A steel-framed office development in the City of London is pioneering a new concept known as ‘materials passports’ – helping to address the challenges of the climate emergency and advance the construction sector towards its net zero targets.
Developed by BauMont Real Estate and YardNine, Edenica at 100 Fetter Lane is the first project in the City of London to use Materials Passports, a dataset listing all relevant properties of a product. They describe characteristics of materials and components in products and systems, giving them value for present use, recovery and future use. Edenica is designed as a storage bank where materials are held for future reuse.
Launched by Waterman Group, materials passports offer a standardised approach to documenting and managing materials throughout their life cycle. It is hoped they will become an industry standard, driving collaboration and sustainability.
This informative video underlines the project’s commitment to circularity, showcasing the pioneering use of Materials Passports at Edenica.
As part of the development’s unique approach to cutting whole-life carbon and creating a robust platform for material circularity, Waterman’s team is leading the sustainability strategy working closely with planning advisors DP9, main contractor Mace Construct, cost consultants Arcadis and project managers Third London Wall.
It’s setting a new precedent for London,” explains Mace Senior Project Manager Romain Dennison. “This digital asset stores each and every one of the project module’s weight, dimension and component characteristic in a BIM database, which creates a robust platform for material circularity, so they can be reused if and when the structure is refurbished or demolished.”
Building materials passports
Materials passports are digital documents or dataset listing all relevant properties of a product. They are seen as central to facilitate a more circular economy by ensuring that resources are retained and circulated for as long as possible and at their highest value, mainly today via recycling and reuse.
Materials passports can be at the material, product or building level. Buildings contain thousands of different materials and products and therefore consistency of data fields, product classification and nomenclature is important, as is the ability to manage large datasets.
The scope and content of materials passports are, to some extent, product-specific however, the following types of information are most relevant to structural steelwork material passports:
- Design-related – product classification, geometry, types of connection
- Manufacturing-related – manufacturer, production date and location, product standards, mill test certificate, warranties, environmental product declarations
- Construction-related – contractor information, data carriers, coating and welding information.
Structural steelwork is well-placed to deliver circular buildings. Already virtually 100% recycled, structural steel is today ‘closed-loop’ but the opportunity to reuse reclaimed steelwork offers further environmental benefits.
