After the Circular Economy Hotspot event in Glasgow this October, there has been an increased spotlight on how businesses can keep materials in use for as long as possible – also known as circular thinking. Our Managing Director Paul attended the hotspot event, and highlighted how the circular economy (CE) is based around creating connections in his blog post ‘People are the heart of the circular economy’. The idea of connecting opportunities within your network is how good business practice works and, in his article, Paul states “People are at the heart of our transition to a circular model as it requires trust and openness to share/create ideas across sectors to truly create a closed loop system”. Being able to collaborate between sectors is key for any circular economy practice, and recently was demonstrated between the unlikely partnership of the construction and creative arts industries.
One of our long-time Scottish clients, GHI Contracts Ltd, have been engaging in CE for a number of years now. As a fit out specialist, they regularly have to remove carpet tiles, ceiling tiles, and office furniture from offices. Despite the challenges of tight programme timescales and limited city center space, they eagerly called Beyond Green to make connections and find a new home for materials in good condition.
Luckily, Beyond Green was able to support GHI Contracts in finding a new home for the 1,000+ carpet tiles. With the help of our contacts, we were able to connect a with Tyne Theatre & Opera House Preservation Trust in Newcastle with GHI Contracts. The theatre is currently upgrading their backstage rooms and is in need of new flooring. Instead of purchasing new flooring, the theatre was able to reuse all 1,000+ carpet tiles, all for just £86 for the transport from the project site to the theatre. This has allowed the theatre, to save around £2,500 and 4.1tCO2e from purchasing new tiles. GHI Contracts diverted 1.4 tonnes of material from landfill and strengthened their reputation by helping an organisation loved by their community.
Joanne Johnson, Theatre Director, said “As the operating subsidiary of the Tyne Theatre & Opera House Preservation Trust, there are many parts of the theatre which we are repairing and renewing on a rolling basis with the ultimate aim being for the Trust to win a National Lottery Fund bid to be able to properly refurbish our 150 year old theatre.
So we were absolutely delighted to be given the opportunity to utilise over 1,000 carpet tiles. There are so many areas we could have used them, but we decided to put them in the artists’ changing rooms – it’s always important to keep our performers happy – and in some of the other backstage areas.
We are grateful to Paul Adderley and McKenna Smith at Beyond Green and GHI Contracts who wanted to reduce their waste whilst refurbishing their client’s premises. This has accelerated our programme whilst also saving us the cost of new carpeting, coupled with the ecological savings in being able to reuse these excellent carpet tiles. We would be very happy talking to anyone else wishing to support the circular economy!”
Opportunities such as this will not happen without people reaching out to different sectors or industries and simply picking up the phone to start a conversation. We too often fall into our own silo, oblivious to the opportunities that exist beyond our everyday networks. If the circular economy future is going to become commonplace, we must collaborate beyond industry boundaries and open up these exciting opportunities. If we can do so, as if by magic, everyone wins, including the planet!