Fabrix CEO Clive Nichol suggests more should follow its lead in reusing steel from existing buildings in two of its key London projects.

As an industry responsible for around 40 per cent of global carbon emissions, we need to consider all possible ways to reduce the environmental impact of our work. Put simply, we have an obligation to reduce our consumption — and fast.

We all know that means paying urgent attention to not just the operational energy of our buildings but their embodied carbon too. Yet very little progress has been made to date in reducing the impact of energy-intensive materials like steel, concrete and glass.

Seismic innovation to clean up product manufacture is already under way, but for industries of such scale we are looking at a decade, at least, before the true impact takes hold. In the meantime, a big part of the solution must be making the materials we already have work harder. The ongoing rise in cost of construction materials puts this into even sharper focus.

In this context, it seems extraordinary that our recent purchase of 139 tonnes of second-hand steel for reuse — from demolition contractors Cantillon, of a building in the City of London — was a complete first in the UK for a developer. Currently, almost no steel is disassembled, recertified and reused. The vast majority is smelted down and recycled, which can be up to five times more carbon intensive.

We will be putting the steel to use across at least two of our current projects: Roots in the Sky, which reimagines the former Blackfriars Crown Court in Southwark into a next-gen workspace featuring the UK’s first ever rooftop forest; and one of Southwark’s last remaining Victorian warehouses, 55 Great Suffolk Street. While a circular economy of some building materials is already common, we believe this will be one of the most significant attempts to apply this approach to the structural elements of a building.

This type of ‘urban mining’ — reclaiming materials from existing developments — has the power to significantly reduce embodied carbon. Structural engineer AKT II — with whom we have been working closely, alongside Gardiner & Theobald, Sheppard Robson, Atelier Ten, Quantem, Symmetrys and Cleveland Steel — estimates it will reduce carbon impact by up to 80 per cent, compared to recycled steel.

However, the process isn’t straightforward. It took us, as developer and investor, being prepared to go into unchartered territory and take on a certain amount of risk. The British Constructional Steelwork Association (BCSA) is now drafting a model specification to provide the first industry guidance for how steel can be bought for reuse. Our hope is that this inspires others, catalyses industry change, and encourages the growth of an open marketplace for used construction materials.

To fully unlock the potential of this type of marketplace, however, will require the development of proper technological infrastructure — an ‘urban-mining eBay’ of sorts. With this kind of digital mechanism in place, our industry could theoretically end up with newly constructed buildings made from steel, or any other structural material, recovered from any number of ‘donor’ buildings.

The current process is not without its risks, of course — something the real estate industry isn’t known for. At present, the cost of reclaimed steel is marginally cheaper than its newly rolled equivalent, but there can be additional costs in the fabrication process. There’s also the potential for testing, and a current lack of clarity around certification, to affect project timelines.

However, financial drivers can no longer be the only consideration. Environmental considerations must be paramount. And we believe that the the reduction of embodied carbon will ultimately add greater value to a building for an occupier or future purchaser, as the environmental credentials of a building become just as important as financial cost.