Build Sustainable Awards 2016

Build 2016 Sustainable Building Awards 10 f the three essential elements necessary for a civilization to succeed—its people, the ethos of those people, and the resources available to them—the ethos of the people is the most important, because it defines not only how the available resources are used, but whether or not those resources are identified in the first place. Historically, this has meant that cities situated along the coast made use of a different set of natural resources than high alpine cities. Yet, Emergent Structures, a non-profit organization located along the south eastern coast of the United States, is proving that every city in the world—regardless of its geographic location or the natural resources available to it—has overlooked an abundant resource for community wealth building and economic vitality. That resource is waste: specifically, construction and demolition (C+D) refuse. In the United States alone, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 84 million tons of demolition waste is landfilled annually. This number does not include waste from renovations or new construction. And, while the U.S. can be said to have a tragically unique relationship with its built environment, many countries worldwide lack regenerative strategies for managing C+D waste. Governments confronted with these material streams make poor use of them (or no use at all), creating liabilities rather than assets and everyone suffers the consequences. As a means of transforming this trend, Emergent Structures aids municipalities and developers in creating strategies that significantly reduce landfill even as they enrich public, private, and community interdependence. Founded in 2009 in Savannah, Georgia, Emergent Structures has used the historical southern city as a testing ground for innovative C+D material reclamation and re-purposing initiatives. What started as a dynamic collaboration with developers, engineers, contractors, and city agencies involved in a large-scale redevelopment project in a low-income area of Savannah resulted in an impressive mix of multi-stakeholder partnerships and community-driven projects. At the heart of every project Emergent Structures initiates and facilitates lies a mix of multi-stakeholder collaboration, adaptive response, and iterative learning. Projects are chosen for and enriched through their latent connectivity to other challenges the larger community faces. “Our motto is that a reclaimed board is not a board; it’s a springboard for sustainable change,” Emergent Structures’ President Scott Boylston, alluding to the organization’s focus on solving for pattern, a phrase coined by Wendell Berry that emphasizes individual efforts with cascading benefits that ripple positively throughout any one community. “And at the heart of our work is building collaborative capacity between organizations, businesses, entrepreneurs, and community organizations that most cities already have.” As estimated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, over 230,000 public housing projects will be demolished in the next few decades in the U.S. alone. Large municipalities are confronted with managing the material streams resulting from this expensive and destructive endeavor. Along with the significant environmental impacts that this scale of destruction creates, the further disenfranchisement of chronically disadvantage communities will result if the demolition is handled in a business-as-usual manner. Ascribing to the ‘social labs’ approach to dealing with complex social challenges, Emergent Structures acts with a focus on generating physical capital, human capital, social capital, and intellectual capital. They do this by creating viable circular economy solutions within and beyond the construction industry. Over the last 7 years, they have prototyped a suite of multi-stakeholder interventions during the redevelopment project in Savannah, then expanded these efforts throughout the city. They’ve transformed C+D waste materials into structures for low-income communities, furniture for entrepreneurs, and building blocks for vocational training, (physical capital). They’ve used deconstruction and construction projects to train under-employed people (human capital). They’ve brought diverse communities together through the concrete manifestation of commonly held values (social capital). And they’ve co- designed and shared new processes with construction companies and municipal agencies (intellectual capital). Emergent Structures’ portfolio of projects is organized within their 3-tier model that serves as an a la carte menu for wealth generation and community development for any city or developer interested in transforming their C+D material management processes. The tiers encompass market transformation; increasing leverage through collaboration, and transcending paradigms. They run workshops to build capacity and create partnerships that result in tangible assets for numerous stakeholders. They are also in the early stages of creating a cloud-based Enterprise Resource System that will make this process even more efficient and productive. “Every city has clusters of resources that address seemingly isolated issues,” says Scott Boylston, the President of Emergent Structures. “In Most Innovative Building Material Re-Use Organization - USA Emergent Structures is an organization committed to C+D waste stream management as a capacity building and wealth creation strategy. We explore the services the firm offers and its commitment to reducing C+D waste, as the company’s Senior Management team comment on how they aim to build upon their current success. O Emergent Structures