Circularity isn't just about reducing waste. It's about improving workplace operations, reducing costs and creating better experiences for building occupants. Hélène Carpentier shares how facility managers can use circular thinking, smarter procurement and waste reduction strategies to create more sustainable workplaces.
What if waste wasn't just a sustainability issue but one of your organization's biggest business opportunities?
In this episode, IFMA's Director of Knowledge and Insights, Dr. Matt Tucker, is joined by Hélène Carpentier, the founder of Circular Workplaces, to explore why the future of facility management is circular. Together, they discuss how culture influences waste, why procurement is one of the most powerful drivers of circularity, and how facility managers can reduce costs while improving workplace experiences.
Timestamps:
Hélène Carpentier: [00:00:00] I think that FM has the opportunity to, disrupt waste in- the waste industry.
Right now, we're managing waste as, an operational byproduct. The waste management industry is a multi-billion pounds industry, but it's doing nothing, right? It's just taking stuff and, managing it, basically. And I think FM sits at this place where, it can deliver better services without producing as much waste through innovation, through, engagement, and through better services.
Host: Welcome to Connected FM, a podcast connecting you to the latest insights, tools, and resources to help you succeed in facility management. This podcast is brought to you by IFMA, the leading professional association for facility managers. If you are ready to grow your network and advance in your career, go to ifma.org to get started.
What if waste wasn't just a sustainability issue, but [00:01:00] one of your organization's biggest business opportunities? In today's episode, IFMA's Director of Knowledge and Insights, Dr. Matt Tucker, is joined by Helen Carpentier, the founder of Circular Workplaces, to explore why the future of facility management is circular.
Together, they discuss how culture influences waste, why procurement is one of the most powerful drivers of circularity, and how facility managers can reduce costs while improving workplace experiences. Now, let's get into it.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Welcome to the Connected FM podcast. I am absolutely delighted to have Hélène Carpentier with me, who is from Circular Workplaces. The topic for this podcast is the future of the workplace is circular. This is something I'm very, very passionate about. The last 12 months on IFMA's research agenda has been about circular economy and the impact of circular economy within [00:02:00] facility management.
We've produced various insight reports around this, and you know I'm a huge fan of, of your background and the, the, the journey that you have gone on and where this new journey is taking you. Yeah. So we're gonna get into that in a minute. But would you like to introduce yourself, Hélène, to, to the- Yeah
the listeners?
Hélène Carpentier: Okay. Yeah, for sure. Hi, everyone. So I'm Hélène Carpentier. I am the founder of Circular Workplaces, a company that I started last year. My background has been facilities management, waste management for the last 10 years. Recently, I was the head of circular economy at CBRE, and I left last year to start Circular Workplaces.
I'm French, and I'm based in London, and I've been there for some years now. Yeah, so I'm super happy to be here, and thank you, Matt.
Dr. Matt Tucker: This is my only disappointment with this podcast, that you have this amazing French accent, and I have a horrible, monotone British voice. So I will be inferior to this wonderful voice.
But- Thanks ... it's about you, not me. So let's get started. So I became very [00:03:00] interested in your work when, uh, I was kind of stalking you in your role as global head of, uh, circular economy at CBRE. I was fascinated by the creation of that role and the, the decision-making within CBRE and also then the, the journey that you've taken to kind of go on your own.
So it's fair to say your experience has spanned across different global regions. What are some of the key differences you've noticed? Are there any particular nuances that you see?
Hélène Carpentier: So I started my career focused in the UK, and I helped clients that were mostly based in the UK, and then I moved into more global roles, like supporting one specific client globally.
And then at CBRE, my role was to support enterprise clients that had, like, a global footprint with their zero waste strategy. And the biggest difference I think is culture. It's not surprising, I suppose, for me to say that, but the relationship that people have with waste and materials and consumption is, like, very different from one region to [00:04:00] another.
And- It's funny because we might think that maybe developing countries are less into better consumption patterns or, like, better waste than developed countries might be. But what I found is that is not always the case, especially in the workplace sector. And so I think, to go back to your question, yeah, the difference is, like, culture, but it's not necessarily the assumption that we have of what a country might be doing in regards to their waste.
Yeah.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Yeah. Yeah. I, I know from the research that we've done with IFMA- Yeah ... I found the same thing, that y- y- y- you, you could assume because, for example, the facility management industries in, say, Africa or the Middle East or Latin America, they, they're a less mature market- Yeah ... in terms of their sophistication of FM.
Yeah. But if you look at the cultures in those- Yeah ... in those countries and those regions, circularity is almost built into their- Yeah ... way of living, right?
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah.
Dr. Matt Tucker: It's natural to be able to prolong things. It's natural to be able to- Yeah ... reuse things- Yeah ... repurpose it. [00:05:00] And I saw some good examples of how that then got translated into facility management.
Yeah. So you're right. I, I agree- Yeah, yeah ... it's not necessarily the case.
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And, like, one example that's, uh, interesting is in more Western culture we've got a very strong takeaway culture that comes to the workplace. And in less developed countries, maybe there isn't that much of a takeaway culture.
And, you know, my focus is waste in operation and building operation and how we address circularity in, in this. And takeaway and, like, single use is such a big problem. And so- Yeah ... it's interesting to, you know, look at that aspect of culture in this.
Dr. Matt Tucker: In, in terms of that takeaway culture, I, I found it quite...
You know, it's obviously, it's more prevalent in those developed regions.
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah.
Dr. Matt Tucker: I found that that had a bit of a link to the way in which commercial systems work and capitalist systems work. So the system is almost created- Yeah ... to force people to throw things away. [00:06:00]
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Have you s- seen that trend at all in your, in your line of work?
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah.
Dr. Matt Tucker: I mean, an example might be how regulation is enforced to have- Yeah ... to replace something or change something, when actually it could last a lot longer. But the law- Yeah ... says you have to do it then. Or, you know- Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah ... my, my bottle of milk has a sell by date on it, so I must- Yeah
throw it away then.
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Whereas actually it can last a lot longer.
Hélène Carpentier: I've seen that in furniture and the warranty that might be on furniture. And like- Yeah ... there's big stress around whether something can be reused because what if something happens and, like, maybe someone breaks their leg because the chairs, like, broke down or something.
And so that's been a actual blocker to kind of like getting furniture remanufactured, upcycled and reused. And also, like in the catering space, you know, I was in an event recently where, like, uh, there was lots of sandwiches, but the sandwiches can't be out for more than two hours because otherwise there's like a health and safety, uh, concern with that.
So it all goes to the bin. And I'm thinking [00:07:00] We've been putting those rules in place, and we're not really trying to, like, see the bigger picture of it. Yeah. And we're creating so much waste on the, on the back of that. And there's, like, a real opportunity, you know, to kind of do more with what we already have.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Yeah. And there's little room for flexibility- Yeah ... around that because of the, the potential- Yeah ... liability, I suppose, on- Mm ... on that, on that company. Okay. So you, you've gone from this pretty big multinational organization- Yeah ... and now you've moved on, y- you know, setting up your own shop. Uh- Yeah ... Circular Workplaces.
What sparked the idea of, uh, deciding to- Yeah ... to have a go on your own and, and see where that journey takes you?
Hélène Carpentier: So the true story is that my role was made redundant. I think that it starts often like this with people- Yep ... starting, starting their
Dr. Matt Tucker: company. Still a bold move to decide to, you know, try something new on your own rather than, you know, find a-
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah
Dr. Matt Tucker: a natural progression at another com- well, you know, similar
Hélène Carpentier: company. I mean, this, this, uh, this definitely [00:08:00] was in my mind, but I also, you know, felt, like, such a passion for this topic of circularity within the workplace, and I understand it's quite niche. And so, like, finding a role, I think, that was, like, aligning to that in an existing company was not on the table at the time.
Okay. And I felt like, you know, let's give it a go. Let's follow, like, what you think is right for the workplace. And something that I've seen in the last 10 years that I've worked in facilities management and workplaces is that often sustainability teams are focused on energy efficiency-
Dr. Matt Tucker: Mm-hmm ...
Hélène Carpentier: and not necessarily on waste and circularity, and often it's because they don't have the bandwidth to do it.
They don't have the skill set. Waste and circularity is a very different skill set to energy efficiency. I'm not an engineer by background, and I think this is where it kind of, like, differs.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Yep.
Hélène Carpentier: So this is what I've seen, so I know there is, like, a need for people with that knowledge and expertise to come and support.
And then I think there's, like, a massive cost benefit [00:09:00] with addressing circularity in workplace operations, and I'm here to kind of, like, say to people what it is.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Yeah. Yeah. So i- if a client approaches you, uh, to look at some, some consultancy with circular- Mm ... circular initiatives, what do you see as, like, the ma- their main motive?
Is it cost reduction? Is it, you know- Yeah ... regulatory compliance? What do you see as the main motives for
them?
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah. So I think that there's several drivers. One driver is cost reduction, so reducing costs associated with waste disposal, but also procurement costs because when you're wasting, you're actually spending money for disposing of your waste and also spending money when you're buying stuff that you end up throwing away.
The second driver is regulatory compliance. There are more and more regulations that are putting pressure on organizations to reduce waste and reduce the amount of packaging as well that's kind of existing. So like- Yeah ... you know, extended producer responsibility, for example, is, is one of them. [00:10:00] That's, you know, bringing more regulations, more stress, more cost again.
And I think one, one that's important to me as well is workplace experience, and I've seen that a lot of global organizations are interested in bringing sustainability into the workplace as like, as part of like the workplace experience. And waste is, you know, the interface between the building user, the employee, and sustainability.
It's what's really tangible. So like by putting in place like circular solution strategy, this is a way to also, you know, be with employees on the same page, have like some tangible initiative around, you know, we're doing sustainability. Sure. It's more visible than like putting LED lights, for example.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Uh-huh. In the, uh, the Circular FM report that IFMA published last year-
Hélène Carpentier: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. Matt Tucker: one of the key findings I found, it was kind of a revelation to me and, and a, and a bit of an eye-opener for the facility management industry, is that circular economy, it's kind of in the DNA of a facility [00:11:00] manager. Mm-hmm. Because the whole purpose is to prolong things, to maintain things- Mm-hmm
to try and maximize the lifespan of all the assets that are involved within, within a building Do, do you see FM as being, you know, particularly well-placed- Yeah ... to address some of these challenges- ... compared to maybe other professionals involved in, uh, the built environment space?
Host: Are you looking to stay ahead in facility management? Join us at IFMA's World Workplace Conference and Expo, 18th through 20th of November 2026 in Anaheim, California. Here you can connect with facility management professionals from around the world, explore the latest workplace technology and solutions, and gain practical insights you can apply right away.
From expert-led education sessions to powerful networking opportunities, World Workplace is where the future of FM comes together. Register today at [00:12:00] worldworkplace.ifma.org.
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah. I think that FM has the opportunity to, you know, disrupt waste in- the waste industry.
Right now, like, we're managing waste as, like, an operational byproduct. The waste management industry is a multi-billion pounds industry, but it's doing nothing, right? It's just taking stuff and, like, I mean, managing it, basically. And I think FM sits at this place where, you know, it can deliver better services without producing as much waste through innovation, through, like, engagement, and through better services.
And there's a real opportunity to me for FM to kind of be, you know, the Netflix of facilities management. I say
Dr. Matt Tucker: Netflix
Hélène Carpentier: because- Ooh, I like that ... I say Netflix because, like, I think o- sometime we hear circular economy is super jargony to say circular economy, but it's the idea to deliver a better service to people with [00:13:00] as much stuff.
And this is what Netflix did, I suppose, like, in a way, but they didn't do that for reducing waste, right? And I think FM- Mm ... can probably be that industry that is going to deliver better s- building services without having waste. But the goal- Yeah ... might not be to have less waste, the goal is to serve clients better.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Sure. It's interesting you mention that about Netflix because, yeah, you're right, that wasn't their sole purpose to reduce waste. But the concept of Netflix and other as-a-service providers, the as-a-service model-
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah ...
Dr. Matt Tucker: is something I think that the built environment needs to really focus on more. I'm, I'm preaching to the choir here.
But we are obsessed in the property and construction industry with ownership. We have to own everything. Yeah. But actually, if we relinquish a lot of that- Yeah ... to expert service providers and provide it as a service, then naturally they're gonna be more sophisticated in extending- Yeah ... those lifespans and having that unique supply chain to be able to reuse things- Yeah
and [00:14:00] repurpose things. Has that- perspective really sort of caught on yet in your, in- Yeah ... from your consultancy?
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah. I think there is, like, uh, more and more solutions, like for furniture, for example, it exists, like furniture as a service- F- yeah ... but it's not yet happening at scale maybe. And that's something that, you know, we researched on that book that I wrote recently, that there is a lot of, like, cultural change within organizations as well around how procurement works, like, because often budgets for CapEx and OpEx are different budgets.
And so when you're moving into as a service, it's like moving away from your CapEx budget. So it's kind of like rewiring, like, how we're doing business basically. Yeah.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Yeah.
Hélène Carpentier: And we need to have that cultural change, not just explaining to people why it's better, but also, like, restructuring how FM tenders are, and budgets are kind of, uh, put together.
Dr. Matt Tucker: You did a very modest low-key plug there of the book that you've- Yeah ... recently produced, and I just wanted to make [00:15:00] note of this because it, it was a key theme within the research that the... I produced- Yeah ... with IFMA in our circularity research. But procurement really is a lever to enable circular economy processes to work.
If you can manipulate the contracts, the procurement contracts that you have with your supply chain- Yeah ... and enforce circular requirements- Yeah ... it changes the whole game, right?
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah. So I published a book recently working with a former colleague of mine, Matt Langley, at CBRE. The book is called Circular Procurement: Closing the Loop on FITOUT, Furniture and Facilities Management.
And we basically kind of like talk about all of our experiences across this and, like, how procurement kind of hold the keys to circular economy within the workplace. And we have, like, lots of examples and, like, tools of how this takes place. And, you know, like, there's like a very, very tangible example that I [00:16:00] want to talk about on how procurement really kind of is there and needs to be involved in this, is that, you know, I was talking to someone in the...
at the networking saying, like, "I don't understand, like, people, they go to the bin, and then they never know what to do with their waste. And then it ends up, like, all, all contaminated." But then what happens is that maybe in procurement we've been buying, like, a compostable coffee cups, for example. Sure. And then you serve that to your employees, and then your employees, they don't know that it's a compostable cup.
They have no idea. They go to the bin. They don't know what's happening, so they contaminate it. And this is where, you know, there needs to be that conversation and that understanding with procurement. Okay, so let's not just look at it as we buy-- I mean, it's a life cycle solution basically, right? So, like, procurement needs to be understanding what they're purchasing and making sure that there is, like, the right end of life solution, and it kind of needs to work together.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Yeah, 'cause I think, you know, if I... It would be easy to stereotype your consultancy and say, this is Circular [00:17:00] Workplaces, so it's all gonna be about, you know- Reducing that environmental footprint, which is gonna be a byproduct- Yeah ... of what you do. But I think what you're explaining there is y-you can have a much more impactful role by going in and advising organizations on their procurement processes- Yeah
on their supply chains, and then trying to enforce these measures along the way. Yeah. How, how much do you get involved in trying to break down those processes with organizations?
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah. So with Circular Workplaces, we're helping clients across a two phases sort of program. So, like, the first one is, like, a discovery phase, where we help organization understand what is their waste composition.
So we actually start with the waste, so we look at what's the problem, and then we go upstream from that problem. So we look at, okay, we know that you've got this amount of materials on your site in this quantity, and then that's the risk associated with these materials. So, like, the risk, we look at the carbon impact upstream and downstream, but also the cost [00:18:00] impact and also, like, the regulation impact on each of those stream.
And then from that, we put together, like, a strategy and support clients with reducing waste first so that they can mitigate those risks. Sure. So the two phases are, yeah, this discovery phase and then this transformation phase.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Wonderful. I wanna close out this conversation with one more big question.
Yeah. Okay? Please do. And the listeners of this podcast are not convinced, could you just give your two pence, as we would say in, in the UK, on why you think the future of the workplace- Yeah ... is circular?
Hélène Carpentier: Yeah. So we did some work recently where we did go to a client site, and we did that discovery phase. So we looked at, like, those waste and what would be the, the risk, like the, the cost impact of not doing anything for the next five years.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Yeah.
Hélène Carpentier: That was, like, for a two thousand people office with, like, a large catering operation. The cost of doing anything is £1.6 million for that workplace. Why? Because there is the cost of disposal of waste, [00:19:00] but the cost of procuring, in that case, food that's not being eaten, and then regulation impact, so like EPR regulation, extended producer responsibility, or the emission trad-trading scheme that's coming into place.
And then, so that's quite a, that's quite a lot. And then looking at, okay, what... how can we actually reduce waste and, like, control that cost? So we looked at, like, the different initiatives that were possible, and you can reduce, you can control, like, £1 million of that total cost across five years. So, you know, not doing anything is just gonna be expensive, basically, for workplaces.
Yeah. And that's inevitable. So if, you know, organization wants to, you know, be innovative, if FM wants to retain their contract, if they wanna be innovative to their clients, you know, looking at waste is sort of like the easy thing because you can see it. It's there. It's your inefficiency, and it just needs to be...
I mean, we just need to put in place initiatives to reduce that, I guess.
Dr. Matt Tucker: Sure. Helene, thank you so much for your time Yeah Thank you all for listening. [00:20:00] Thank you. Please check out Helene's book, check out her wonderful consultancy practice- Yeah ... and check out IFMA's research on the circular economy. Thank you very much.
Hélène Carpentier: Thank you, Matt. Thanks everyone
Host: Thanks for tuning into the Connected FM podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show because it really helps us reach more listeners just like you. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode. See you next time.