Phil Purnell

University of Leeds · Institute for Resilient Infrastructure (iRI)

Renewable energy technologies, necessary for low-carbon infrastructure networks, are being adopted to help reduce fossil fuel dependence and meet carbon mitigation targets. The evolution of these technologies has progressed based on the enhancement of technology-specific performance criteria, without explicitly considering the wider system (global)...

As legislation forces significant reductions in the operational carbon dioxide emissions of the built environment, increasing attention is focused on the embodied carbon of structural materials. As the most prevalent structural material, the embodied carbon of concrete is of paramount interest. Previous direct or indirect analyses of embodied carbo...

This paper presents an integrated modelling approach for value assessments, focusing on resource recovery from waste. The method tracks and forecasts a range of values across environmental, social, economic and technical domains by attaching these to material-flows, thus building upon and integrating unidimensional models such as material flow anal...

A model for simulated ageing of glass fibre reinforced composites is presented, based on the micromechanics of the primary strength loss process i.e. fibre degradation, was fitted to extant data in the literature for both polymer- and cement-matrix composites. Correlation coefficients of >0.95 were obtained in all cases. Derived parameters suggest...

The power plant sector is adopting the co-firing of biomass and solid recovered fuel (SRF) with coal in an effort to reduce its environmental impact and costs. Whereas this intervention contributes to reducing carbon emissions and those of other pollutants related with the burning of fossil fuel, it may also result in hidden impacts that are often...

Robotics and autonomous systems are reshaping the world, changing healthcare, food production and biodiversity management. While they will play a fundamental role in delivering the UN Sustainable Development Goals, associated opportunities and threats are yet to be considered systematically. We report on a horizon scan evaluating robotics and auton...

Sustainable Development Goal 11 calls for inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities. Urban areas comprise interconnected infrastructure systems that deliver services that support all aspects of daily life. Despite their important contribution to modern life current infrastructure business models typically under-estimate the long-term econom...

The textile industry is facing increasing criticism because of its intensive use of resources –both natural and fossil derived– and the negative environmental and societal impacts associated with the manufacturing, use and disposal of clothes. This has led to a desire to move toward a circular economy for textiles that will implement recycling conc...

The pressure that the human species exerts on the natural environment through the extraction of materials and generation of wastes is widely recognised. Circular economy offers the potential to contribute to sustainable development, by making better use of resources. Circular economy has emerged as a primarily technology focused concept with the ab...

The UK construction sector is facing multiple challenges associated with low productivity, unreliable project delivery, poor performance, skilled labour shortages, and resource inefficiency. Modular construction has been increasingly promoted by the UK government and industry to address those challenges, and improve efficiency and productivity in t...

This paper proposes a simplified design approach to predict the flexural behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened by high-performance textile reinforced mortar (TRM) under cyclic loads. Based on the experimental results, the effect of main factors on the beams, and the effectiveness and reliability of TRM strengthening layer under cy...

Circular economy (CE) is extensively discussed around the globe. Presently, discussions are mostly concerned with the importance of achieving CE and the benefits associated therewith, with the various barriers surrounding its implementation being less debated. Understanding the context in which circularity can flourish is a prerequisite in building...

Global decarbonization relies on technologies such as solar and wind energy that require “critical” materials. In this issue of One Earth, Babbitt et al. propose circular economy interventions that preserve critical materials. Here we discuss how the lack of research and industry and policy readiness are challenging the adoption of such practices.

The pressure that the human species exerts on the natural environment through the extraction of materials and generation of wastes is widely recognised. Circular economy has emerged as a potential solution to make better use of resources. Positioned as a technology-focused concept that can generate economic gains while alleviating pressure on the e...

The ever-growing urban population faces challenges of ageing infrastructure. The process for renewing the infrastructure is costly, and current practices for maintaining and repairing are often ineffective and labour intensive. Road networks, for instance, which act as the arteries for cities, suffer from reoccurring potholes (in the UK, a pothole...

Development and deployment of low carbon infrastructure (LCI) is essential in a period of accelerated climate change. The deployment of LCI is, however, not taking place with any obvious long term or joined up thinking in respect of life-cycle material extraction, usage and recovery across technologies or otherwise. This proposition is demonstrated...

Energy sector policies have focused historically on the planning, design and construction of energy infrastructures, while typically overlooking the processes required for the management of their end-of-life, and particularly their decommissioning. However, decommissioning of existing and future energy infrastructures is constrained by a plethora o...

Article in The Conversation bringing together diverse stakeholder perspectives on circular economy, following nearly 5 years of engagement and implementation activities for a more circular economy via the Resource Recovery from Waste programme. The article distinguishes three levels of circular economy - relying on energy from waste, material recov...

Rapid industrial development, mega construction projects and increased immigration are some of the reasons that the State of Qatar has recently generated an unprecedented amount of construction and demolition (C&D) waste in the country. The State is racing towards the Fédération Internationale de Football Association World Cup 2022, a fact that req...

A broad range of organizations, from small and medium-sized enterprises to large multi-nationals, are interested in adopting circular economy practices. A circular economy can help companies make better use of materials by minimizing the input of natural resources, reducing waste, and optimizing the economic, social, technical and environmental cos...

This chapter introduces the Complex Value Optimisation for Resource Recovery (CVORR) analysis framework. It discusses the advantages and limitations of existing approaches to assessing the benefits and impacts of waste management and resource recovery processes and explains how CVORR combines the most relevant elements of materials flow analysis (M...

This chapter discusses the impacts of policy and regulations on resource recovery from waste (RRfW) as part of a transition towards a circular economy (CE). It presents the motivations for achieving CE as expressed by government and commercial stakeholders, the general and specific benefits of RRfW in the economic, environmental and social domains,...

Natural resource exploitation is accelerating in the face of resource decline, while at the same time people are generating ever growing quantities of wastes. Population and income growth drive up the demand for energy, materials and food. Four planetary boundaries that indicate a safe operating space for humankind may well have been crossed – clim...

A circular economy offers solutions for global sustainability challenges through the transition from the linear take-make-use-dispose economy to a better organisation of resources. However, realising a circular economy has ran into various biophysical constraints. Circular economy implementation is shaped by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's butterf...

Renewable energy is an integral part of a circular economy. However, the decommissioning of renewable energy infrastructure such as offshore wind poses considerable global challenges. Circular economy approaches have high potential to add value to ‘decommissioning’ and strengthen supply chains, especially when applied throughout the lifecycle of ma...

Running from 2015 to 2019, the Resource Recovery from Waste (RRfW) programme is a £7m strategic investment by NERC, ESRC and Defra to deliver strategic science in support of a paradigm shift in the recovery of resources from waste, driven by benefits to the environment and human health, rather than economics alone. The end-of-programme brochure ou...

The transition from coal-based electricity to ‘carbon neutral’ biofuels derived from forests has catalysed a debate largely centred upon whether woody-biofuels drive deforestation. Consequently, a crucial point is often missed. Most wood pellets used in electricity production are derived from waste-wood; a practice considered acceptable by many oth...

Response to the 25 Year Environment Plan Indicator Framework Consultation by the Resource Recovery from Waste Programme.

Here we investigate the increasingly complex relationship between the resource recovery practices of the UK concrete industry and ongoing low-carbon transitions taking place in electricity and steel. Reductions in UK coal-based electricity and primary steel production are reducing domestic availability of residues – coal ash and steel slag – that a...

RRfW has been working with academia, government and industry to develop a shared vision for the transition to a circular economy. This reports captures the industry perspectives, with participants from a range of industries with interests in UK resource and waste management. The industry view on the future changes required to enable a circular econ...

Resource Recovery from Waste co-produced a vision and approach for a circular economy in collaboration with academic, government and industry partners. This report details the perspectives from our contacts in industry.

The growing British waste management sector has consistently voiced the need to improve the quality of waste-streams and thus the value of secondary resources produced, in order to achieve higher reprocessing rates. Mismanagement of wastes that may lead to contamination and degradation of the recyclate feedstock constitutes one of the main barriers...

This report is the outcome of a Resource Recovery from Waste mini-project led by University of Leeds. The project aimed to explore higher value applications of fibre recovered through a steam rotating autoclave, which is a form of a Mechanical Heat Treatment (MHT) process. It processes mixed municipal solid waste or materials with similar character...

The growing British waste management sector has consistently voiced the need to improve the quality of waste streams and thus the value of secondary resources produced, in order to achieve higher reprocessing rates. Mismanagement of wastes that may lead to contamination and degradation of the recyclate feedstock constitutes one of the main barriers...

The United Kingdom’s (UK) economy is overly reliant on unsustainable production and consumption practices that deplete finite resources at rates that will increase production costs, business risk, and economic instability; it also produces emissions and waste that cause climate change and environmental degradation, impacting on well-being in the UK...

These proceedings present the results of a stakeholder workshop that was organised to gain a better insight into issues related to the decommissioning and resource recovery of low-carbon infrastructures. To maximise values created from low-carbon infrastructures, they must be designed for durability, decommissioning and resource recovery. This will...

Over the last 60 years plastics production has increased manifold, owing to their inexpensive, multipurpose, durable and lightweight nature. These characteristics have raised their demand that will continue to grow over the coming years. However, with increased plastic materials production, comes increased plastic material wastage creating a number...

The European Commission (EC) recently introduced a 'Circular Economy Package', setting ambitious recycling targets and identifying waste plastics as a priority sector where major improvements are necessary. Here, the authors explain how different collection modalities affect the quantity and quality of recycling, using recent empirical data on hous...

The UK economy is overly reliant on unsustainable production and consumption practices, depleting finite resources at rates that will increase production costs, business risk and economic instability. This over-consumption produces emissions and waste that cause climate change and environmental degradation, impacting on the wellbeing of people in t...

The transition to a circular economy, where the value of resources is preserved in the technosphere, must be supported by policies and operational decision making based on evidence. Existing methods used to provide this evidence (e.g. LCA, LCSA, CBA) are not robust enough to adequately address the creation and dissipation of systemic and multidimen...

Established assessment methods focusing on resource recovery from waste within a circular economy context consider few or even a single domain/s of value, i.e. environmental, economic, social and technical domains. This partial approach often delivers misleading messages for policy and decision-makers. It fails to accurately represent systems compl...

This paper presents an overview of the UK’s Resource Recovery from Waste (RRfW) infrastructure system. It introduces the waste management sector and its evolution into a resource recovery industry supporting a circular economy, and then collates and analyses key sources of public-domain information to review our existing and planned infrastructure...

Current societal patterns of production and consumption drive a twin environmental crisis of resource scarcity and waste overload. Positioning waste and resource management in the context of ecosystem stewardship, this article relates increasing resource demand and waste production to the violation of planetary boundaries and human rights. We argue...

How academics from the University of Leeds and waste management practitioners jointly co-create the next generation of analytical and decision support tools to maximise the gains delivered by resource recovery from waste in a more convenient, transparent and holistic way.

In 2010, nearly 72 billion metric tonnes (Gt) (i.e. 10-fold increase since the early 1900s) of raw materials entered the global economy (OECD, 2015), 44% of which was construction minerals (i.e. around 29 Gt (UNEP, 2016)). This vast amount of material extracted and consumed, mainly exacerbated by construction activities, is associated with environm...

Since the mid-20th century, people have changed ecosystems at a speed and scale incomparable to any other developments during the existence of the human species. Ecosystem change is primarily driven by the increasing demand for food, water, timber, fibre and fuel i.e. growing resource use. On top of that, the supporting infrastructure for these res...

While natural and manufactured resources provide the raw materials with which civil engineers work, the term ‘resources’ should always be considered in its wider interpretation and then in the context that resources are in many cases limited. That they should be used wisely (resource efficiency) is beyond contention – we do this as a matter of cour...

The exploitation of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for tracking and archiving the properties of structural construction components could be a potentially innovative disruption for the construction sector. This is because RFID can stimulate the reuse of construction components and reduce their wastage, hence addressing sustainability issues i...

Presenting results of review of waste infrastructure in the UK in relation to changing social, environmental and economic values guiding waste and resourcee management. The key messages were: 1. Investment needed for material recovery infrastructure 2. Data deficiencies hold back investment 3. Need to establish an Office for Resource Stewardship Ev...

Presentation of forthcoming article ”Restoring the Balance between Resource Scarcity and Waste Overload”, relevance of waste and resource management to implementing the UN SDGs, and details of the transdisciplinary engagement strategy designed and applied by RRfW to develop a shared vision and approach for realising a circular economy.

Please reference as: Resource Recovery from Waste (2017) Workshop Report: Co-creation of a Shared Vision for Waste and Resource Management in the UK. Internal report.

Interventions that focus on protecting the environment and human health, have started to be incorporated in various sectors. One such intervention is the co-firing of biomass and SRF with coal in power plants. While this intervention contributes positively to reducing carbon emissions and other pollutants from the extraction and burning of fossil f...

European Commission (EC) recently introduced a ‘Circular economy package’, setting ambitious recycling targets and identifying waste plastics as a key area where major improvements and focus is necessary. The importance of plastics as a landmark case for the circular economy is denoted by the significant report on ‘New plastics economy’ released by...

Purpose: The exploitation of smart technologies such as, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) for tracking and archiving the properties of structural components, is an innovative disruption in the construction sector. It could stimulate reuse of construction components, rather than their wastage addressing...

Construction is the most resource intensive sector in the world. It consumes more than half of the total global resources; it is responsible for more than a third of the total global energy use and associated emissions; and generates the greatest and most voluminous waste stream globally. Reuse is considered to be a material and carbon saving pract...

The global cement industry is responsible for 7% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and, as such, has a vital role to play in the transition to a low carbon dioxide economy. In recent years, this has been achieved by technological advances and increased use of supplementary cementitious materials, but the authors have recently shown that the...

Time-dependent property changes in glass fibre reinforced cement (GRC) mainly result from a combination of the alkalinity of the matrix and densification of the matrix (e.g. due to calcium hydroxide precipitation) within and around the glass fibre strands. The microstructure of the interface between matrix and fibres in GRC has a significant impact...

The bulk materials mix in cities will not change significantly. However, increased use of ‘trace’ materials crucial for low-carbon technologies will expose cities to critical materials supply issues. Much of these materials will never physically cross city boundaries and thus cities must be considered as nodes in a wider infrastructure network. The...

In established linear systems the values of materials are often lost or dissipated into waste ending up in landfills. Europe is proposing a range of measures to accelerate the transition from these linear systems to a more circular economy along the full supply chain. This requires new ways of looking at traditional industrial systems and materials...

Existing approaches to delivering infrastructure are repeatedly criticised for returning poor value for money to the taxpayer and being too narrow to capture the wide range of benefits infrastructure provides to the economy, society and environment. Austerity provides a further stimulus to innovate new ways of delivering, funding, valuing and manag...

Infrastructure is a means to an end: it is built, maintained and expanded in order to enable the functioning of society. Present infrastructure operation is characterised by: governance based on unmanaged growing demand, which is both inefficient and ultimately unsustainable; lack of integration of the end-users, in terms of the variety of their wa...

The UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council have launched a £3·5 million, 4-year research programme to develop innovative business models for delivering infrastructure. Richard Dawson, Claire Walsh, Phil Purnell and Chris Rogers introduce infrastructure business models, valuation and inno...

The supply risk and exposure to supply shortage is becoming an important factor in the consideration of a mass low carbon technology roll-out. This study takes current criticality studies, which analyse the criticality of single raw materials, and extends it to calculate the relative criticality of multiple material transparent conductive electrode...

Decarbonisation of existing infrastructure systems requires a dynamic roll-out of technology at an unprecedented scale. The potential disruption in supply of critical materials could endanger such a tran-sition to low-carbon infrastructure and, by extension, compromise energy security more broadly because low carbon technologies are reliant on thes...