By Taryn Cornell
Walk through almost any commercial or retail building and you will be passing by a scene that’s easy to miss.
Behind hoardings or closed-off tenancy floors, walls are coming down. Joinery is being ripped out. Skip bins are filling with materials that were installed only a few years earlier, well in advance of their useful end of life.
On any given day across a city, fitouts are being torn down and thrown out with little consideration for what happens to that material once it leaves the site.
This routine refurbishment – hidden from plain sight – is one of the least examined sources of carbon emissions and waste in the built environment: the new fitout.
Understanding life cycle impacts
For many years, sustainability efforts in buildings have focused primarily on base building performance. Energy efficiency, electrification and renewable energy procurement have rightly been central to decarbonisation strategies.
But because each individual interior fitout is a small part of a much larger whole, the impact they have at a collective level is easy to miss and dismiss.
The life cycle impacts of fitouts are significant. In commercial office buildings, they account for around 32 percent of total life cycle carbon, making them the second-largest source of emissions after the base building itself. The reason is simple: repetition.
Most commercial office fitouts have a lifespan of five to seven years. Over the lifespan of a building, that means a single interior space can undergo multiple full refurbishments. Each cycle involves new materials, manufacturing emissions, transport, installation and eventually strip-out. Waste is another part of the equation.
The average commercial office fitout generates around 368 tonnes of waste, with around $105 per square metre lost on materials that are ordered and installed to end up in landfill. Materials such as plasterboard, joinery, flooring and ceiling systems are often difficult to recover once installed. As a result, large volumes are discarded during each strip-out.
As tenancies change and lease terms shorten, these impacts are becoming more frequent.
The role of the tenants
Part of the reason fitouts have been overlooked is because of the ownership and contractual structure in which they exist. Base buildings are typically owned and managed by asset owners who operate within established sustainability frameworks and reporting requirements. Fitouts are different.
The design is tenant-specific, delivered quickly and managed across multiple contractors, designers and suppliers. Responsibility for the environmental outcomes is fragmented at the individual tenancy level and compounded across the many tenancies within a building. Consistent measurement of material waste and its carbon footprint have historically been limited. For facility managers, these lifecycle impacts of interiors are increasingly visible.
Typically, a new fitout is owned by the tenant. In practice though, ownership is more fluid. Incentives and contributions to the cost of a new fitout are standard in upfront stages of leasing meaning the building owner pays for most, if not all, of the fitout. Once a tenant decides to vacate, they will often relinquish the fitout to the building owner rather than pay for strip-out in line with a ‘make good’ clause. It’s then the job of the building operator and facilities team to deal with what is left behind.
Fitout cycles affect operational disruption, waste management, material handling and building performance. Strip-outs generate waste streams, and replacement materials bring embodied emissions. Facility managers are at the centre of this challenge, and yet many still lack consistent visibility and data on the carbon and waste implications of fitout decisions. This is often the case when projects are tenant-led or delivered through complex supply chains and leasing agreements. Improving that visibility is an important step toward greater accountability for the lifecycle impacts of interiors. Then the cycle begins again.
There are many benefits to considering whether what was there before can be reused, and there is still a case for new fitouts. Designed with the end of life in mind, new fitouts can not only avoid bad outcomes, they can actively support and promote longevity and circularity. Extending the life of an existing fitout across multiple tenancies is an important shift in mindset. Regardless, there will always be materials that need replacement and, once they do, if they’re not designed for easy removal or replacement, we are still faced with the same waste dilemma.
While this happens, the policy and reporting landscape around buildings continues to shift.
Decision-making to support the circular economy
Australia’s climate disclosure regime will require large organisations to report Scope 3 emissions, including emissions associated with purchased goods and services. Materials used in interior construction fall directly into this category.
As a result, the carbon footprint of fitouts is showing up as a significant item in organisational reporting and procurement decisions.
In response, industry frameworks are starting to focus more directly on interiors. Tools such as Green Star Fitouts are beginning to provide consistent ways to measure and manage carbon, waste and health outcomes.
Designing interiors for adaptability, reuse and longer service life can significantly reduce repeated embodied carbon and material waste over time. Beyond environmental considerations, interiors also influence how buildings perform for the people using them.
While base buildings establish the underlying environmental systems, the fitout determines many of the conditions occupants experience every day. Material selection influences indoor air quality, layout and finishes affect acoustics and daylight access, and thermal comfort can be altered through partitioning and equipment loads.
These factors shape the experience of many different types of spaces. This includes offices, schools, healthcare settings, retail environments and public buildings.
For organisations seeking to reduce the overall environmental impact of buildings, interiors need to be part of the equation.
The built environment sector has made substantial progress in improving base building performance, but the next step is ensuring the same level of scrutiny is applied to the spaces built inside them.
If delivering fitouts remains behind closed doors and outside sustainability strategies, a significant portion of a building’s carbon and waste footprint will remain invisible and unmanaged. When fitouts address the end at the beginning, through circularity and better material selection, not only can we reduce carbon impacts, but we can also make the process of turnover easier, faster and more economical.
Taryn Cornell is the senior manager for Green Star Strategy and Development at the Green Building Council of Australia
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