PROJECT
Bendigo Bank Multi-Site Audit & Sustainable Refit
Founded in 2024 by commercial furniture industry expert Peter Appel, we operationalise the circular economy of businesses, government agencies, and public institutions through our end-to-end services which include auditing, repairing, reusing, remanufacturing, recycling, and sourcing of sustainable new products across the full spectrum of commercial projects.
Overview: Simplifying Circularity
The ultimate goal of each aspect of the LOOP process, and every project LOOP is engaged in, is to keep high value furniture circulating in the economy for as long as possible, simplifying circularity to the point that it becomes seamless and intuitive for all businesses.
“We start by assessing what you already have, then find ways to reuse, repair, or repurpose products or the component parts to keep quality products in use and out of landfill,” Appel says.
“Every aspect of what we do, no matter the scale, is about minimising waste, reducing costs, and maximising environmental outcomes in tangible, demonstrable ways through our comprehensive reporting which clearly quantifies the positive impact that every decision makes,” Appel explains.
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The Challenge: Making Sense of Multiple Sites and Multiple Materials
As with many large-scale projects made up of literally thousands of moving parts, one of the greatest challenges facing the wider Bendigo Bank project team was how to achieve the desired design outcomes, meet and ideally exceed the ESG goals, while remaining on time and on budget. Essentially - how could they do more with less, without compromising quality on any level?
For LOOP, rising to this suite of challenges is why they exist. Vowing to distill circularity and sustainability into achievable goals for businesses, LOOP’S process mitigates both the direct and indirect impacts of the ‘office churn’ – one of the many pressures tenants and managers of commercial spaces face to when responding to evolving aesthetic trends and the changing expectations of what the workplace can be and what it must do for multiple stakeholders..
Through the collaborative efforts of stakeholders, their willingness and ability to be nimble and their shared commitment to achieving the most sustainable outcomes possible, this challenge became an opportunity.
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The Opportunity: Daring to be Different at Bendigo Bank
In collaboration with Hassell as the design lead and Renascent as the contractor, who brought Appel and the team at LOOP into the design and refit process at the beginning of a major multi-site refurbishment, Bendigo Bank had the opportunity to optimise circularity potential and embody their core values and ESG goals.
As outlined in their Sustainability Report, Bendigo Bank is committed to contributing to a sustainable and resilient future for all Australians through four key Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs): decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, and climate action.
“The team at Bendigo Bank was really engaged in giving back to the community for this project, because it ties to their values,” says Hassell associate Ashleigh White.
“Bendigo Bank was truly driven by sustainability and embodied it in every way,” adds Renascent design lead Natasha Ellis.
For White and Hassell architect Claire Buscombe, LOOP’s whole systems thinking approach is more than a buzzy talking point. It’s an antidote to the uncertainties that many end clients have with using recycled content.
“There can be so much room for error when using recycled products, so streamlining the Bendigo Bank project through LOOP meant we knew the output would be considered and consistent,” they comment.
“It is not always certain if new materials will be fit for purpose in ten years time, but LOOP, with Peter’s expert guidance enabled us to overcome any hesitancy and give the client certainty.
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The Approach: Collaboration is Key
LOOP, Renascent and Hassell collaborated closely with the client team at Bendigo Bank to ensure as much of the space’s existing portfolio was optimised.
Firstly, the LOOP team conducted a thorough audit of the site capturing the specifics of every item on every floor. Armed with the outcome of the audit, and with assistance from Hassell, decisions were made about which products were suitable for innovative adaptive reuse, refurbishment or remanufacture.
“All the project stakeholders collaborated well and were flexible in their approach to accommodate the reuse products if there were challenges,” Appel says.
The Bendigo Bank project exemplifies LOOPs’ goal to operationalise the circular economy, demonstrating in real terms how applying a whole systems approach together with leaning into challenges as an opportunity for innovation can provide both an aesthetic and sustainable remedy to the challenges of auditing complex sites.
“Peter unlocked the potential for the recycled elements of furniture,” says White.
“The ability to have complete control over the material inputs gave us the ability to ensure the design vision we had became a fully realised outcome,” says White.
Through this hands-on approach and a problem solving attitude, LOOP made the task of integrating the old with the new seamless and achievable, working alongside the design team to prototype and develop lockers and planter boxes from remanufactured and repurposed materials from the sites.
White and Buscombe say LOOP rejects the harmful trend for recycling ventures in
commercial fitouts to merely resemble hastily applied “cladding” and “tokenistic gestures of surface”.
Through this collaborative approach, LOOP and the wider project team demonstrate how recycled content sourced from the project site can actually form the foundation of a project, taking sustainability to a whole new level.
“We are pushing to break barriers from recycled content being just the cladding to being the actual bones of the product,” says Buscombe
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The Outcome: Setting the Bar for Sustainable Commercial Refits
Through a full-circle process that began with meticulous auditing and culminated in facilitating innovative design and remanufacture solutions, the Bendigo Bank project sets the bar for what a sustainable commercial office refit project can be and achieve.
Old hoarding panels which would typically be destined for landfill became technology enabled workstation tops. Existing locker carcasses were transformed into custom design highly functional better than new lockers, also supporting fully integrated technology. New life was injected into preloved furniture, and hundreds of items of plastic salvaged from various product components were recycled into bespoke planters for growing indoor greenery.
“Every item was carefully considered and carried its own story,” says Ellis. “The result was beautiful and sustainable.”
What’s even more impressive is the all important achievement of the project’s carbon reduction goals. “Carbon was reduced 25 to 30 percent and the project hit the target that was set,” says White.
A Summary of Success
Buscombe heralds Loop Solutions as the “missing link” in the architecture and design ecosystem.
“They offer the bridge between our design aspiration and what the contractor is trying to do,” she says. “Having Peter on this project was a win, as he could help champion the client’s aspiration.”
White applauds Appel’s ability to think creatively and expand possibilities, while building trust with clients and gently advocating for the team to think differently about signage and joinery. “Things have been done a certain way for so long, but Peter was able to provide the client confidence in the new direction we were proposing,” she says. “Nothing was too much of a challenge or out of the question.”
For companies overwhelmed by the hierarchy of priorities in a sustainability journey, Ellis prescribes curiosity and collaborating with companies such as Loop Solutions.
“Lean on companies like LOOP to do the heavy lifting because they really go above and beyond,” she says. “They are an incredible source of knowledge, and collaborating with them truly inspires us.”
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