Embed Reuse and Recycling in Your Practice

Reuse and recycling are critical for decarbonization, so weave these strategies into every stage of your projects and engage your collaborators and stakeholders.

Engage Clients Early and Evaluate:

Conduct pre-design evaluations that create an inventory of existing elements that can be maintained or adapted (such as furniture, HVAC, and lighting systems), and identify reusable spaces. Share decisions about what stays with contractors and the client’s facilities team.

Recruit Partners:

Tell developers, contractors, building material dealers, consultants that reuse and low-carbon design are project priorities by including them in conversations and written contracts.

Involve brokers and developers in a high-level conversation around reuse and recycling. Less construction and less disruption will always save money and time for clients, so encourage brokers and developers to avoid promising, “We’ll just rip it out” to prospective tenants.

Seek Out and Share Resources:

Circulate a list of asset-management platforms and national and local salvage hubs among partners, and encourage your partners and stakeholders to add to it. Then spread the word.

Asset management: Rheaply and Globechain.
Reuse and Salvage: Reseat, All for Reuse, Building Product Ecosystems, Doors Unhinged, Gypsum Wallboard Ecosystem

Brief Specifiers:

Emphasize the new product criteria—recycled content, recyclability, refurbished or reused products—with your entire design team and with existing vendors, before orders get placed.