Putting Sustainable Procurement into Context
Christos Vidalakis writes:
The role of construction clients as agents of change is crucial in terms of encouraging necessary changes towards more sustainable construction. Indeed, clients, at an early stage in the process, create the conditions for other players involved in the construction and long-term management of the finished project. Thus, clients adopting sustainable construction procurement (SCP) practices can play a major role in delivering wider sustainability objectives whilst maximising value in their projects, the supply chain and the society.
However, due to its breadth and inherent complexity, sustainable procurement is often blurred and thus, difficult to put into practice. Adjusting for construction one of the most popular definitions of sustainable procurement1, SCP would be:
“the process whereby organisations utilise construction as a means of meeting their needs in a way that achieves value for money on a whole life basis in terms of generating benefits not only to the organisation, but also to society and the economy, whilst minimising damage to the environment”
To facilitate a better understanding of SCP it would be helpful to see how sustainability principles are addressed in practice throughout the project lifecycle. A review of the Achieving Excellence in Construction Procurement Guide2 has resulted in a three-dimensional model of SCP which incorporates key areas of consideration according to sustainability principles throughout different project stages:
X axis:Project phases
1. Business justification
2. Project brief and procurement
3. Design brief
4. Construction process
5. Operation and management
6. Disposal and re-use
Y axis:Key areas
1. Whole-life Value
2. Reusability
3. Cost Management
4. Economic Regeneration
5. Performance Monitoring
6. Logistics
7. Transport Infrastructure
8. Biodiversity
9. Climate Change
10. Energy
11. Environmental Performance Standard
12. Environmental Management System
13. Location
14. Government Standards
15. Water
16. Waste Minimisation and Management
17. Materials
18. Pollution (Air, Noise, Land, Water)
19. Health and Safety
20. Post occupancy evaluation
21. Project Team and Contractor Selection
22. Respect for People
23. Stakeholders/Local Community
24. Culture/Heritage
25. Supply Team
Z axis:Sustainability principles
1. Economic
2. Social
3. Environmental
More details, specific advice on particular issues that have to be resolved as well as further information can be viewed here
If you would like to discuss the suggested model, or indeed if your organisation implements a different procurement framework we would be very interesting to hearing from you. For this reason or any issue related to CESW/FF Sustainable Construction Procurement please e-mail christos.vidalakis@uwe.ac.uk
1 Original definition available at DEFRA (2006) Procuring the Future – The Sustainable Procurement Task Force National Action Plan, [http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/publications/procurementaction-plan/index.htm]
2 OGC (2007) 'Achieving Excellence in Construction Guide 11: Sustainability
