Integrated Design
Contents
Video
What is Integrated Design?
Resources/Links
Quiz
What is Integrated Design?
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (a global leader in the field), the circular economy is defined as:
“A system where materials never become waste and nature is regenerated. In a circular economy, products and materials are kept in circulation through processes like maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacture, recycling, and composting.”
Furthermore:
“The circular economy is based on three principles, driven by design:
Eliminate waste and pollution
Circulate products and materials (at their highest value)
Regenerate nature”
These principles apply to all businesses, industries and personal behaviour, and that includes building and construction. However, as we saw in the video, we need to start moving away from the Linear Economy, or a take-make-use-waste system, and toward the Circular Economy.
When it comes to implementing these into practice, a good place to start is with the Waste Hierarchy:
Each level descends into lower and lower importance with Rethink being the most important to consider and Disposal the least. At all stages of a build and across all industries, the Waste Hierarchy should be considered and applied.
Recycling often gets the most attention, but as the waste hierarchy shows, it actually sits lower in priority than reducing, reusing, and recovering materials in the first place. That said, recycling is still far preferable to sending waste to landfill — it's about working your way down the hierarchy before you get there.
For example, if you can design out waste from the beginning (Rethink) before you even start building, that’s where you’ll find you can Reduce the most.
Check out The Mill, a commercial sports gym project carried out by Cook Brothers in Queenstown. National Sustainability Manager Kristy Jones carried out a full blown waste audit on the project from inception through to completion. Over 30 skip bins were tipped out to be sorted through and analysed. The data found was incredible. Information on waste by volume vs. weight, where waste was actually coming from and at what stages of the build.
Jones found out that if they had made better design decisions at the beginning of the project, they could have reduced waste by 30-40%! That is huge!
There are other fantastic projects happening both locally and nationally in regards to the Circular Economy. But we need the industry as a whole to jump on board with the concept and practice.
