Romulus Initiative

Chairman of the City of London Corporation Planning and Transportation Committee, Shravan Joshi, said: "The trial of ROMULUS brings together a wide range of key stakeholders in construction from across the City, from architects to developers, to collaborate on increasing and streamlining material reuse from construction. The data insights we will gain from this trial will be invaluable for the development of our Circular Economy Framework and to embed circular principles into local building projects. With the built environment industry contributing around 40% of global carbon emissions, initiatives like Romulus are vital in signalling to investors that we are committed to meeting our Net Zero goals, through sustainable growth in construction within the City.”

Jame Parker, Senior Sustainability Manager for Clarion Housing Group said: “I see ROMULUS supporting the Circular Economy aspirations within the housing sector by bringing the market together, at the moment it’s very fragmented. Everyone is working on their own and tend to be looking at new materials for everything, it’s the easy win. But there is an increasing amount of regeneration projects that we’re doing, multiple large schemes of thousands and thousands of home with end-of-life buildings from the 60s, 70s with a lot of materials that could be reused.

Justin Sayer RIBA, Associate Director for Eric Parry Architects, said: “We are currently working with Maconda to establish a material passport for 40 Holborn Viaduct. This is an exemplary retrofit project that will reuse approximately 70% of the existing building material in the proposals, including re-using the stone from the facades as terrazzo finishes to the interiors and public realm. Accurate material passport information will allow contractors to plan the mining of materials from buildings for re-use either at the time of deconstruction or from local authority/private enterprise material storage sites. The joined up circular economy thinking embodied by the ROMULUS initiative will transform the construction industry and help counter the unsustainable carbon costs of new material construction.”

Mete Coban, Deputy Mayor of London for Energy and Environment said: “The ROMULUS Initiative is incredibly important to support the Mayor’s vision to achieve a fairer and greener London because it helps us to understand what we are working with across the whole city. The data that it provides us will help inform the GLA’s work on how it can boost the circular economy and work with government to accelerate on jobs and making sure we are helping reuse, reduce waste but also help support our environmental goals and help reach net zero by 2030. .”

Maya Kana, Keltbray Senior Environmental Advisor said: We found working with ROMULUS to be a very smooth and collaborative process. The items were live within days and removed from the site within a few weeks. With the items being donated to schools, it’s been amazing to see the positive social impact they’ve had.”

Matthew Oram, Holy Trinity Clapham said: "I just wanted to send a huge thank you for the sofas from us at Holy Trinity Clapham. It's wonderful to have some new(ish) furniture in the building and to be able to bless those in our community and those who volunteer to support them with things such as these. We are very grateful indeed."

Chris Steele-Kendrick, Founder of Streetbox said: Being involved in the Romulus project has been both insightful and rewarding. As an organisation focused on surplus food, it’s been exciting to learn how others are tackling surplus in different industries to reduce our collective impact on the world.

Surplus construction material appears even more complex than surplus food, and we’re truly impressed by the project’s efforts to minimise waste in the demolition process.

Thanks to the collaborative approach of the team at Maconda, we were able to repurpose over __ items - including chairs, tables, sofas, and even a kitchen, all for small organisations in the voluntary and community sector that would otherwise struggle to access them. The value of this goes far beyond the items themselves; it has a very real impact on the day-to-day operations of these community groups and the people they support.

We’re incredibly grateful to everyone involved in the Romulus project for making these donations possible - you’re surplus heroes, every single one of you!