Our Story

The creation of The Rebuild Suite was driven by our knowledge of circular economy, the glaringly obvious issue of good quality surplus construction materials being treated as waste, and the will to do things better for our planet and our local communities. By encouraging the reuse of existing surplus materials we are playing our part to reduce waste and lower the amount of carbon used in creating new materials.

The surplus materials we pick up go to community groups and charities to help with their building, gardening, crafting and repair projects. We also sell nearly new and surplus materials to trades and members of the public at reduced prices – perfect for that DIY project you’re planning to get underway!

A circular economy is restorative and regenerative by design, and aims to keep products, components, and materials looping at their highest utility and value at all times – decreasing our consumption of resources, and crucially also reducing our carbon footprint. The Rebuild Site brings together contractors, organisations, communities and individuals to create a circular economy ecosystem.

The Challenge

Reaching out and building partnerships with contractors and organisations was key to making The Rebuild Site a success. Online surplus materials platforms, construction companies, and third sector organisations such as Men’s Sheds, Heathlands Trust, Right2Work, and Give a Day Carlisle helped us get a good understanding of the trade and operating a circular economy.

We were able to access public sector bodies such as Carlisle City Council and the Cumbria LEP who provided invaluable advice and support, with the Cumbria Social Enterprise Partnership offering great free support and resources.

We recognise we are still at the start of our journey, therefore we continue to be open to discussions, partnering opportunities and learning from others. We are learning as much as possible and deliberately seeking out advice from people who know different things than we do.

We are very cognisant of role that organisations like ourselves play in providing a working example that others can learn from. As such, we are endeavouring to document the process of setting up and operating the organisation at every stage with a view to replicating the model across the country.

We’ve also done a lot of work on establishing our values, vision and overall mission. It’s important to think about who you are and what you stand for as it will be make it easier for new partners to buy into your idea and form a collective goal that everyone in your organisation will work towards.

Our Solution

Our work has both environmental and social impacts. We aim to collect as much data as possible to enable learning and improve our end results. This includes detailing all materials that are collected, estimating the reduction in carbon emissions by reuse of materials, any reduction in landfill, and resource management improvements at all our sites we liaise with. By doing this, we can provide quantifiable data that can be used to help form into effective solutions for the wider construction industry.

As well as our environmental impacts, we also measure the social impact our work does. We work hard to transfer our skills and knowledge through training courses and the education programmes we deliver, as well as noting how many community and charity projects we assist and outreach programmes we host.

Find out more

Want to find our more about the Cumbria Rebuild Site? Head to www.rebuildsite.co.uk