Sustainability experts BioRegional recently held a 'designing out waste' workshop for the emerging design of a new head office building of a major UK retailer. The session looked at strategies for re-using and recycling waste, and more importantly identified ways to prevent that waste from occurring. Several exciting ideas were explored which will have relevance to many UK businesses.

Firstly, the demolition of the existing head office building provides an opportunity to reclaim and reuse a wide range of building materials. For example, existing raised access flooring and carpet tiles will be used in back office areas such as the new server room.

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Secondly, many parts of the new building, such as plant rooms, can take advantage of off site manufacturing, which can reduce the waste arising by up to 90%.

Finally, the internal layout of the building has been designed to maximise the recycling of office waste.

BioRegional have held waste minimisation workshops for a number of design projects and have developed a wealth of experience of best practice opportunities to design out waste and save money in the process. Savings achieved on one of our recent projects amounted 3,140 tonnes diverted from landfill, saving 230 tonnes of embodied CO2.