The FIS Sustainability Leadership Group met at the offices of Canary Wharf Group this week. This group was established to help reduce the impact of the sector and members on their own net zero journey.
The meeting opened with a keynote from Canary Wharf Group’s, a real message of hope that their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) was having real world impact with large sustainability projects, such as the Eden Dock project, which led to the best leasing year in over a decade. A critical success factor identified was involves working with the team on project delivery, making decisions early and filtering information down to projects effectively.
FIS Sustainability Champion, Flavie Lowres, then shared data from the live project collecting carbon data related to the Cat A to Cat B transition. This project was originally proposed by Workplace Futures Group who began collecting the data internally and suggested a wider collaborative effort would be more beneficial and support earlier conclusions. At the outset standard definitions of Cat A and Cat B were agreed. FIS collects project data, aggregating and anonymising the results to help identify overall impact, carbon hotspots and starting to highlight opportunities to improve the process. Initial data was shared, it was recognised that there is still a huge spread in the data and more projects were needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.
The next discussion focussed on the need for a more efficient and consistent process for gathering manufacturers data. This agenda item put forward by Overbury and Canary Wharf have been working on a standardised format that could be used to support consistency of data collection across the sector. This would be particularly useful on projects seeking to get BREEAM, LEAD or SkaRating. The approach is akin to the Product Data Template approach embedded in BIM and would support standardised information exchange and help manufacturers to assemble information like EPDs and Life Cycle Assessments in a more accessible way. A summary and sample will be circulated to the wider group for comment to see if FIS should support the next phase of this work.
Hattie Emerson updated the group on FIS Project Re-use, a research project that is using a storage facility in Kent to facilitate the re-use of ceiling tiles and luminaires. Hattie presented our first completed case study of products re-used through the project. An interesting early observation is the number of stakeholders who need to be involved in the process across both projects in order to support re-use. A video on this case study is being finalised and this is being presented in the Interiors Insight Workshops at the Workspace Design Show on the 26th February.
Ecophon then provided an update on the Saint Gobain approach to circularity and described their takeback scheme and how this could support re-warranting product for future use. A discussion around the need for standards, similar to those that support re-use of steel, resulted recognising the challenge of meeting regulatory standards if information is patchy. This is something FIS is following up through our various product working groups.
Following a short update on the Plasterboard Sustainability Partnership, a group that is currently being revitalised to look at better monitoring and reduction of plasterboard waste, there was an open discussion on the opportunities and challenges of re-using doors followed. Whilst it was recognised legacy issues will make the reuse of doors difficult, the potential to rethink the approach to specifying and installing doors would open huge opportunity. It is an interesting area to explore the subject of re-use as it brings in all factors into play, particularly the modularity of the product and the chain of custody and information management around certification, installation and inspection of doors. Again there is a workshop on this subject at the Interiors Insight Workshops at the Workspace Design Show on the 25th February.
Flavie also updated the group on the FIS Pre-cycle Agreement that had been successfully piloted. The aim is to ensure that reality and practicality of takeback schemes is independently reviewed and that the particulars should be agreed at the prior to installation so an end of service life plan can be successfully created. This does not create a legally binding contract, but a structured discussion between the supplier and the customer that will ensure that waste is minimised and costs recognised.
Komfort provided some key finding from work they have been doing on recycling glass and the Supply Chain Sustainability School gave an update on assessment tools and carbon calculators available freely to FIS members through the school that we have helped to shape and can help provide aggregated impact assessment and benchmarking in the sector.
We then went to the pub and talked about sustainability a bit more!
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