By
Adopting reuse practices in real estate requires teamwork. At Lejonfastigheter, forming a committed reuse squad within the organization and seeking assistance from industry colleagues and experts to discover effective methods are key strategies that have facilitated the transition from old patterns and habits towards establishing a reuse mindset.
As one of the early adopters of systematic reuse of building materials, Dzanela Becirovic is now eager to now share insights from their journey, to inspire others.
Dzanela is a Sustainability Coordinator at Lejonfastigheter - a municipal real estate company that manages roughly 250 properties within the municipality of Linköping and employs around 90 people. Since 2021 Dzanela and her colleagues have been hard at work to make reuse the first choice by assembling a Reuse squad, launching an internal Reuse hub, adopting Palats and setting annual reuse targets.
“Since we’re a municipal real estate company with relatively large number of properties we felt we must show the city that reuse is doable.”
Lejonfastigheter’s Reuse hub consists of a 260 sqm storage and an outdoor area where reusable building materials are stored temporarily in between uses. Lejonfastigheter has always had a storage where you could drop off reusable materials, but the work hasn’t been systematic.
"We realized pretty fast that we needed a digital platform in the hub. At small scale you can keep track yourself, but as it gets bigger you must get a system for it."
Dzanela reached out to the team at Palats when the product was still in its early stages, and was very keen on trying the software out at Lejonfastigheter. Long story short: Today, Lejonfastigheter utilizes Palats to streamline their reuse operations, making it easy for employees and contractors to find reusable materials through both mobile and web browsers.
“We see that the user engagement in Palats keeps growing. Our operating contractors especially appreciate its ease of use.”
But ease of use isn’t the only incentive to reuse. The company has committed to an annual target to avoid at least 30 tons of CO2e by reusing. In addition to that, Property Managers, Maintenance Project Managers, and Project Managers now have individual reuse targets to hit.
The major challenge continues to be inspiring a reuse mindset and transitioning from old patterns and habits. A cornerstone in that work is the "reuse squad "consisting of a Property manager, Maintenance project manager, Facility Manager, Operations manager, Reuse consultant and a Sustainability Coordinator.
“The Reuse squad was a good way to anchor the reuse method in the organisation. With results in hand we wish that we had even more gatherings in this constellation and that we involved everyone earlier and to a deeper level.”
They are now looking into upgrading the Reuse hub to triple the available storage area. This will enable the operation to scale with more items and people. There’s hope that the hub may one day open up to Lejonfastigheter’s sister companies.
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Dzanela's first advice for property companies getting into systematic reuse is: Get in contact with industry colleagues and experts that have done this before. It’s a great source of inspiration and encouragement.
The second advice is to not venture alone. Make sure you work as a team, involve the whole organization and make sure you are supported by the executive team.
From the beginning, Dzanela has stood by the motto: you have to begin with yourself and dare to try.
If you don’t try, you don’t know. Take small steps instead of trying to take steps that are too big for you to manage. Not everything will always go as planned, but that’s when you learn. That’s the approach Lejonfastigheter uses and try to communicate.
