Procure4Circular Construction’s Industry Workshop brought together municipal & public sector participants from across Canada to engage the deconstruction/demolition/salvage/reuse/design/construction value chain for their insights and potential solutions to accelerate deconstruction and material reuse in public-sector building projects.

Five insights stood out:
1. Timing may be the biggest enabler.
Deconstruction becomes harder and more costly when introduced too late. Early planning can help eliminate—not simply manage—many perceived schedule and cost barriers.

2. Buildings as material banks, with material audit a design and procurement tool
The real value is in turning information about a building into a material inventory that can influence design and procurement decisions before they’re locked in.

3. The cheapest storage solution may be no storage at all.
Direct project-to-project transfers, internal reuse, on-site reuse and pre-sale can reduce the cost and complexity of moving materials into—and back out of—storage.

4. Procurement creates the predictable demand needed to make reuse commercially viable.
Industry feedback pointed to owner requirements, tender criteria, performance-based specifications and material recovery plans as potential tools for creating more predictable demand.

5. Scaling reuse is an ecosystem coordination challenge.
Owners, designers, contractors, salvage specialists, marketplaces and buyers all hold pieces of the solution. Better coordination of information, timing, materials and demand may be just as important as increasing supplier capacity.

Full workshop summary and workshop presentations available now on our website.