Have you ever been to a funeral during which it has been suggested that the undertaker was, in some way, responsible for the demise of the deceased? Of course you haven’t; such a preposterous notion would be out of place even in a particularly far-fetched Agatha Christie novel.
And yet that is precisely the logic being peddled by architects, academics, politicians and certain parts of the media that believe the demolition process is an environmental threat.
Before we get into the facts, it is worth explaining – for the uninitiated – just how demolition works.
Demolition crews do not roam the countryside, destroying everything in their path and laying waste to historic and listed buildings along the way. Like fictional vampires, demolition companies have to wait for an invitation before they can come in; and that invitation – invariably – comes from the very people that are asking us all to believe that demolition firms are somehow responsible for the waste of embodied carbon.
But politicians, architects and construction companies do not just invite demolition. In fact, their role in the whole embodied carbon business runs much deeper than that.
No demolition company has ever rewritten building or sustainability regulations that render some buildings effectively outside the law. Governments and politicians do that.
No demolition company has ever built a single-purpose building with an expected useful lifespan of 20 or 30 years. Construction companies do that.
No demolition company has ever built a building using materials that are difficult, costly or even impossible to recycle, repurpose or reuse. Specifiers do that.
No demolition company has ever built a building using unsuitable methodologies and/or sub-standard workmanship. Construction companies do that.
No demolition company has ever built a hospital or a school from aerated concrete with the long-term structural integrity of meringue. Construction companies do that.
No demolition company ever expended excessive amounts of carbon to produce a building that is aesthetically beautiful but utterly impractical. Architects and construction companies do that.
No demolition company has ever neglected a building to the point that it is no longer habitable. Maintenance companies do that.
All that expended carbon. All those wasted materials. All that time, effort and money and, in each instance, demolition’s only involvement was clearing up a mess created by others.
Moreover, while construction factors waste into its profit and loss forecasts, demolition has all but factored it out. As much as 98 percent of all materials from a demolition project are recovered and injected back into the construction supply chain; often for architects, specifiers and construction companies (you know, the ones with the sustainability fixation) to get “sniffy” about secondary materials.
The truth is that demolition companies are the undertakers of the construction sector. Like undertakers, they are not responsible for the conception; they are not responsible for the nurturing; and they are not responsible for the circumstances surrounding the end. They are there purely to lay to rest that which is spent and that is no longer able to function.
Any attempt by architects and those peddling the RetroFirst doctrine to level embodied carbon criticism at the demolition industry is like a tobacco company blaming a funeral director for the deceased’s lung cancer. It is a diversion; a distraction. And we’re not buying it.
This article was originally published on Demolition Insider where subscriptions are currently still free.
