Masterplanning for Circular Development - Beyond Whole Life Carbon

The built environment is responsible for 40% of global energy consumption, 40% of raw aggregate consumption and 25% of the world's wood consumption. In addition to direct demand for materials, all new housing/industrial developments induce additional consumption patterns and new demands for heat, electricity and transport. Collectively, these demands have material impacts on global GHG emissions and biodiversity loss.

These issues will neither be overcome by the Future Homes Standard(2025), nor Whole Life Assessment, which both consider only a sub-set of the total impacts of the development(e.g. only operational energy and direct materials).

Given the climate and biodiversity emergencies, many developers, stakeholders, local authorities and industry leaders are seeking to create developments that are truly sustainable- developments that reduce material use and make use of re-use and re-cycling opportunities across their lifecycles.

Our vision is to specify and develop a new circular design tool for built environment professionals, which takes account of all impacts of the development (including induced activities such as transport, human activity and consumption). This will embed circular approaches at the earliest stage of design, reducing materials use and designing-out unsustainable consumption to deliver truly sustainable developments.

By embedding circular decision-making within the masterplanning stage, we will support a step-change in the adoption of circular economy approaches within the built environment.