How was the project started?

As early as 1972, the Club of Rome’s Limits to growth report alerted the world to the increasing rarity of natural resources and to the impossibility of exponential growth in a world with finite resources. Today, this awareness has spread, and players from all sectors are testing out solutions that aim to conserve these resources. The construction sector is highly interested in this topic because it generates about 40 million tonnes of waste every year in France alone, with more than 90% of that waste coming from demolition and rehabilitation works. Against this backdrop, Newlife hopes to help the construction world transition from a linear model that creates waste, to a circular model, where waste becomes a resource. In a concrete fashion, this means that Newlife has created a digital platform that brings a diverse array of players together to promote the repurposing and reuse of construction site raw materials and second-hand materials generated by demolition. This platform was co-built along with Colas, France’s leading demolition expert, which will be a rich source of materials, and with Suez, which provided its logistics and waste management expertise.

What is the difference between repurposing and reuse and how are they different from other methods for handling construction site raw materials?

Something is repurposed when it maintains its initial form and function. It is reused when the form stays the same but the function changes. A door that is recovered during a demolition can be repurposed when it is used as a door in a new project, or reused if it is turned into decoration for the same project. In both cases, the item is not transformed, unlike what happens with other processes. Raw waste material is used to create new objects in the process of recycling (ex: compacted wood shavings are recycled into wood pellets), while the waste is processed and then burned during energy recovery (ex: processing a plastic sheath).

How does the platform work and how far along is the project?

The Newlife platform works as an online marketplace, putting sellers and buyers in contact to exchange materials that come from construction sites. Using an app, sellers list the type, condition, quantity, and location of the materials they have, while buyers (construction sites, craftspeople, SME, industrial players, etc.) respond to these notices or post their own needs. The digital infrastructure also includes a range of services offered through partners, such as material transportation or storage. The platform is in its prototype phase, and is being tested in the Ile-de-France region before its launch, which is planned for Spring 2018. User clubs will be launched to support people as they learn to use the tool, teach them its features, identify their needs, and foster multi-party dialogue (between developers, architects, specifiers, etc.) in order to bring them together and promote a global approach to this process: eventually, taking and inventory of all the material to be demolished will be part of the upstream work for any demolition or renovation project. Anticipating repurposing opportunities will become a reflex. Newlife is meant to engineer a structure for repurposing and to give materials a new life and optimise the way supplies are purchased!