Jungheinrich truck donation gives Cumbria’s The Rebuild Site a lift

• The Rebuild Site is the multi-award-winning community interest company that is encouraging the construction industry to dismantle rather than demolish, so that used, excess and nearly-new materials can be used in community projects.
• Loading and unloading of materials was a major challenge for The Rebuild Site. The existing, ageing forklift had even caught fire.
• Jungheinrich has donated a new counterbalance truck to The Rebuild Site.
• The donation was in response to Rebuild’s call for help, which resonated with Jungheinrich because of the organisation’s commitment to ‘Environmentality’.

Emma Porter had spent long enough in the construction industry to know that, although the industry has done much to prevent surplus construction materials going to landfill, they are still far too likely to be placed in skips rather than be put to their most valuable purpose.

“My day job is working with a family contracting firm in Cumbria, an area that’s been hit by a lot of floods over the past few years,” Emma explained. “We’re asked to support a lot of local community projects with flood recovery and I was thinking ‘surely somebody can connect the dots here [between surplus materials and need] and do something about this’. For a long time ‘somebody’ meant somebody else. Then I decided I was going to have a go.”

Rebuilding Cumbria

Emma and a core team (“This is a real team effort,” she emphasises, “a story of women working together and complementing each other’s skills”) came together to launch The Rebuild Site community interest company. The initiative encourages the construction industry to dismantle rather than demolish, so that used, excess and nearly-new materials can either be used in community projects, donated, or sold at reduced prices to local trades and the public.

The Rebuild Site has to date seen over 130  community projects supported across  Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway, and supported more than 12,000 people. It has diverted 1500+ tonnes of material from ‘downcycling’ (ensuring the materials are put to their highest value use) and stopped 1700+ tonnes of CO2e embedded in those materials from being released. It has also led to a series of award wins, including the BBC’s Make a Difference Awards, where The Rebuild Site won Green Category 2023. 

Giving Rebuild a lift

Storing, loading and offloading the donated and recovered materials was, however, always a sticking point for The Rebuild Site.

“Early on we got a little bit of funding to buy a second-hand forklift,” explains Emma. “That was vital because the materials are heavy and our warehouse racking is three bays tall. We couldn’t reach the third bay without a working forklift, but the old truck never really worked very well. One day I was driving it and thought I could smell burning. When I lifted the seat it was on fire. Not smoke; actual flame.

“It’s been a real problem because we’ve had things on the third level of racking that we can’t recover because the forklift has been down. We’ve lost sales because of it. It’s really been holding us back. There have been times we have been unable to accept materials without a forklift and we’ve frequently had to handball materials on and off the trailer. A few months ago it broke again and I just thought ‘I can’t deal with this anymore’.

“I emailed every forklift manufacturer I could find and Jungheinrich replied saying ‘we might be able to help’. When I got a call to say our counterbalance truck was in the workshop and was asked what colour we would like I realised this was actually happening.”

An idea that found its day

The Rebuild Site team took delivery of their refurbished Jungheinrich forklift recently and it’s already making a big impact. “We've got a poster in the office that says ‘there's nothing as powerful as an idea that's found its day’,” said Emma.  “I think that's why The Rebuild Site works, but for it to work well we need the support of so many people: the construction industry, our brilliant volunteers, our partners – and now Jungheinrich. We really are so grateful for Jungheinrich’s help. It’s going to make such a difference, and not just with the loading and unloading; it will allow us to divert more materials from going to waste and enable us to make much better use of our space.”

John McIntyre, Jungheinrich UK Area Sales Manager, was the person who received Emma’s email.

“The Rebuild Site’s achievements in creating a circular economy for construction in their local area and supporting so many community projects struck an immediate chord with me given our Environmentality mission. When I received Emma’s email, I immediately saw it was something we should be keen to support.”