Impres: Implementation of Procurement Requirements for Sustainable Collaboration in Infrastructure Projects
Funding: Construction Climate Challenge via Volvo CE (2950 kSEK) Formas/ProcSIBE (1 100 kSEK)
Project duration: 2016-2018
Project description:
Infrastructure sector clients, such as road and rail administrations, state-owned companies, municipalities and county councils, increasingly adopt far-reaching policies, goals and visions for sustainable development and reduced climate impact. Yet, except for a few large “flagship projects”, the construction projects carried out by these clients seldom include the sustainability requirements needed to implement the policies. Also, follow-up processes are often not defined, why requirements are frequently lost between project stages and actors.
Today, new tools and methods for sustainable development are available internationally on the market, most notably sustainability assessment schemes such as CEEQUAL, BREEAM Infrastructure, the IS rating system, Envision and sustainability frameworks such as SUNRA. These tools have supported the development of sustainability management practices in the infrastructure construction industry. Thus, they have a potential to be used in the procurement process in infrastructure projects, as a basis for setting and following up requirements for e.g. reduced climate impact. This is however still not common practice, and some clients prefer their own models.
The Impres-project aims to contribute to a more efficient implementation of policies and goals for reducing climate impact from the infrastructure sector on a global level, specifically focusing on procurement requirements and the role of international systems for sustainability assessment. Expected outcomes are recommendations and guidelines for how to use procurement requirements to support systematic sustainability management of construction projects. Also, the project will suggest how a systematic development of knowledge on the client side (including the political level and input from suppliers) regarding procurement requirements and models may be organized.
For this purpose, case studies will be performed in four countries of infrastructure projects that have implemented requirements for reduced climate impact.
Participants:
Anna Kadefors (main applicant) and Sofia Lingegård (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
Johanna Alkan-Olsson and Lina Wedin-Hansson (Lund University)
Other participants: Stefan Uppenberg (project manager) and Elisabeth Hochschorner (WSP Group), Gustav Sandqvist (Skanska)
Contact: stefan.uppenberg@wspgroup.se (project manager)
