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Events
If you ever miss one of our events, you can access the recordings of all our events in your own time here.
Upcoming Activities
- Lunchtime webinars
May:
Our May 2024 lunchtime webinar will be on “Community led Circular Economy Strategy.” Our guest speaker is Alex Russell, Director at an independent consultancy, Augarde and Partners (A+P), and Executive Director at Hackney Wick & Fish Island Community Development Trust.
In this webinar, Alex will be discussing community action to tackle waste and create an economy for the local area focusing on business and community interventions, community ownership models and lessons learned. A+P provides advice and support to organisations delivering social value in regeneration schemes. Through Alex, A+P is working with other social enterprises in the area to establish the Community Development Trust in Hackney Wick and Fish Island.
The CDT has been working for the last 3 years on creating a circular economy strategy for the area. It has two spaces where circular economy activity takes place. The CDT seeks space at affordable rates to enable social enterprises and community activities to take place.
Previous Webinars
- Driving higher gypsum waste purity and plasterboard recycled content through acid purification technology (9 April 2024)
By Dr Miguel Castro Diaz from Loughborough University, Paul Needham from ENVA, and Dr Kerem Derelizade from Saint-Gobain Interior Solutions
Our guest speakers from Loughborough University, and industry partners, Saint-Gobain, and ENVA, discussed their work related to the EU ICEBERG project.
An acid-leaching purification process was developed at laboratory scale and validated at pilot and industrial scales to reclaim gypsum from end-of-life plasterboard, which is currently disposed of in dedicated landfills. This purification process has enabled the production of plasterboards with higher recycled gypsum content (35% vs 10% in current plasterboards), and underpins the transition to a circular plasterboard life cycle.
- Making use of existing buildings and material stocks: How to maximise the benefits of pre-redevelopment & pre-demolition audits through law and policy (5 March 2024)
By Ben Cartwright from Reusefully Ltd and Dr Feja Lesniewska from the University of Surrey
Ben drew on lessons learned from recent pre-redevelopment audits, pre-demolition audits, and practical research. He also reflected on development taking place to gather data on material flows and the creation of digital material passports for both new and old building stock.
Feja followed up on the presentation to discuss how law and policy can be used to advance the use of tools like pre-development audits, pre-demolition audits and digital material passports to reduce material consumption and waste by making use of the value inherent in the existing built environment.
- The use of life cycle cost analysis to assess the merits of sustainable design interventions (6 February 2024)
By Nick Murphy and Glyn Thomas from Stace
Our guest speakers, Nicholas Murphy and Glyn Thomas from Stace, discuss applying life cycle costing analysis to assess the merits of urban mining and reverse cycles (the reuse and recycling of materials), extending building life through transformation and refurbishment, and designing for disassembly and flexible construction.
- Market building for the products of a circular economy (9 January 2024)
By Chris Clarke from SCAPE Group
Chris Clarke, Performance and Improvement Director at SCAPE Group, talks about how the team at SCAPE are accelerating the emerging market for quality recycled aggregates from demolition activity, linked to wider project performance outcomes of reducing on-site waste intensity and reduced embodied carbon of buildings.
- Software tools enabling circular materials education (5 December 2023)
By Claes Fredriksson from Ansys UK
Claes showcases some of the software tools for material selection and lifecycle investigations that he has worked with, professionally and academically, for more than 10 years.
- Tracimat: A C&DW management organisation in Europe (1 November 2023)
By Liesbet Van Cauwenberghe from Tracimat
Tracimat, a non-profit organisation recognized by the Flemish Ministry of Environment, became operational in 2018. Join the webinar and learn how this organisation contributes to the realization of the circular construction economy, enhances recycling of building materials and gets inspired by this initiative.
Our guest speaker Liesbet, is an MSc Bio-engineer in land and forest management from the University of Ghent (Belgium). She gained experience in the USA and Europe as a consultant in soil and groundwater remediation and environmental due diligence for mergers and acquisitions. Since 2005 she’s been an advisor for the Flemish Construction Confederation on technical environmental issues. Until April 2020 she was responsible for quality management at Grondbank, an excavated soil management organization on which the traceability system Tracimat is based. She was the operational director of Immoterae, an organisation that was founded to valorise the know-how of Grondbank, assessing environmental risks and costs for construction projects. She has been working at Tracimat, a demolition waste management organization, since its startup in April 2014, providing more than 15 years of experience in construction and demolition waste and project management. As director of Tracimat, she’s also overseeing the development of the company.
- Overview of construction sector CE roadmaps (27 September 2023)
By Dr. Halid Abu-Bakr from the NICER Programme CE-Hub
Dr. Halid Abu-Bakr gives us an overview of his road mapping framework and an overview of construction sector roadmaps.
- A practical overview of macroeconomic approaches to circular economy using IO and CGE analysis (4 July 2023)
By Dr. Matthew Winning from UCL
In this webinar, Matt tells us why analysing circular interventions and policies is important to establish potential future outcomes. The linkage between physical and monetary flows and the implementation of policies are often attempted to be captured using top-down economic modelling tools such as Input-Output (IO) and Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling approaches. These can be extended to capture a better representation of circular options. Matthew will provide an introduction to these approaches and present some analysis undertaken at UCL on the steel industry.
- 3D Concrete printing (6 June 2023)
By Prof. Richard Buswell from Loughborough University
Richard tells us how 3D concrete printing (3DCP) is rapidly establishing itself as a significant new and modern method of construction worldwide, with the potential to make a significant impact on productivity and net zero.
- CE standards (16 May 2023)
By Gilli Hobbs from Reusefully
Gilli's presentation focuses on the development of standards that support the transition from a linear to a circular economy in the construction sector. Many of the current standards are tethered to a single asset life cycle which can be counter to resource optimisation over multiple product, building and/or infrastructure use cycles. There are also many other priorities for standardisation in this field which are beginning to be addressed through the European and International standards committees relating to ‘Circular Economy in Construction’ and ‘Circular Economy’ respectively.
- Waste no more: Reuse of structural components (21 March 2023)
By Prof. Corentin Fivet from EPFL Structural Xploration lab
Prof. Corentin Fivet, head of Structural Exploration Lab at EPFL Switzerland delivers an excellent comprehensive presentation on the reuse of structural construction components including some real world examples and how these were achieved.
- Transformation of London clay into construction resources (11 Oct 2022)
By Athina Papakosta from HS2 London Tunnels and Fragkoulis Kanavaris from Arup
This brief lunchtime seminar, hosted by ICEC-MCM (Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centre for Mineral-based Construction Minerals), focused on the Repurposed Excavated Arising Loop (REAL) project . This feasibility study examines whether London Clay can be processed into construction materials, particularly focusing on calcined clay to act as cement replacement in concrete. The session ran through the resource efficiency, waste management, decarbonisation & overall sustainability challenge in the construction industry, the REAL project is seeking to address. Results of the testing of the London Clay raw material for its suitability to produce supplementary cementitious material (SCM) & Light Weight Aggregates (LWA) therefrom, as well as progress on concrete mix designs containing the calcined London Clay cement replacement were presented and discussed.
- Introduction of reused materials into the Entopia Building (20 September 2022)
By Peter Kelly from ISG
This brief lunchtime seminar, hosted by ICEC-MCM (Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centre for Mineral-based Construction Minerals), will focus on The Entopia Building, which is the new headquarters of the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership. Refurbished from an existing office space, challenging targets were set around sustainability and the adoption of circular principles was a key goal of the project. ISG therefore introduced the first known instance of LED lighting taken from one building and reused at another, secondary steel used for the PV canopy and a beautiful reception desk salvaged from a refurbishment in central London. In this presentation, Peter outlines the challenges of getting these materials reused, installed, share success stories and lessons learned.
- How to measure Biodiversity Net Gain in the Built Environment (14 June 2022)
By Julia Baker from Wood Environmental
This brief lunchtime seminar, hosted by ICEC-MCM (Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centre for Mineral-based Construction Minerals), covered the concept of Biodiversity Net Gain and how it is applied in practice to developments. It touched on the Biodiversity Metric and the advantages of a habitat-based metrics, as well as the limitations and how these can be overcome with case studies and lessons learnt from industry.
- How CO2 mineralisation is driving the future of cement (17 March 2022)
By Dr Maciej Zajac from Heidelberg Cement
This brief lunchtime seminar, the Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centre for Mineral-based Construction Minerals invited Dr Maciej Zajac from Heidelberg Cement to present a new approach to capture CO₂ and significantly reduce CO₂ emissions associated with cement production. This new carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) approach introduces a novel approach to CO₂ mineralisation of cement paste from recycled concrete. The feasibility of the process has been demonstrated at an industrial scale and, following further investigations into optimum carbon conditions and performance in novel composite cements, may be a game changer for industrial cement.
- Cradle to Cradle®: Prioritising circular product design (17 Feb 2022)
By Chaline Church and Paul Capel from 540World
Chaline and Paul go through the principles and framework of cradle to cradle, the global certification and what they consider to be the gold standard for safe and circular product design.
- The Structural Engineer's Decarbonising Journey (14 Dec 2021)
By Dr Wendel Sebastian from UCL
Dr. Wendel talks about the role of a structural engineer in decarbonisation and translating that understanding into design guidance for practitioners.
- ICEC-MCM National Launch event (26 May 2021)
The ICEC-MCM launch event includes presentations from a range of experts in academia, government and industry, who discuss the road to a circular economy in the construction sector.
For this event, we have invited a range of experts from academia, policy and industry to discuss the road to a circular economy in the construction sector. Speakers will offer key insights on the opportunities for transformation.
Welcome and Introduction, Prof Julia Stegemann, UCL, Director of the ICEC-MCM Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Considering the options for sustainable use of construction minerals, Prof Phil Purnell, University of Leeds
Workshops
- Digital Enablers for a Circular Economy
ICEC-MCM and Loughborough University hosted a half day workshop on Digital Enablers for a Circular Economy on 28 June 2023 which included 3 keynote presentations and a workshop on identifying barriers and enablers for digitisation in the built environment.
- Plasterboard Circular Economy Business Model (CEBM) Canvas Workshop
Dr Jacob Mhlanga, our postdoc leading Project 3A, organised and ran a workshop held at Saint-Gobain Build Better Centre in London on March 22, 2024.
Various plasterboard actors including raw material suppliers, product manufacturers, designers/architects, installers/contractors, and demolition contractors and recyclers were in attendance.
Jacob gave an overview of the event and highlighted that the aim of the workshop was to examine the CEBM opportunities, challenges, and enablers across plasterboard’s life cycle stages. To achieve this aim, three workshop activities followed by cross-cluster discussions were conducted. The activities included:
- Identification and prioritisation of CEBM opportunities.
- CEBM challenges of the prioritised CEBM opportunities.
- CEBM enablers related to the CEBM challenges and their implementation timelines (short, mid, and long term).
The first workshop provided a platform for the plasterboard life cycle actors’ to actively engage in the co-creation of a Plasterboard CEBM Canvas to drive the sector towards sustainability. A follow-up workshop which will focus on circular economy strategies and indicators for the sector will be held in the near future.
Learn more about Jacob's research here.
Centre Meetings
- NICER CE Hub showcase (24 May 2023)
The ICEC-MCM centre meeting was held in the afternoon of May 24, 2023 at the University of Birmingham as part of the wider NICER CE Hub showcase event. The ICEC-MCM session included an update from the centre researchers on their projects and a keynote address by Andrea Charlson from Expedition on the sustainability trade-offs between concrete and steel.
The ICEC-MCM is funded through the NICER Programme which is the largest UKRI investment focussing on Circular Economy (CE) to date.
- Bloqs Centre Meeting (29 November 2023)
Our final centre meeting of 2023 was held on the 29th of November at Bloqs, in Enfield, London. Bloqs is an award-winning former vehicle testing facility which has been transformed into a forward-thinking urban makerspace. We wanted to support a venue which is a leading example of circular construction.
The ICEC-MCM session included a keynote presentation by Nitesh Magdani from Net Positive Solutions, updates from our PDRAs, and a tour of Bloqs and Meridian Water regeneration site. We also hosted a thought-provoking panel discussion on social impacts of circular construction projects.
News
Read through our collection of research pieces and our latest developments at the centre and the school.
Research Projects
- Will seashells and eggshells change the game in sustainable infrastructure?
By Dr Ana Heitor
Dr Ana Heitor’s research project into alternate sources of calcium for the production of lime could be a game changer.
Thought leadership
- Inside the Environment Agency (1 July 2022)
By Dr Feja Lesniewska
- Adding value to construction and demolition waste to achieve sustainable development (3 February 2022)
By Dr Feja Lesniewska
- ICEC-MCM Contributes to POST briefing on "Reducing the whole life carbon impact of buildings" (16 November 2021)
Researchers and industry stakeholders from the ICEC-MCM contributed to the recent POST briefing with in-depth knowledge and peer-reviewed resources.
Blogs
- The ICEC-MCM is empowering future sustainability leaders (26 September 2023)
This summer, a research fellow of the Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centre for Mineral-based Construction Materials (ICEC-MCM), Irene Josa, collaborated with the In2ScienceUK programme to provide a unique learning opportunity. Two sixth form students from diverse backgrounds joined the ICEC-MCM team to gain hands-on experience in the world of sustainable infrastructure.
Book publications
- An Introduction to Waste Management and Circular Economy
This textbook, written by our associated researcher, Stijn van Ewijk, and Director at the ICEC MCM, Julia Stegmann, provides an essential interdisciplinary guide on waste management. They emphasize waste prevention and circularity rather than end-of-pipe solutions, using global examples.
- Circular Economy and the Law: Bringing Justice into the Frame
This book explores the range of circular economy-related laws being adopted globally & considers the implications those laws will have on the world’s justice terrain - historic, current, and future. Our associated researcher, Dr Feja Lesniewska, wrote this book alongside, Dr Katrien Steenmans, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen.