Why demolition harms climate goals

Buildings Are Not Carbon Banks – They Are Carbon Time Bombs The idea that we can store carbon in buildings is a dangerous illusion. The moment you harvest a living organism — a tree, a plant, or soil carbon — and turn it into a building material, you interrupt its natural cycle and start the countdown to decay. All materials degrade. Over time, through fire, mold, oxidation, or demolition, the carbon is released back into the atmosphere. No building is permanent. Worse still, the ecosystems we harvest are no longer there to sequester carbon. What could have been a thriving, regenerative sink becomes a static material destined to emit. Framing this as a climate solution is not just misleading — it accelerates collapse. In the Global North, we don’t need more buildings. We need redistribution, renovation, and care. The only legitimate path forward is to adapt what already exists, using materials from regenerative systems that respect biodiversity and planetary boundaries. Yes, we need to remove CO₂ — but how we do it matters. Using buildings as storage is, at best, a temporary delay. The average Danish building lasts 50–70 years. Then the carbon returns — unless we invest in costly, energy-intensive end-of-life solutions. Even so-called carbon-cured materials rely on extractive processes. They're not regenerative — they’re rebound-inducing. What actually works? 🌱 Protect and restore 50% of Denmark’s land and sea. Let forests, wetlands, grasslands, and marine ecosystems do what they’ve done for millennia: remove carbon safely and permanently, while restoring biodiversity, water, and nutrient cycles. And here’s one actionable way forward: The building industry must be held accountable for its off-site biodiversity impacts — applying a polluter pays principle. By compensating for land use, resource extraction, and ecosystem degradation, the sector could help fund and enable large-scale restoration. That’s how we remake our natural carbon sinks — not by building more, but by repairing the living systems we've pushed beyond breaking. We can’t build our way out of a crisis caused by overconsumption. We don’t need to store carbon in walls. We need to store it in living systems. Anything else is a distraction. And we’re out of time for distractions.

Demolition is hard work. Let’s avoid it by stopping the cycle of building poorly thought-out structures that no-one really wants. A while back I posted about a 3-storey timber building in my town that lasted just 17 years before being torn down - an outrageous waste! https://lnkd.in/e7EKQf_V But it is trivial compared to the waste at Tower 15 in Singapore, a 29-storey office tower demolished after only a few decades. We are talking thousands of tonnes of CO₂ and materials wasted. 😠 A recent article in The Structural Engineer shows the extraordinary precision and ingenuity the demolition team had to deploy. I have huge respect for the engineers who made the demolition safe. But the bigger question is how we ended up needing such an operation in the first place. 🔹 The lower tower, built in 1970, was an ordinary but serviceable office. 🔹 Around 2003, a new tower was perched on top, resting on three giant transfer beams and independent cores. 🔹 Just 5 years later, the owner reclad the whole building with a new aluminium and glass façade, complete with extra supporting steelwork. 🔹 And within another 15 years the entire complex was brought down. The demolition reveals the scale of material investment: massive post-tensioned beams, deep concrete cores and tonnes of steel, all cut apart and craned down piece by piece. Recovery efforts appear limited to soft strip and material recycling at best. Now the site is set to redeveloped and opened as a hotel in 2027. Singaporean policy makers are starting to require retrofit-first assessments, which is encouraging. But the reality is that we have already wasted huge amounts of carbon and resources on a building that was far from the end of its potential life. ❗ The issue here is opportunity cost. Thousands of tonnes of materials and embodied emissions were sunk into Tower 15’s upper tower and new cladding. Those same resources could have served society for decades elsewhere. We need to design buildings that last, adapt, or can be deconstructed, and make judicious use of the materials we have to deliver long lasting value for the future. Select figures taken from the article. You can view the full article here (Free for members of The Institution of Structural Engineers): https://lnkd.in/evbYvvdR #Decarbonisation #Carbonopportunitycost

We demolish 30,000 homes per year in Canada. Send 1,500,000 tonnes of perfectly good materials to the landfill. Call it "progress." Then I did the math on what we actually destroyed. Not just wood and brick - embodied carbon, craftsmanship, community memory. And I realized we've been confusing motion with momentum. Here's the thing about the built environment nobody wants to admit: We're addicted to the wrecking ball because it feels like action. Demolition is loud. Visible. Fast. Moving a building? That's quiet power. It requires patience, precision, and the kind of vision most boards don't have the stomach for. But when you relocate instead of demolishing, you're not just saving materials. You're promoting existing assets against housing scarcity. You're turning waste streams into value chains. You're proving that sustainability isn't about sacrifice, it's about being smart enough to see what everyone else throws away. The future isn't built from scratch. It's built from what we already have - if we're brave enough to move it. 🔔 TL;DR: Demolition is theatre. Relocation is strategy. The real flex isn't building new, it's making old work harder. 📸 Nickel Bros #SustainableConstruction #CircularEconomy #BuiltEnvironment #ImpactStrategy #RealEstate #Innovation #HousingAffordability #CarbonReduction #ResponsibleLeadership #WasteManagement #GreenBuilding

We say we want more homes. Maybe what we're saying is we want more new homes, because today’s development model, particularly where it claims to be sustainable, is leaving plenty on the table! It is impossible not to ask how we arrived at such a poor relationship with our historic built and natural environment. We regularly assert a national desire to bring existing buildings back to life, yet the systems needed to deliver this ambition are largely absent. There is no national centre of conservation excellence where all stakeholders can share knowledge, develop best practices, and build collective capacity. Instead, expertise remains fragmented, misunderstood and undervalued. Conservation and active reuse are not abstract ideals; they are true sustainability in practice. They retain embodied carbon, conserve finite natural resources, and strengthen place. Yet the dominant approach to development remains cut, copy, paste, largely indifferent to context or character, so long as it lands on a green field. Working with existing buildings is more demanding. It requires judgment, technical skill, and an understanding of what already exists. This is precisely why it is so often sidelined in today's arena. Anyone can select a standard solution; it takes real expertise to adapt, repair, reimagine and reuse existing fabric. The contradiction is most stark in the realm of “green finance.” Preferential lending rates for new builds are routinely justified under sustainable conditions, yet the greenest buildings are those already standing. Financial models that incentivise demolition and replacement are actually problematic because they are responsible for encouraging the use of virgin, finite natural resources ... which are not genuinely green. They simply prioritise convenience and certainty. The missed opportunity is very significant. Underused and vacant buildings embedded within existing communities could deliver homes, reduce emissions, and support skilled employment. Instead, we continue to prioritise speed over quality and simplicity over intelligence. If we genuinely want homes, and sustainable ones, we must align policy, finance, and practice with that goal. Existing buildings are not obstacles to progress; they are one of our greatest, and most overlooked, opportunities. Maybe 2026 will see us step up to the challenge.

McKinsey has been producing exceptional reports on decarbonizing the built environment – they both outline the size of the challenge and very clear pathways that create significant value. The last one (https://lnkd.in/dm8qVA_Q), on circularity, is quite interesting to me, especially because I spent 6 months researching this topic for my thesis at Technical University of Munich. Reusing building materials could abate 75% of material-related emissions in the construction sector – this is a massive, gigaton-scale potential. Unfortunately, the construction industry value chain is just not set up for circularity: demolition is much simpler than deconstruction; virgin materials are cheaper than the reclaimed ones; the morass of regulation around treatment of waste prevents salvaged materials from re-entering the value chain; certification methods, especially for structural materials, simply don’t exist for building components that have already been used. But there’s a circular loop within construction that’s more straightforward than salvaging, recertifying, and reusing materials. You guessed it: extending the lifetime of buildings through energy efficiency retrofits. The lion share of the lifecycle carbon emissions in a given building are tied to the materials in the building envelope: concrete, steel, glass. As buildings become electrified, and the grids decarbonize, the share of embodied carbon only increases. And that’s the main reason why, measured from the lifecycle emissions perspective, retrofits usually beat demolition + new development hands down. You get to keep the structure. You don’t produce new materials. You don’t generate waste. It’s just the smart thing to do. LETI has created amazing resources on embodied carbon and retrofits, and Lucienne Mosquera has been posting great content about the financial case behind retrofits: there’s a hidden goldmine there. And local authorities who set retrofit-first policies are driving the action! #climatetech #builtenvironment #retrofits

80% of the buildings we need in 2050 are already built. We cannot "new build" our way to Net Zero. We must retrofit. Yet, Australia’s tax system penalises the solution: 🛑 Homeowners/Strata (Retrofit): Pay 10% GST on repairs and upgrades to their apartments/houses. It is a sunk cost you can't recover. ✅ Developers/Super Funds (New Build): Claim Input Tax Credits on construction. We have inadvertently subsidised demolition. Current policy makes it financially attractive to bulldoze embodied carbon rather than save it. To hit our climate goals, retrofitting shouldn't be taxed more than new builds—it should be treated as a favoured setting. #sustainability #housingpolicy #taxreform #circulareconomy

There is no Plan B... Michael Gove has rejected M&S plans to demolish flagship Oxford Street store. https://lnkd.in/ehgA8VUN This debate has mainstreamed the demolition vs retrofit debate. This, aside from the result, can only be a good thing. The most sustainable building already exists. This is not a difficult idea to grasp. But the lack of legislation (and incentive) for developers to pursue reuse over demolition - other than wanting to ‘do the right thing’ - has led us here... A point where battle lines have been drawn around embodied carbon, operational efficiencies and where ‘the carbon calculator’ is the weapon of choice. The Government’s intervention in this case is testament to the complexity of the issue. But this debate is not actually about carbon at all. It’s about our ownership of, and responsibility to tackle, the climate crisis. The science of carbon payback used to justify demolition and new build (vis-à-vis M&S Oxford Street) does not tackle the problem today. It just passes it onto the next generation. The carbon emissions of new schemes like this one will exist for hundreds of years. Forget about 2050. Try 2250 instead. And do we really think that’s acceptable? Because I don’t think it is. We have passionately advocated building reuse, reimagination and reinvention since our inception.    And we are better equipped than ever before to reformat old buildings to exceed modern day energy standards. Reimagining them to be better for people and the planet. What we need now is proper legislation that will incentivise retrofit and penalise demolition so that it may become the exception, rather than the rule. There is no Plan B. 

Reusing what’s already built is often the greenest option 🍃 Demolition creates waste, erases embodied carbon, and often replaces something that could’ve been adapted. But seeing potential isn’t always easy, especially when a building’s been neglected for years. That’s where visualisation can help - it’s a way to test ideas, imagine new functions, and show what a space could be. Sometimes a good image is all it takes to shift the conversation from starting over to working with what’s already there. A behind-the-scenes look at how we at wiak studio refurbished a pretty rough iphone photo into an image that opens up possibilities.