How To Deliver A Carbon Friendly Workplace Transition

• Net Zero Carbon
• Climate Action
• Healthy_Environment

A guide for businesses on delivering a carbon friendly workplace transition, post-COVID-19, that limits waste, protects the environment and benefits employee health and wellbeing.

Hurried workplace transitions enforced by COVID-19 increase the risk of significant volumes of furniture and other workplace assets being wasted, creating negative carbon impacts. However by embracing circular economy principles, organisations can reduce environmental risk and reap significant business benefits.

How To Deliver A Carbon Friendly Workplace Transition contains five calls to action:

1. Whatever your situation, treat unneeded equipment as a resource, not waste.
2. Use this toolkit’s waste hierarchy for office clearances to prioritise options to reuse equipment inside or outside your organisation, to extend its life.
3. Ensure that facilities, procurement, and sustainability teams collaborate throughout the process.
4. Use Business in the Community’s (BITC) Circular Office lifecycle framework, contained in this document, to embed circular principles at all stages.
5. Include embodied carbon alongside cost in your business case.

Preparing for post-COVID-19 workplaces

The way we think about our workplaces underwent a seismic shift in 2020.  COVID-19 has brought about enforced national lockdowns, mandatory social-distancing and widespread homeworking.  The uncertainty and economic impacts of the pandemic have forced companies to reduce costs, prompting as many as 73% business leaders to consider downsizing their offices during 2021¹. Most UK employees want the opportunity to work flexibly², meaning offices will likely require fewer desks and more collaboration space.

Whilst these trends represent opportunities for businesses to improve their employees’ experience in the workplace, reduce their carbon footprint and save costs, BITC has also identified increased furniture and IT waste as a significant hidden risk of this workplace transition.

How To Deliver A Carbon Friendly Workplace Transition contains information on the business case for taking an approach that embraces circular economy principles. It outlines a simple framework to enable businesses to build circular decision making into their workplace transition planning. With a focus on practical steps at each stage of the fit-out cycle: Design, Procurement, Operations and End-of-Life. The guide also contains case studies and worked examples to help you put the information into practice.

About Business in the Community’s Circular Economy Campaign

BITC’s Circular Economy campaign seeks to tackle the climate emergency by making the circular economy a mainstream business priority.  By moving away from a take-make-dispose model of consumption, towards one that focuses on retaining value from materials for as long as possible and eliminating waste, responsible businesses can save costs, reduce carbon and become more resilient.

In September 2020, Business in the Community’s Time to Fix Up report identified the shift to a Circular Economy as a key priority for businesses looking to Build Back Responsibly from COVID-19.  Whilst not the only answer, Circular Economy principles present a compelling template for companies to reduce short-term costs, identify new revenue sources, build resilience into value chains and accelerate the pathway to a Net Zero carbon economy. 

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