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A small group of West Coast companies that work in different aspects of sustainable construction are discussing coming together to form a circular economy operation at the site of a landfill in suburban Vancouver.

The site of the prospective building materials circular economy campus is in Richmond.

The company recycles concrete, asphalt, bricks and tiles as well as discarded wood materials from construction sites and demolition projects.

Ecowaste is the natural location for an initiative like a circular economy campus, says Gil Yaron, managing director, circular innovation, at because it is the largest building materials landfill in the Lower Mainland.

Yaron says the campus idea is being driven by Light House and Ecowaste. “We were both thinking about the same thing at the same time,” he says. “It was a meeting of the minds.”

Light House is supporting Ecowaste in the design and implementation of the campus.

“A portion of the Ecowaste facility will be repurposed to hold all the different elements of the campus,” says Yaron. “Local businesses in reclaiming and recycling building materials can be together in one facility.”

Light House and Ecowaste aim to open the campus in 2026.

“It will be a centre for innovation and training – the circular economy in action,” says Yaron.

Yaron says there are examples of individual aspects of the campus in other parts of the world, but nothing that is exactly like it, “and certainly not in Canada.”

Two possible participants in the campus initiative areandof Oakland, Calif.

Erick Serpas Ventura, VEMA’s founder and CEO, says his company removes building materials and sorts and processes them for reuse.

“From structural beams to fixtures and fittings, we ensure that salvageable items find new life in other construction projects,” says Ventura.

After deconstruction, VEMA restores the site to its natural state or prepares it for future development.

In 2024, VEMA signed a letter of intent with UM whereby the Canadian company would use the American’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics technology to remove metal fasteners from deconstructed dimensional lumber.

“The Machine,” as UM calls it, uses precision end-effectors, high speed gantries and vision systems to remove nails, screws and staples.

Held in place by gate-like clamps, bird-beak-like pickers simultaneously extract metal from all four planes of wood.

AI helps The Machine plan and carry out the reclamation process by calculating the quantity and quality of the wood it recovers.

Eric Law, CEO and co-founder of UM, says it takes two to four construction labourers to operate The Machine.

“It comprises four pieces of machinery that together are 120-feet-long and 30-feet-wide,” says Law.

Another potential campus occupant is ��

CEO Richard Chen says the Vancouver company makes a product called Forest Foam, a rigid thermal construction insulation that is made from forest residue – discarded forest industry waste – such as sawdust, slash, bark and pulp sludge.

Chen says Forest Foam is comparable in performance to other rigid insulation, “but takes the best of each product, such as zero VOC
(Volatile Organic Compounds) and high water vapour permeability.

“As far as we know, we are the only company in North America producing such a product,” he says.

Chen says Plantee is setting up a pilot plant in False Creek Flats that will start manufacturing eight-foot-by-four-foot boards at the end of 2025.

“We’re looking to move to the Ecowaste location once a sufficient power source is set up there,” says Chen.

Still another potential occupant of the Richmond circular economy campus is ��

Located on Bowen Island in Howe Sound, near West Vancouver, Kiwi builds prefab panel homes.

CEO and founder Michelle Mazzotta says, “We make prefab high-performance homes accessible.”

Kiwi makes four models using structural insulated panels made of blown-in cellulose or hemp.

The panels create a net-zero and energy efficient home without the health concerns or negative environmental impact of other products.

“Our facility on Bowen Island makes the panels and delivers them to construction sites on Bowen Island itself, up and down Howe Sound, and the Lower Mainland,” says Mazotta. “We’re planning to move to the Richmond campus in in early 2026.”