We tend to focus on recycling conventional plastic waste, but there are growing initiatives to look at the longer life cycle of durables and while this has mostly been focused on the automotive space, it is interesting to see the building industry looking at building life cycles. Many of the alternative use mechanical recycling initiatives are directed toward substituting building products such as concrete and wood and while this will help the construction sustainability story, the end of life cycle issue is less clear. The majority of commercial real-estate emissions are associated with operations (around 70%) and this is the greater focus for owners today, but the life cycle question is increasingly important for building tenants. In the UK for example there are redevelopment projects proactively advertising how much of the original building will be retained – i.e. not demolished and landfilled. Ultimately this might lead to lower demand for commercial building products where developers are looking at existing buildings, but it will not impact new greenfield builds unless you get a steep increase in recycled polymer use. The offset would likely be concrete as this is the high carbon footprint material that most are targeting. See more in today's ESG and Climate Report.
