Q: Why should facilities managers get involved with reuse? 

A: Reuse is a great way to illustrate the effectiveness of the FM or estates team

There are lots of reasons why the Facilities Management or Estates function should support and enable reuse.

Here's the obvious reasons:

1) Stop skipping reusable assets. Reputational risk if in public eye, but also a waste of money!

2) Reuse takes less time. 

3) Reuse can reduce injury, because you are not smashing assets up- yes this still happens

4) Reuse reduces your waste bills.

5) Takes pressure off storage. 

However the biggest reason is that it gives the FM team visibility and illustrates their value across the estate!

The Facilities Management function (Estates and facilities) is the unseen oil that greases the cogs on any estate.

When there's ice on the pavement and it's snowing in your institution, somebody has been in work at 5am or even earlier gritting all the main paths on the estate.

These people are from the FM team, are unseen, and they are often unappreciated.

Now more than ever it is important to demonstrate your worth as a department or individual.

When it comes to reuse, when a staff member is finished with their chair for example and it becomes a surplus asset, they will make a help desk disposal request. Then they will often just push the chair out into the corridor in the hope that the furniture fairies will come and take it away.

Often that's exactly the case, the "furniture fairies" will come and take away the item and process that item, whether it's been scrapped or put into store.

The attitude is that some unseen force will come and take away and tidy up the problem.

That unseen force is often somebody from the FM team

If you asked any of your staff what the FM team does, you'll probably find that not many people actually know.

On the Warp It system we track the value of reuse: the financial savings, the carbon savings, the waste savings, how much gets donated to charity etc.

If you run a reuse system, furniture reuse program or furniture reuse network you should also track all the benefits.

The FM team are an integral part of reuse on any estate because they move assets from A to B so that the assets can be reused.

Therefore, FM team then have a really nice tool to demonstrate their effectiveness to the staff across the estate.  

Reuse can be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the FM team which leads to a wider understanding and appreciation of what FM do for the estate.