A demolition contractor working for Wates claims to have reduced whole-life embodied carbon by 40% by redeveloping an existing office complex instead of building a net-zero equivalent.
Anglian Demolition carried out a three-month demolition project to prepare for the redevelopment of the 2013-built offices into a 16,000 sq m science campus. Wates is delivering the campus, which is named Cambridge Lab and Innovation Focused Environment.
A team of 30 Anglian employees executed works including partial demolition, internal demolition, alterations and soft strip in the old office buildings.
The project aimed to utilise the existing properties and follow an ‘adaptive redesign approach’ to achieve the lowest environmental impact.
This included saving 3,000 bricks and removing large panes of glass and metal spiral staircases to be reused in the next construction phase.
Circular economy
Anglian says all waste generated was transported to its 10-acre facility in Attleborough, Norfolk, to be processed.
As much material as possible was reclaimed for recycling or looped back into the circular economy, including 87 tonnes of metal, seven tonnes of glass and 11.5 tonnes of rubble.
Anglian claims this has resulted in a 40% whole-life embodied carbon reduction compared to a new build.
Developer Longfellow is targeting BREEAM Excellent certification and EPC A for the project.
Andy Elvin, senior contracts manager at Anglian Demolition & Asbestos, said: “We were delighted to undertake this latest project for Wates on behalf of Longfellow. This was a significant project for us which utilised the many skills we have within the team here at Anglian.
“As a business, we are committed to reducing the impact of demolition jobs on the environment by segregating and processing our waste as standard. This approach complemented perfectly the aims of Longfellow to create state-of-the-art premises with minimal environmental impact and the highest standards.”
