Curated by Arup, featuring Google, Genentech, Meta, Webcor and JLL

2022

The Bay Area Owners Alliance Case Studies 2022 document highlights how commercial real estate owners are testing material reuse and circular economy practices through shared action plans and peer learning. It demonstrates early lessons and best practices for advancing reuse and influencing industry standards across the Bay Area.

Gensler

January 2022

The document provides a concise, highly visual guide for integrating material reuse into building projects. It introduces project teams to key reuse concepts and decision points, helping enable reuse early in design and planning without prescribing complex methodologies.

SF Environment

November 2021

What leads to surplus and how can we keep it out of landfill? 
Check out this study and see the opportunity to reduce and redistribute perfectly good building products better.

CoLabs CRTKL Research

March 2021

This study documents findings from a cross‑disciplinary workshop on reducing waste in retail construction. It identifies key barriers, mindsets, and opportunities for advancing deconstruction and material reuse in an industry characterized by high interior fit‑out turnover.

Gensler

 January 2021

The study reframes material reuse as a design opportunity rather than a constraint, challenging prevailing assumptions about what reused materials can look like in contemporary architecture. It emphasizes the role of design leadership and perception in making reuse desirable, credible, and culturally valued within the built environment.

Gensler Research Institute

2020

This publication introduces design principles that enable buildings and components to be taken apart at end of life to support reuse, adaptability, and circularity. It positions disassembly as a proactive design strategy—shifting decisions upstream to preserve material value and reduce future waste.

Gensler Research Institute

2019

This research introduces circular economy principles to the built environment by reframing reuse, adaptation, and longevity as core design strategies. It positions circular thinking as a shift away from linear consumption toward preserving value in existing buildings, materials, and systems through design-led decision‑making.

Google and Ellen MacArthur Foundation

2019

The report examines how deconstruction and material reuse in commercial buildings can retain material value, reduce waste, and cut embodied carbon. It highlights commercial deconstruction as a practical, scalable pathway for accelerating circular economy adoption through collaboration across owners, designers, and supply chains.

Andrew Ellsworth, Doors Unhinged

2019

Widespread reuse of commercial materials in the US could yield 20 megatonnes of CO2e reductions by 2050!  Check out this poster created by Andrew Ellsworth, founder and CEO of Doors Unhinged, based on the LCA research conducted by the Carbon Leadership Forum estimating the embodied carbon of typical office space tenant improvements.