Waste not, want not: unloved buildings

Poorly performing buildings or ones that have fallen out of fashion are often demolished and replaced with new ones. Across the UK we urgently need buildings of all shapes and sizes – for retail, offices, health, community, education and especially housing. Yet for decades our regeneration approach has been to demolish and replace.

This, as we’ve been made aware by the net-zero debate, creates the demand for new fossil-fuel-based materials such as steel, aluminium, concrete and brick. The emissions caused by their production, known as embodied carbon, amount to more than 64 million tonnes of CO2 every year. According to the Commons Environmental Audit Committee, this is more than UK emissions from aviation and shipping combined. And that is not taking into account the waste produced from demolished buildings that typically ends up in landfill. As Carl Elefante, former President of the American Institute of Architects, once pointed out: “The greenest building is one that already exists.”

In some respects, the UK industry is at the forefront of the retrofit revolution and boasts some of the finest international examples of building reuse. However, such innovation remains atypical. It is often less profitable to retrofit a building than it is to demolish and start again – the VAT framework, for example, actively favours new builds and discourages reuse.

Unused buildings – often in sectors such as office and retail – present opportunities for retrofit and reuse. The UK office vacancy rate, for example, stands at 7.6%, while more than 10,000 shops closed in 2023 alone, according to the Centre for Retail Research. Don’t Waste Buildings is a campaign that asks ‘what if..?’ and calls on governments to introduce regulations and financial incentives that make the reuse of buildings simpler and more profitable.

What if?

To do this, the campaign group is building a body of evidence of case studies and best practice for shared use in the built environment sector. Examples include East Croydon’s Zodiac Court – a 1960s complex being transformed into new homes by Common Projects – and General Projects’ redevelopment of Walworth Town Hall to bring it back into community use after fire. This information bank will help inform both government policy and any bodies carrying out retrofit projects.

It will also evidence the environmental, social and economic benefits of reusing existing buildings so to recommend policies and financial incentives to UK governments. An Abyss blog (Abyss’ Managing Director Richard Nelson is co-chair of the campaign group) notes that governments have been “adopting a ‘do-nothing’ approach that has sown confusion and stifled investment”. Despite this frustration, the group describes itself as “proactive and optimistic”.

It also plans to demonstrate the repurposing of existing commercial buildings, offices and disused residential buildings into quality homes to help meet the critical need for housing. And it will engage with communities to do so – something that it notes is likely to attract considerable support from the general public, as disused and boarded-up buildings affect civic pride.

Don’t Waste Buildings is a common-sense approach to a UK-wide issue, and is asking for your help to make sure that buildings are not so casually discarded. 

Get involved: dontwastebuildings.com
Join and share information at LinkedIn: b.link/LI_DWB

Image credit | Common Projects