BIOREGIONAL RECLAIMED

If everyone in the world lived as we do in the UK, we would need three planets to support us.

We need to reduce our impact - our ecological footprint – by two thirds to live at a sustainable and globally equitable level.

Construction materials have a significant impact on UK sustainability. In the UK, they annually account for:

• 19% of the total national ecological footprint(1)
• 23% of the total national greenhouse gas emissions(1)
• 420 million tonnes of material consumption (7 tonnes per person)(2)
• 30% of all road freight on UK roads(2)

The impact of construction materials (shown as Infrastructure - yellow) is second only to that of food. In order to get down to a one planet sustainable situation, we need to reduce all sections of the pie drastically.

Recycling is an effective form of diverting waste from landfill, but reclamation and reuse of construction material has benefits beyond this. In addition to removing the need to extract raw materials, reclamation and reuse reduces the need for reprocessing and remanufacturing. This saves energy and reduces additional impacts, such as transportation. [Follow link for further definitions].

In this way reclaimed materials can play a significant role in reducing the "Construction" section of this pie.

For example, comparing the environmental impacts of reclaimed and new materials shows a reduction of 96% for reclaimed steel and 79% for reclaimed timber. These environmental savings are often achieved with little or no additional expense, making reclaimed an extremely cost effective way of achieving environmental savings and cutting carbon emissions.

Good examples of where this has already been successful are contained in the BedZED Construction Materials Reports and in Building with Reclaimed Components and Materials: A Design Handbook for Reuse and Recycling. An outline of how this approach can be mainstreamed for large scale development is set out in Reclaimed Building Materials in the Development of the Thames Gateway.

Further information is available at:

- Measuring environmental impact reduction

- One Planet Living - living within our fair share of resources

(1) Figures taken from WWF's One Planet Living
in the Thames Gateway report, written by Nick James and Pooran Desai of BioRegional, 2003

(2) Figures taken from the Beddington Zero Energy Development Construction Materials Report Part 1, 2002

UK Ecofootprint 2003 (figures taken from WWF's One Planet Living
in the Thames Gateway report)



Environmental impact of reclaimed steel v new steel

Environmental impact of reclaimed timber studwork v new timber studwork