Great Portland Estates made an important step in their goal of contributing to a more sustainable London by reusing some of the unwanted furniture that accumulated in the basement of City Place House in the City of London.
Great Portland Estates’ first experience of reuse may have been small in volume but it was huge in impact. Providing chairs for a brand new start-up and regeneration hub in Kent and lamps to a charity in North London
GPE also provided storage for an innovative social enterprise started by Geraint Whitley who has run Computer Wizard for over twenty years, providing IT support and retail in St Albans.
"We fund everything ourselves so getting furniture free on Reyooz is a game-changer for us. We recently got ten large tambour cabinets in great condition from Reyooz. Replacing old fashioned racking, these cabinets enabled us to increase the space we have for the young people working with us.”
Around 6 months ago Geraint stepped back from running the IT business to focus his attention on expanding the training and employment opportunities they offer to young people with autism. They aim to provide a safe and supportive environment for younger autistic people to get their all-important first experience of paid employment.
Social impact value
Based on similar products available on Amazon, Ebay and Gumtree
Landfill and incineration diversion
Based on FRN average weights
Embodied Carbon saved
Based on WRAP Carbon Methodology and supporting data from ICE and FIRA
Saved on disposal costs
Based on an average of £300 per 12 yard skip
Watch TV for days non-stop
Power a house for days
Produce beef for burgers
Drive a car for hours non-stop
Light a bulb for years continuously
Burn tonnes of coal
Great Portland Estates reuse statistics
Great Portland Estates needed to clear precious space in their basement but were determined not to simply waste valuable stuff. The search for a solution was becoming a challenge.
When Claire Mora, Building Manager at GPE, was introduced to Reyooz it seemed to promise a perfect solution to the dilemma. A simple process whereby the goods in the basements would be cleared out, freeing up space, and then be redistributed to good causes and not be wasted.
"We’re really pleased with the whole service, from start to finish Reyooz have been responsive and really good with updates and arranging visits. I will admit I was surprised by how quickly all of the items went when they were uploaded to the system!”
Reyooz surveyed the entire office ahead of the first scheduled clearance date. Using our app to record a photographic inventory of every item in the basement.
The inventory serves as a precise record of the contents. For Great Portland Estates, this made it easy for them to provide building security with an accurate record of what was being cleared. GPE could also then see exactly what was being redistributed to which good causes.
Reyooz worked closely with the facilities management teams. Privacy pods - a glass room that can be setup inside an office as a private room - required a team of porters and glass stillages to move the extremely heavy glass walls out of the building (careful not to disturb John Snow)
21 Chairs
4 Desks and tables
8 Cabinets
6 Sofas
12 Lamps and Lights
3 Privacy Pods
This project diverted almost 4 tonnes of office furniture and equipment from landfill and incineration, saving over 14 tonnes of embodied carbon. More than £34,000 of goods was redistributed and reused by several charities, schools and small businesses.
Alderbrook School in Battersea now have a high spec privacy meeting room they hadn't dreamed they'd be able to afford. An holistic medicine startup in Erith is using the privacy pods as therapy rooms and a handful of charities shared in the storage cabinets, chairs and light fittings.
The Reyooz process can find a new home for anything, there's no reason for any business to waste a thing. Great Portland Estates have since begun to onboard many more of their properties and property managers to the Reyooz experience. There's no such thing as waste, only wasted resources.
“We fund everything ourselves so getting furniture free on Reyooz is a game-changer for us..”
“Before we had the furniture in from Reyooz those offices were not a great environment for people to work in. The offices are now much nicer places and people are happier.”
“If we didn’t have access to great office furniture from Reyooz, I am not sure if we would have been able to open our most recent training centre in Harrow.”
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