“A dialogue with the local community, circular economy and sustainability are the three drivers towards achieving our objective – to transform the decommissioning of every site into a new opportunity for development and value creation”
A circular project
The work done at Fossoli is an exemplary circular economy model. Selective demolition has enabled us to recover around 3,700 tonnes of metal, as well as copper and aluminium, and reuse on site 7,000 tonnes of crushed cement. In this way we have minimised waste, transforming the materials remaining after demolition into new resources.
What’s more, from the initial stages of the project onwards we used the BIM (Building Information Modelling) system to optimise planning, building and management of the construction by gathering information and through 3D representations of the work’s entire lifecycle. “100 years from now, when it’s the turn of this new structure to be decommissioned and redeveloped, we’ll already have the instruction manual on how to do it,” said Carpi’s Mayor.
Demolishing a former thermo-electric power plant is a complex operation: the installation covered an area of 76,000 square metres, with two methane-burning turbogas units of around 90 MW each. The work met the deadline for completion: demolition began in September 2017 and ended in early May 2018 when the first foundations for the new structure were laid. It was finished in less than a year.
The key theme: sustainability
The new logistics hub covers an area of around 20,000 square metres of outdoor space, and the same amount under cover. It is located in an area hosting a number of different installations and sites that create, in the words of the Mayor of Carpi, “a recycling and recovery hub.” But what is more important is that it has been developed using sustainable, zero-impact solutions – LED lighting, a phytopurification system for clean water and rainwater recovery to irrigate green areas and supply firefighting systems, as well as electrical charging stations for forklift trucks.
“The repurposing solutions we are creating alongside the local authorities must offer responses in terms of social, environmental and economic sustainability: only in this way can projects like Carpi enjoy a long-term future,” says Solfaroli Camillocci.
The solution chosen for the former power plant is the objective that the entire project is working towards – transforming the decommissioning into a new development opportunity, creating shared value through the involvement with the local area. This is the “shared value” approach, which is based on the direct involvement of the local community through competitions, idea workshops and round tables.
The Mayor of Carpi says that this method “has proved itself to be effective and efficient: from tomorrow, every other site will use this method as a model. It’s a game changer.”
