Halving waste to landfill is a realistic ambition

A voluntary waste reduction commitment launched by WRAP is helping towards a more sustainable construction industry. John Holland, Key Account Manager for Construction, looks at how to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill

The construction industry generates approximately 120 million tonnes of waste each year – a third of all waste created in the UK. For the property and construction industries, which have become increasingly conscious of both their environmental impact and of the business benefits that sustainable working can offer, reducing this huge amount of waste has become a very important matter.

It is, then, unsurprising that the industry has responded so positively to the voluntary waste reduction agreement launched by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) in October 2008. In just six months, over 100 organisations from across the construction supply chain signed up to ‘The Construction Commitments: Halving Waste to Landfill’. These signatories pledge to play their part in the collaborative pan-industry effort to halve the amount of construction, demolition and excavation waste sent to UK landfill by 2012, the target set out in the Strategy for Sustainable Construction in June 2008.

One of the client organisations on this growing list of signatories is the Targetfollow Group, a leading commercial property investment, development and management group focused on urban centres and brownfield developments. Signing the WRAP commitment is perfectly in line with Targetfollow’s belief that the key to sustainable development is for the client to lead its entire supply chain in working pro-actively and collaboratively to minimise the environmental impact of construction projects.

A crucial aspect of Targetfollow’s waste strategy is to plan waste management from the outset of a project, with a focus on minimising waste through design. The design phase of a construction project offers some of the greatest opportunities to make a significant impact on the amount of waste that the project generates and sends to landfill. WRAP has worked with design and architectural practices to develop a guide that helps design teams to identify and implement the most suitable opportunities to use resources efficiently and reduce waste. The guide, called ‘Designing out Waste: a design team guide for buildings’, is freely available on the WRAP website. It provides advice on how to achieve good practice resource efficiency, and gives an overview of the five basic principles of reducing waste through design. Targetfollow provides an excellent example of the opportunities for construction clients to lead the waste reduction process from the outset, through measures such as setting targets to ensure that design teams minimise waste before the construction process begins.

In April 2008, it became a legal requirement that all construction projects in England worth more than £300,000 have a Site Waste Management Plan (SWMP). The introduction of SWMPs has provided Targetfollow with a useful management tool for monitoring waste generation, and the company is establishing baseline targets with which to compare future projects. WRAP has recently updated its SWMP Template, a user-friendly tool that enables users not just to comply with regulations but actually to use SWMPs to identify, implement and benefit from good and best practice options to send less waste to landfill by minimising and better managing waste.

In addition to the SWMP Template and ‘Designing out Waste: a design team guide for buildings’, WRAP has developed a range of tools and guides to support the entire construction supply chain as it works to reduce waste to landfill and to use resources more efficiently.

Organisations which sign up to the voluntary agreement commit to measuring and reporting annual corporate totals for waste to landfill - common measurement and reporting are crucial for the industry to effectively monitor and assess progress towards meeting the halving waste to landfill target. To facilitate this, WRAP has developed the Net Waste Tool, a project-specific way of forecasting the amounts and types of waste that will be generated and identifying opportunities for reducing that waste. The Net Waste Tool, initially launched in July 2008, has been updated according to industry feedback and a new version is available on the WRAP website. Embedded in the Net Waste Tool is the Recycled Content toolkit that enables users to identify the most significant opportunities to increase the recycled content of a project without increasing costs.

To assist organisations in reporting progress towards halving waste to landfill, WRAP has developed a simple online portal, the Waste to Landfill Reporting Portal, which helps companies to benchmark their own performance as well as allowing WRAP to demonstrate overall sector progress. For signatories to the commitment, it is one more way to differentiate performance, and gain recognition and potential business advantage.

The financing of development schemes has changed dramatically in the economic downturn, and in a tough market place where funding opportunities are elusive, the business benefits of waste reduction are more important than ever. Waste management company Hippowaste has estimated that construction waste can cost anything from 0.5 to 2.5 percent of the total cost of a retail project. This message has been reinforced by confirmation in the 2009 budget that landfill taxes will be raised every April until at least 2013. Targetfollow has identified the financial benefits on offer through implementing a waste reduction strategy, and has worked with WRAP to set its own waste reduction targets and to engage its designers in focusing on waste reduction.

WRAP has also worked with Simon Lamb, Targetfollow’s Senior Project Manager, to help the company develop waste minimisation and management plans and to implement the necessary steps required to reduce waste to landfill. Embedding performance requirements for waste reduction, recovery and recycled content into tenders and contracts is good practice that will allow construction clients to drive change through the procurement process. WRAP can provide support and guidance, in the form of model wording for pre-qualification questionnaires, tender and contract documents, as organisations seek to implement this approach. Targetfollow’s construction contracts now include standard preliminary clauses that fully explain the company’s commitment to waste reduction and the expectation of all those involved within the project.

Waste reduction should be an integral part of any building project, enhancing the construction process rather than limiting or impeding it, as demonstrated by the construction of a new lobby entrance to the iconic Centre Point Tower in the West End of London. Recently completed by Targetfollow, the works undertaken by Longcross Construction and design by Gaunt Francis Architects on this project showed how input into waste reduction during the design process and well planned waste management operations on site provided a completed project that embodied good whole life value, excellent design and functionality, delivered within budget and with little impact on other work activities.

Sustainability and waste minimisation are integral parts of Targetfollow’s activities and, working with WRAP, the company is determined to deliver the benefits that waste reduction offers through continuous improvement and by reviewing progress and targets on a regular basis. The support is in place, now is the time for other construction clients to take action and reap the benefits of committing to waste reduction.

For more information
The Construction Commitments: Halving Waste to Landfill, and to access the tools and guides developed by WRAP, visit wrap.org.uk/construction