the challenge of climate change, land use planning, specifically at the policy level where it carries greater weight, should encourage the reuse of existing resources, including the conversion of existing buildings for alternative uses. In July 2020, government issued a Circular Economy Package Policy statement, setting out a move towards a more circular economy, which will seek to ensure that resources are kept in use as long as possible, extracting maximum value from them, minimising waste and promoting resource efficiency. Here also lies (IMHO) an opportunity to stimulate latent market forces to actually help drive a shift that not only makes environmental sense but economic sense too.

What is the context *super high level* (definite follow up deep dive into this topic at some point) in relation to climate change and Net Zero?

A key part of plan making is research…..

To do this we commission really detailed and granular studies to inform our policy approaches, help decide the most sustainable places to put stuff (houses/infrastructure/floor space) and also knit all the various strands of environmental, social and economic principles, statutes and constraints together into something that can feasibly be delivered.

Our net zero carbon study (which is a pretty new type of study as far as plan making evidence goes) notes that in order to achieve net zero carbon by 2050, action is needed across all sectors including waste, with a large reduction in waste, and zero biodegradable waste sent to landfill.

Our consultant team including Bioregional, Etude, Currie and Brown and Mode, note in the study that ‘waste currently accounts for 4% of the greenhouse gas emissions in Cambridge’.

So its really sensible to try and design a policy approach that attempts to address this…

Our first draft on this is in the first proposals here and it goes a little something like this……. (cue Run DMC and Jam Master Jay).

‘Large development should be required to take a strategic approach to waste management, ensuring that domestic and non-domestic waste storage meets best practice and that sufficient sites are allocated for waste recycling facilities as recycling rates increase. As much waste policy across Greater Cambridge falls under the remit of Cambridgeshire County Council’s Minerals and Waste function, we are trying to think about measures to improve resource efficiency during the construction stage of development projects, an element that is not currently included within the Minerals Waste Local Plan.’

An initial reflection here is the emerging question;

“How do we start thinking about policy join up across the vastly differing local government organisations with different statutory responsibilities much more effectively?”

This definitely includes the timing of drafting, agreeing and publishing as much as the techy stuff… Also if we were further advanced in embedding proper digital mindsets into joining up the back ends of policy from a truly user centric perspective it would be easier to address.

So what are we thinking on this then….?

This is a bit techy so I’ll edit it (and add some paraphrasing) to try and simplify;

During construction of development (so basically any building works) we will require a Construction Environmental Management Plans (CEMP).

The level of information provided in the CEMP should be proportionate to the scale and nature of the proposed development. It should include an outline of the approach to site waste management and how construction waste will be addressed following the waste hierarchy and the 5 r’s of waste management:

Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle.

All development proposals must provide adequate, flexible and easily accessible storage space and collection systems in line with the requirements of the RECAP Waste Management Design Guide (This is detailed guidance from on how, where, when, although currently really lacking in innovation which can be excused as its nearly 10 years old…) Opportunity to start cross pollinating ideas in this space.

We want to support proposals that go above and beyond this where possible exceed including those that propose innovative approaches. (This could really open doors for recombination of both thinking and ideas from other areas and stimulate commercial markets).

All major developments should submit a Circular Economy Statement, either as a stand-alone document or as part of the CEMP, setting out:

• How materials arising from demolition and remediation works will be reused and/or recycled;
• How the proposals design and construction will reduce material demands and enable building materials, components and products to be disassembled and re-used at the end of their useful life, following design for disassembly principles;

A few stats….

Statistics from Defra show that in 2016, 63% (120 million tonnes) of the total waste stream in England (189 million tonnes) was attributed to construction, demolition and excavation waste, with 60 million tonnes of this (50%) from construction and demolition.

This is a lot…..

Of this over 90% is recovered, with waste such as concrete, brick and asphalt being downcycled for future use as aggregates. This does beg the question is how much of this waste is avoidable and could such waste be reused for higher value uses, helping prevent the need for the manufacture of new materials, an important element in achieving net zero carbon.

By promoting the principle of designing for disassembly, we are basically saying that many materials can be reused for higher value uses. (This harps back to the urban mining article)

Reducing construction waste and minimising the need for the manufacture of new building materials is a vital component of achieving net zero carbon by 2050. As energy production decarbonises with the introduction of more renewable energy technologies, the carbon associated with building materials becomes an increasingly significant proportion of a buildings carbon footprint.

Measures to reuse materials from demolition works and to reduce material demands are therefore critical in delivering net zero carbon in the built environment.

Definitely a lot more to explore here and I've linked a lot of the interesting stuff I’ve mentioned, read or talked about in drafting the post. Please shout me through the usual channels if you have more insight about this stuff too.