James Adams, Founder and Director of Maconda Solutions discusses the launch of ROMULUS, an entirely new circular economy initiative co-sponsored by the City of London Corporation.

I’m very pleased to announce the launch of ROMULUS, an entirely new circular economy initiative co-sponsored by the City of London Corporation.

 

ROMULUS is the first of its kind for three reasons. Firstly, as a public-private collaboration, ROMULUS works directly with the Corporation and other local authorities to digitize building audit data and generate visibility over the supply of reclaimed products. Secondly, the initiative uses Digital Product Passports to structure material data and make it both accessible and useful to participants. And, finally, ROMULUS will bring both industry and government together to actively review challenges, opportunities and share operational experience – giving government the data it needs to develop evidence backed policy and targeted support for the industry.

 

So how did this come about? Well when I started in the circular economy space some years ago, it felt something like a religious conversion. I was gripped by a fervor that, finally, here was a model which promised to address much of the negative impacts of construction.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I love this industry. The camaraderie. The teamwork. That indescribable thrill when a design vision starts to take physical shape. But I can’t deny there are flaws. The seemingly ever-present information silos. The all-to-common failures in coordination. Key people not talking to one another. Critical design information not passed on. Time and time again valuable (and costly) materials become waste because of these avoidable errors.

 

Clients seemed to take genuine interest in the circular economy as a model which promised to unlock residual capital value in their buildings, while significantly reducing their carbon impacts. Pockets of activity were emerging. But, as I looked closer, I saw many of these promising opportunities ultimately being constrained by familiar barriers. Lack of coordination along supply chains. Information meticulously kept, yet not effectively shared. Flawless presentations of data, but without a corresponding strategy designed to produce real action.

 

Despite the promise of the circular economy model, I could see that a viable market was struggling to emerge.

 

In short, I saw the industry’s familiar habits and idiosyncrasies yet again rising up. It became clear that any approach to a circular economy had to overcome these persistent challenges – the information silos and lack of coordinated action.

 

And so, the concept for ROMULUS was born. As an attempt to bring together both industry and government to collaboratively solve the challenges, it rests on one fundamental assumption – that only by bringing everyone around one table, can we create lasting change.

 

Along the way I was inspired by the pioneering work in France by long time friends and collaborators , Eric Allodi and Christine Guinebretière from Upcyclea, who’s initiative in the French social housing sector demonstrated the power of a collective platform to unlock scale in the circular economy. I was also influenced by the academic research of Yingli Wang and Jon Gosling at Cardiff University, establishing how effective markets could be created and sustained.

ROMULUS has now launched and we are very pleased to see the positive response from industry. It’s my sincere hope that this initiative can become a framework from which we can develop examples of best practice for industry to follow, help to overcome logistical and storage challenges and, finally, conclusively demonstrate the economic and growth potential that the circular model can bring.

 

And, at the very least, show that things actually do work much better when we are all talking to one another.