SmartWaste report finds UK construction sector is becoming more materially wasteful

Waste
30 June 2026

SmartWaste report finds UK construction sector is becoming more materially wasteful

The Building Research Establishment (BRE), the leading building science centre, has published its SmartWaste UK Construction KPI Benchmark Report. The report examines the UK construction sector’s waste management performance using 10 years of UK construction data collected via the SmartWaste platform across 4,791 projects and over £34bn in total project value.

The findings show that while the construction sector has become economically more efficient, with project waste per £100,000 decreasing by 28%, construction has become more materially wasteful by over 10%. The divergence indicates that, although projects are generating less waste relative to cost, they are becoming more material‑intensive and wasteful when measured against the final built assets.

This issue is most pronounced in new build projects, with schemes in this category having generated 36% more waste per 100m² than the average across all project types.

Waste diversion from landfill has dramatically improved over past years, reaching 99.5% in 2025. This is evidence of clear success from the sector in prioritising this aspect of waste management but also underlines the increasing need for a shift in focus towards improving other performance metrics, instead of the remaining diminishing returns of landfill diversion.

SmartWaste’s research also highlights the disproportionate scale of waste from residential new build, relative to other areas of UK construction. The sector generated 11.3 tonnes of construction waste per 100m² in 2025, compared with 6.8 for commercial new build, a gap of over 65% and an increase over the 10-year period examined. This could be explained in part by the government’s push to build 300,000 homes per year, prompting questions around how efforts to improve efficiency and circularity could contribute to improved overall productivity.

The next decade of progress will come from designing waste out at the start, rather than redirecting it at the end.

– Antonio Hernandez, Head of Product Management for Building Performance Services at BRE

Antonio Hernandez, Head of Product Management for Building Performance Services at BRE, said:
“UK construction has made real progress on waste. Measured against the cost of a project, waste is down sharply over the past decade, and the economic case for that effort is clear. Measured against the building itself, the picture reverses: waste per 100m² has risen by more than 10%.

“Residential building is where the gap is widest, and it has grown over the ten years we examined. Landfill diversion, by contrast, has effectively reached its ceiling at over 99%. There is very little left to win there.

“The next decade of progress will come from designing waste out at the start, rather than redirecting it at the end. That means earlier decisions on specification and design, wider use of standardised and offsite methods, and tighter control of materials on site. Our data shows where the effort now needs to go.”

Read the full report here.

Notes to editors

For all press enquiries related to BRE, please contact brepress@pagefield.co.uk

Antonio Hernandez is available for interviews on request.

About Building Research Establishment (BRE)

BRE is a world leading, multi-disciplinary, building science centre with a mission to improve buildings and infrastructure, through cutting-edge research and knowledge generation. BRE maintains a range of products, services, standards and qualifications that are used around the world to bring about positive change in the built environment. Learn more at www.bregroup.com.

About SmartWaste

SmartWaste is BRE Group’s leading sustainability and ESG management software for the construction industry, designed to help organisations track, manage and report environmental and social performance across their projects. Used by hundreds of customers and on thousands of construction, refurbishment and demolition projects, SmartWaste provides a single, centralised platform for capturing data on waste, materials, energy, water, carbon, biodiversity and social value.

About the SmartWaste UK Construction KPI Benchmark Report 2026

The SmartWaste UK Construction KPI Benchmark Report 2026 presents a comprehensive benchmark analysis of construction, demolition and excavation waste, energy and water performance using data collected through the BRE SmartWaste platform. The study provides robust, evidence based benchmarks to support organisations in understanding current performance, identifying trends over time and targeting meaningful improvements across the construction lifecycle.

The data used and subsequent analysis is based on UK construction projects only. All non UK projects were removed to ensure data comparability. Civil engineering and infrastructure projects are excluded from the main building analysis, but are benchmarked separately within this report, in a dedicated section covering diversion from landfill, waste management routes and waste intensity (KPIs 29 to 37). Median values are used throughout to provide representative benchmarks that are less influenced by outliers.

In total, the dataset used in the analysis covers 4,791 projects with a combined value of £34bn over the 10 year period.

The report presents 41 benchmarks in total, drawn from the more than 450 KPIs the platform can produce. The principal building KPIs include: