F.01
No standardised audit process
No shared pre-demolition audit existed across the industry, every submission looked different.
The City of London Corporation wanted redevelopment in the Square Mile to start with deconstruction and material reuse, not demolition. KEES designed a suite of pre-deconstruction audit templates, now formally adopted into the City's Supplementary Planning Document and issued to every major development at RIBA Stage 2 or earlier.
A Pre-Deconstruction Audit Template and a matching Audit Report Template, now issued city-wide.
A nine-level hierarchy from Retained to Landfill, letting the City set ambitions per material.
Ten pre-demolition audits reviewed — six from the City, four from KEES — to set the baseline.
Everyone agreed reuse mattered. But there was no shared way to capture it, and by the time most audits happened, it was already too late.
The City of London Corporation recognises that redevelopment in the Square Mile is inevitable, and wants to encourage deconstruction and material reuse over demolition to support the circular economy. The obstacle wasn't ambition, it was process.
No standardised pre-demolition audit existed across the industry. Most audits were carried out post-design, too late to influence decisions, and often only after the demolition contractor had already been procured, closing off deconstruction options entirely.
The material marketplaces that could rehome components used inconsistent data fields, so information couldn't move between them. And the two key policy instruments, the Circular Economy Statement and Whole Life-Cycle Carbon Assessment, weren't being used in a coordinated way.
Rather than a single reuse percentage, the hierarchy lets the City set a target outcome for specific materials, components and equipment, and hold a development to it through design.
It was built by reviewing ten existing audits and every relevant circular-economy policy requirement, then aligned to BREEAM and RIBA stage gates so the audit becomes a live design tool, not a closing formality.
No shared pre-demolition audit existed across the industry, every submission looked different.
Most were carried out post-design, after the moment when findings could still influence decisions.
Many audits happened after the demolition contractor was appointed, limiting deconstruction options.
Reuse platforms used inconsistent field requirements, preventing easy transfer of material data.
Circular Economy Statement and Whole Life-Cycle Carbon requirements weren't coordinated.
Teams didn't record enough material detail early enough to embed reuse into cost and programme.
The template had to satisfy planning policy, work for design teams, and hand clean data to the reuse marketplace, so we designed it against all three from the start.
We benchmarked ten pre-demolition audits, six from the City of London, four from KEES, to understand what worked, what was missing, and what to standardise.
We mapped all circular-economy requirements, CES, WLCA, City Plan 2040, the London Plan 2021, NPPF and the Westminster SPD, so the template is compliant by construction.
We developed a material reuse hierarchy aligned to the City's ambitions, spanning nine levels from Retained through to Landfill, so ambition can be set per material.
We aligned the template to BREEAM and RIBA stage requirements across Stages 0, 2, 4 and 6, so it is completed early and refined through the life of the project.
We met with reuse-marketplace suppliers, Maconda, Material Index, EME and Circuland, to make sure captured data maps cleanly onto their platforms.
We delivered an Audit Template and a matching Audit Report Template, reviewed and approved by City of London Sustainability Officers ahead of publication.
Adopted into the City's Supplementary Planning Document, and issued to every major development.
The templates are now a formal part of the City of London Corporation's Supplementary Planning Document requirements.
The Planning Department issues the templates to all major developments, to be completed at RIBA Stage 2 or earlier.
Shared extensively with industry and used as a base for further audit development, piloted by planning applicants.
Kiro identified the main obstacle that severely limits deconstruction material reuse: teams don't record material detail early enough to integrate reuse into the programme and cost plan. His idea, a detailed pre-deconstruction audit template, means we're now confident the planning process can practically and procedurally support the circular economy.
Whether you're a local authority shaping planning policy or a developer facing a Circular Economy Statement, we help turn reuse ambition into a process that actually works on site. Start with a call.