Michelle Sanchez, Sustainability Lead at RSHP, shares insights from this year’s FOOTPRINT+ conference, reflecting on circularity, climate resilience, and RSHP’s efforts to integrate reuse and regenerative practice into mainstream design.

What are the issues that everyone’s talking about?
The most important challenges that I heard people talking about at Footprint + this year revolved around material reuse, circularity, climate resilience and the link with standard assets, and the UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standards (UKNZCB) and its complexity and application in practice.

What is RSHP doing with its buildings to help ensure glass is a bigger part of the circular economy?
We are engaging with manufacturers and contractors as early as Stage 2 to run glass recovery surveys for facades we are planning to deconstruct. This is to ensure that the client and the design team has the right information to inform the design tender packages and to make sure we divert as much waste as possible from landfill.

We are also leveraging our experience with off-site manufacturing to reduce time, waste and cost. RSHP has a vast MMC portfolio, from large scale projects like The Leadenhall Building, to small housing projects like Crofts Street in Cardiff. Our team has over 20 years’ experience and in-depth knowledge of working within MMC frameworks. We understand how the process of MMC supports the circular economy and reduce both waste and carbon whilst also giving cost and construction programme savings.

At RSHP we advocate for climate action and are members of UK Architects’ Declare. In particular, the practice is very supportive of my work as an Architects Climate Action Network UK (ACAN) Circular Economy Coordinator and understands the power of organised action and how networks like ACAN can help push the industry forward to achieve the regenerative future to benefit everyone.

What should/can we be doing better as an industry to aid this?
We need to work more collaboratively and move away from the siloed working patterns that some clients are accustomed to. Collaborating more as multidisciplinary teams with manufacturers and contractors will help drive change.

We also need better policies to support the circular economy. It is very encouraging to see all the changes within the built environment industry since the London Plan introduced circular economy in its planning policy, but we need similar tools policy embedded in the Building Regulations to push circularity in all stages of design nationally. Part Z would ensure circularity is embedded in projects from planning to completion.

What else have you learnt so far from Footprint this year?
The talk that I found most interesting was “Investor Insights: Financing Transition and Decarbonisation in Real Estate” chaired by Toby Kwan from The Carbon Trust, and speakers: Maria Dutton from GFI, Sylvie Sasaki from Aviva Investors, and Sharon Maynard from Skanska.

It was very interesting to hear how they explained that Climate Resilience is becoming an important issue to be tackled when talking about “Green Buildings”. When assessing the investment on a brown asset to transform it into a green asset, the analysis of how resilient a building is to future climate events becomes a very important point to consider, especially when determining the potential reuse of a building or any of its elements.

Is there anything that’s particularly surprised you
It was my first time attending and speaking at Footprint+. I was happily surprised by the camaraderie in every conversation and every talk.

I am a very hopeful person. I do believe that we are the generation of designers that will change the way we design buildings, and that we will achieve a future where we live more in balance with nature. Attending this type of event and hearing everyone share information in a transparent way will go a long way to help achieve a regenerative future.

And is there anything you’re especially looking to catch?
I am really looking forward to meeting colleagues from different areas in the industry to share ideas and hear what everyone has been working on lately.