CarGurus
The CarGurus Boston HQ project is an interior tenant fit-out located on floors 12-21 in the newly constructed high-rise at 1001 Boylston Street in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. This project includes eight floors of office space in addition to one floor of training space that includes a café as well as a final top-level roof deck. Anticipated to achieve Gold certification status under LEED v4.1 ID+C, the CarGurus HQ project will be occupied by over 950 employees and accommodate additional visitors. Through the construction process, purposeful efforts were made to enact and expand upon construction waste site separation programs to reduce the landfill burden of commingled construction waste and maximize landfill diversion. At project completion, data shows that over half (51.31%) of all waste leaving the site was able to be site separated and sent directly to material recyclers, with a minority of project waste leaving the site commingled.
Innovation in Sustainability
This project stands as a case study on how early action and field buy-in of innovative waste processes can evolve into construction best practice. Site separating most of this project’s waste shattered the assumption that site separation is an expensive and infeasible method of waste collection and disposal over simple commingling. Stakeholders bought into collecting and separating construction waste onsite and project members viewed it as preferable to traditional waste collection. In fact, the successful separation numbers and verifiable lack of material contamination was used to leverage a major gypsum wallboard manufacturer into piloting direct circular takeback of clean gypsum wallboard offcuts – a first in New England.
Environmental Impact
Being able to avoid commingling construction waste to the highest extent possible allows for significant growth in the built environment, as construction and demolition waste is known to contribute to nearly 40% of carbon emissions worldwide. By successfully enacting site separation, materials long considered to have no value can be seen as positive contributions to a more circular economy. Instead of contaminating recyclable materials and breaking down into toxic hydrogen sulfide, clean gypsum wallboard can be recycled into new wallboard or downcycled into agricultural amendments. Scrap metal can be recycled more efficiently, at a lower cost than disposal, and benefit local scrapyards looking to reduce waste in the region. Wooden pallets avoid disposal to be reused, resold or re-engineered, and cardboard and paper packaging can be recycled. All materials can avoid disposal, reduce their impacts on the environment and at-risk communities, and stimulate circular businesses benefitting from recycling and salvage.
© Structure Tone
Architect
IA Interior Architects
Client
CarGurus
Location
1001 Boylston Street Boston, MA
SF
226,126sf
Contract
CM
Architect
IA
Owner's Rep
CBRE
Engineer
Vanderweil
Sustainability
/LEED Consultant
Brightworks Sustainability
Certifications
LEED v4.1 ID+C – Gold (Expected December 2024)
Percentage of diverted waste
Over 51.3%
