Richard Aylen explores the growing importance of retrofit – and the role played by the UK flooring industry.

IN order to meet targets for the reduction of global warming the UK construction industry and building designers are looking for ways to reduce their industry’s impact. The construction industry is one of the largest producers of waste, and so this provides opportunities to introduce sustainable practices and take measures to achieve a circular economy.

According to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), of the 200 million tonnes of waste generated in Britain annually, 63 % is construction debris. We lose more than 50,000 buildings through demolition every year and, while more than 90 % of the resulting waste material is recovered, much of this is recycled into a less valuable product or material, rather than being reused.

Source: https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/introducing-retrofirst-a-new-aj-campaign-championing-reuse-in-the-built-environment

Buildings in the UK also contribute a disproportionately large amount of carbon to the environment. This is radically changing the way our construction industry works and makes it a key focus for Government and environmental campaigners. The Construction Products Association (CPA) says:
‘To respond to the climate emergency, all parts of society must play their part. The built environment contributes 40% to the UK’s carbon emissions and therefore has a big responsibility to reduce carbon throughout the construction lifecycle.’

https://www.constructionproducts.org.uk/our-expertise/sustainability/climate-and-decarbonisation/decarbonisation-directory/

Retrofitting, adapting older buildings for new uses and refurbishment has been suggested as an effective way of reducing both waste and global warming. We have a large stock of existing buildings, many of them old. Over time these buildings often become out of date because of technological and social changes, and the need for increasing levels of thermal and energy efficiency.

Undeveloped land for new buildings is generally in short supply. You only have to look at local and national newspapers to know that releasing undeveloped land and parts of our countryside for development is often unpopular and controversial.

One option is to demolish older buildings and construct new, efficient buildings that meet our needs, but this is a very poor option when it comes to our effect on global warming, generation of waste and demands upon energy and new raw materials. Given the situation I have just described it becomes clear that it is better to reuse and adapt existing buildings for new purposes.

This is the route favoured by government and is backed up by professional organisations such as the Royal Institution of British Architects (RIBA) with their ‘Retro First’ campaign which was launched several years ago. Retrofit is often more acceptable to the public because it preserves and enhances valued streetscapes.

There are, however, some barriers to be overcome because there is little in the way of policy or regulation to encourage retrofit. Retrofit can also provide some challenges to town planners because reusing existing buildings and estate layouts can make it difficult to achieve density targets in urban areas. Furthermore, there is a lack of regulation on recycling and repurposing.

When a new building is constructed the majority of its carbon impact is created during the early construction phase ie when the foundations and main structural elements are being built. Therefore, if you reuse an older building and retain the structure you are making beneficial use of the embodied carbon that was created years ago when the building was originally constructed.

You can reap even greater benefits by using reclaimed or recycled components and materials, and this is for much the same reason; the energy and carbon used to manufacture these materials has long ago been used, and no new carbon will be generated by manufacturing virgin materials.

This also avoids the difficult question of how to safely dispose of staggering amounts of redundant and waste materials.

The flooring industry can play its part by offering products that use relatively small amounts of energy for manufacture, that use renewable raw materials and offer extended lifespans.
Old floor finishes will usually be replaced with new during a refurbishment and product life spans may generally be quite short anyway. However, some types of flooring, such as solid hardwood, may have a very long life span and these floors can also be refurbished.

At the present time we have building regulations that attempt to reduce operational carbon by limiting energy use in buildings. The regulations impose minimum standards for thermal insulation and efficiency of heating plant and the like.

However, we don’t yet have benchmarks and defined limits for embodied carbon. This is the carbon contained in the fabric of the materials and components used in buildings, and the energy used to extract, manufacture, transport and dispose of them.

For those of us involved in manufacturing and installing flooring products it is important that we know the amount of embodied carbon in our products if we want them to be specified.

But what is the limit for a ‘good’ level of embodied carbon? Well, in fact we haven’t decided yet. There have been a few attempts to define a benchmark. ‘Document Z’ for example was an attempt to create a new Approved Document under the building regulations. It has so far had a reading in parliament, but since then has gone no further. More recently the London Plan and the UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard are attempting to set limits. If these are successful – and it is likely that defined standards will soon be with us, manufacturers will need to provide detailed information on their product’s effect on global warming. This usually comes in the form of an environmental product declaration (EPD) which shows the product’s effect upon global warming during its whole life cycle. EPDs are an increasingly important tool for environmental assessors and sustainability managers, a growth area in the careers market.

Assessment methods using EPDs, and similar data show the benefits of products such as hardwood, which has both low embodied carbon and a long lifespan. If the floor should it become redundant before the end of its useful life and it can be repurposed easily, then all the better.

When it finally reaches the end of its life, if it can be recycled with minimal environmental impact then you probably have a product that many environmental assessors would consider ideal.

Design for disassembly
In fact, you can take the idea of repurposing further. If at design stage, you plan how the building will be recycled or reused at the end of its life then you are both reducing waste and providing a source of recycled materials for the new buildings. This is already being put into practice in the form of ‘design for disassembly’.

Here, the design will include modular materials which are fitted using reversible methods such as clipping, screwing, bolting etc, all designed to leave individual components undamaged when the building is dismantled.

Understandably gluing, welding and amalgamating materials is avoided. This favours floor finishes that are made in small elements; planks, blocks, tiles and loose laid finishes for example, where they are not permanently glued down.

Design for disassembly can be relatively costly but greater uptake will reduce prices and create supply of materials for reuse, and networks for their distribution will be created and optimised. For this to work it is important that at design stage full information is provided as to how to handle and reuse the materials when the building has reached the end of its life.

One of the key tools we have for this at the present time is BIM where electronic details of all building elements are held by the client and information is updated through the building’s life.

An example of how this is beginning to happen is the London Plan 2021, where applicants are asked to state what will happen to the building when it reaches the end of its life. They have set specific targets for 95% of building waste to be reused or recycled (S17.5). The UK government is trying to make this approach mandatory for the whole planning system.

How is the flooring industry adapting to these changes? Many manufacturers are obtaining EPDs for their products and while there are no specific benchmarks for embodied carbon, some larger clients and main contractors are making these mandatory.

The advance of new technologies differs between products. Those that rely on plastics derived from crude oil may be looking at alternative raw materials such as plant-based oils, but this is largely in its infancy and carpet and vinyl floor manufacturers tend to focus more on trying to use recycled material for the present.

Low solvent adhesives and coatings have advanced significantly and although this was originally driven by health and safety concerns there are also some strong sustainability reasons for these changes.

The introduction of more sustainable manufacturing methods includes widespread use of renewable energy, efficiency improvements and waste reduction. Some main contractors will insist on specification of products where transportation distances are limited so as to reduce use of diesel fuel.

There is likely to be less latitude in future for manufacturers who are using carbon offsetting strategies. This is where a manufacturer has no option but to create global warming, but they offset this with other activities that reduce carbon, such as contributing to tree planting schemes.

While this can be effective it is not really acceptable as a long-term strategy. This is the approach adopted by the Royal Institution of British Architects in its 2030 Climate Challenge campaign.
It’s likely manufacturers will find it more difficult to win specifications for floorcoverings with relatively short lifespans that cannot be repurposed or recycled. Again, timber floors are showing their strengths in this respect.

In the case of floors made from plastics, loose-laid systems may allow a certain amount of repurposing and creation of plastic-based raw material for recycling but ultimately plastics reach the point where they cannot be recycled further, and this is where we currently don’t have many sustainable options.

Tiles and terrazzo are also difficult to reprocess. The long-term strategy therefore has to be that manufacturers develop materials that are fully recyclable or made from materials that are biodegradable.
www.junckers.co.uk
Richard Aylen is technical manager, Junckers