Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 12141222

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Environmental consideration in procurement of construction contracts:

current practice, problems and opportunities in green procurement
in the Swedish construction industry
Annika Varnas*, Berit Balfors, Charlotta Faith-Ell
Royal Institute of Technology, Land and Water Resources Engineering, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 19 October 2007
Received in revised form
31 March 2009
Accepted 1 April 2009
Available online 14 May 2009

Research and initiatives concerning green procurement have to a great extent focused on products. This
article, however, explores the current practice, problems and opportunities of green procurement of
construction contracts. In particular, the application of environmental criteria for contract awarding is
targeted. The ndings of the study indicate that both public and private clients in the Swedish
construction industry take environmental issues into consideration in their procurements. The environmental preferences are often formulated as environmental requirements. However, environmental
criteria in tender evaluation are less common and seldom affect the award decisions. The environmental
evaluation criteria that do occur often relate to the contractors capabilities of managing the environmental work in the project.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Green procurement
Green purchasing
Construction contract
Environmental management

1. Introduction
Applying green procurement preferences in order to promote
environmental initiatives is being encouraged by the authorities in
many countries, e.g. [1,24], as well as by researchers, e.g. [5,6]. By
integrating environmental preferences in the purchase of products,
works and services, both public and private organisations can
improve their environmental performance and at the same time
inuence their suppliers to improve the environmental performance of their products and production processes. For public
organisations, green procurement can function as a market-like
incentive to enhance green initiatives in the private sector [3,7]. For
private organisations, it has been suggested that green purchasing
initiatives can result in reduced risks and costs [3].
Although some studies have been carried out regarding green
procurement of works and services within the construction sector,
e.g. [8,9], most of the green procurement literature discusses the
purchase of products, e.g. [10,11]. This paper, however, focuses on
current practices, opportunities and problems concerning green
procurement of construction contracts in Sweden.
The construction sector accounts for about 40% of the use of
energy and materials in Sweden [12]. In addition, the sector

* Corresponding author. Fax: 46 (0) 8 790 6857.

E-mail address: annikav@kth.se (A. Varnas).
0959-6526/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2009.04.001

contributes to about 3050% of the waste generated in higher

income countries [13]. It is thus crucial to improve environmental
performance in this sector, where green procurement can function
as an important incentive [14].
This paper aims at providing an overview of the current practices, opportunities and problems concerning green procurement
and its application in the procurement of construction contracts in
Sweden. The paper is based on a literature review, a questionnaire
study and a series of interviews, with practitioners involved in
procurements in major Swedish construction projects.

2. Background and previous ndings

2.1. The construction industry and the environment
Using approximately 155 TWh of energy, 75 Mt of materials,
3 Mt of chemical products and generating about 5 Mt of waste
yearly, the construction industry is a major contributor to environmental impacts in Sweden [12]. For buildings, the main environmental aspect is often energy consumption in the nished
building, followed by the use of materials and harmful substances.
For civil engineering constructions, use of materials and harmful
substances during construction works and maintenance, transport
during construction and the use of energy during maintenance
have been identied as the most important environmental aspects.

A. Varnas et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 12141222

The awareness of the environmental impacts caused by the

construction industry has radically increased during the last
decades [15]. According to Cole [16], the environmental debate
during the last three decades has shifted from an attitude of
survival to one of responsibility and stewardship, a shift that has
affected building research and practice. This attitude shift may be
illustrated by the high acceptance for environmental management
systems (EMSs) in the sector. In Sweden, about 90% of the
construction companies had implemented or were about to
implement an EMS in 2006 [17].
Although many companies within the sector are actively
working with environmental matters, environmental consideration
in construction projects often tends to be narrowed down to a few
issues [15]. An inertia for change has also been observed in the
sector [17]. Gluch et al. [17] have identied some reasons behind
this inertia:

1215

Since the rst green purchasing initiatives appeared during the

1980s and 1990s [24], green public procurement policies and programmes have now been implemented in many countries
throughout the world [3,4,25,26]. An ICLEI study of European public
procurement found that 85% of the respondents applied environmental preferences in their procurements [25]. However, according
to the authors of the report, the respondents seem to have overestimated the occurrence of environmental preferences, which is
rather around 50%.
In Sweden, 60% of central government, regional and local
authorities stipulate environmental preferences in their procurement procedures [4,27]. However, it is only in about half of the
cases that these preferences are well specied [4]. In addition, the
award decisions are in many cases not based on the environmental
criteria presented in the tender documents [4].
2.3. Green purchasing by private rms

1. the actors within the sector do not believe that there is a green
market, a view that hinders green innovations;
2. insufcient cooperation between the parties in the building
process;
3. there is no monitoring of the environmental goals or it is
inadequate, which decreases the motivation to work towards
these goals;
4. the actors in the sector believe that legislation will solve the
environmental problems, a view that leads to increased
bureaucracy;
5. the idea that banks have little or no inuence on the companies environmental work results in the environmental issues
being treated as a cost burden; and
6. there is often no cooperation with academia and environmental organisations or it is insufcient.
In addition, some project characteristics have been identied as
barriers to improved environmental performance. The traditional
construction project objectives are time, cost and quality [18]. Thus,
the traditional project processes do not address non-technical and
non-economic aspects such as the environmental ones. It has also
been pointed out, that the design of the EMS may not be optimal for
the construction industry. While the construction sector is fragmented with many different actors, mainly organised in temporary
project organisations [19], the environmental management
systems have been designed to meet the goals of a permanent
organisation [15].

2.2. Green public procurement

The traditional approach to environmental management has
evolved from pollution control, which can be seen as an end-ofpipe approach, to clean production approaches [20]. However, to
make the shift to a sustainable society, even more radical changes
are needed. Changes need to be made at the consumption level
[20].
Environmental or green purchasing or procurement can be
referred to as the integration of environmental considerations into
purchasing policies, programmes and actions [21]. Within the
European Union, procurement by public authorities should follow
rules stipulated by the EU procurement directives. The new directives specically mention possibilities for including environmental
criteria in procurement decisions [22,23]. Green procurement
preferences can be formulated as mandatory environmental
requirements. However, environmental criteria may also be
considered in the tender evaluation, alongside other criteria such as
price, technique and organisation.

Some important motivation factors for implementing sustainable procurement in the business sector are pressure from stakeholders and NGOs [28]. Although private organisations also may
include green criteria in their purchasing decisions, it has been
pointed out that private businesses do not usually establish green
purchasing activities unless there are clearly stated business
benets [3]. However, it has been suggested that green purchasing
in private organisations may result in reduced environmental risks
and cost savings, through waste reductions, energy savings and
decreased use of materials [3,29].
Preuss [30] argues that the strategic importance of the supply
chain management function in manufacturing companies is
increasing. However, he points out that awareness of the environmental issues does not increase to the same extent, and argues that
the environmental issues need to be addressed more in the supplier
assessments and evaluation criteria [30].
The effect of the green purchasing activities may depend on the
motives behind their implementation. Private rms often adopt
green purchasing activities in order to avoid violating regulations
[31]. In addition, the effect and extent of the environmental
purchasing activities vary with the size and type of company. For
example, rms with large purchasing volumes tend to be more
involved in green purchasing practices than those with a smaller
volume [31].
2.4. Green procurement in the construction industry
In the Swedish construction industry, both public and private
organisations apply environmental procurement preferences [8,9].
However, their effectiveness may be hard to assess as environmental indicators and baseline data are often lacking [32].
According to Sterner [33], Swedish clients nd it difcult to evaluate environmental impacts. She calls for methods to assist clients
in tender evaluation and in the evaluation of the environmental
impact of materials.
Three different steps in the construction process have been
suggested for applying environmental criteria [34]:
1. in the preliminary design/architectural competition;
2. in the tendering for the construction contract; and
3. in the tendering for the building services such as heating,
ventilation and air conditioning.
The Swedish Environmental Management Council (former EKUcommittee) especially suggests environmental evaluation criteria
for the construction sector [14]. According to the council, environmental preferences as evaluation criteria will promote

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A. Varnas et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 12141222

a creative development of the environmental issues in the

construction sector.
However, the environmental preferences currently applied in
procurement in the Swedish construction sector can generally be
characterized as basic environmental requirements, and are often
connected to harmful substances in certain products [14]. Some
common environmental procurement preferences in the
construction sector include that the contractor or consultant should
possess an EMS or parts of an EMS, waste management, handling of
chemical products, and that some technical, project-specic environmental requirements should be observed [14]. However, when
EMS is used as a criterion in procurement, it may be hard to
differentiate between the companies that only produce nice
documents and those that actually perform well [35]. Sterner
argues that environmental requirements on materials should only
aim to avoid harmful substances, since other requirements may
hinder competition and increase costs [9].
It has been pointed out that the applied criteria do not always
correspond to the importance of the environmental aspects [33].
Energy use in the nished building is not always represented
among the environmental criteria in the procurement of building
contracts, although this is regarded as the most signicant environmental aspect for buildings [33]. Although environmentally
designed buildings may have higher initial costs, it has been shown
that they are often in the same cost range as conventional buildings
due to a lower life-cycle cost [9]. Therefore, for the procurement of
building contracts, it has been argued that choosing an alternative
with a lower life-cycle cost will at the same time be less harmful to
the environment [9].

2.5. Green procurement opportunities and problems

Although many green procurement initiatives have been started, their effects are hard to estimate since the procedures for
monitoring the environmental requirements are often insufcient
[27,28,32,36]. Success regarding single environmental criteria such
as energy savings has been shown, but the overall environmental
effectiveness has been hard to prove [37].
Green public procurement has in some cases brought unforeseen, soft effects. It has, for example, helped to demonstrate
government leadership and given credibility to national environmental agenda [37]. In addition, it has increased green purchasing
in the private sector and by employees as customers.
Some reasons suggested for the insufcient monitoring are lack
of appropriate environmental data as well as the high costs of
monitoring [36]. This could be solved by imposing fewer environmental requirements that focus on the most signicant environmental aspects and that can easily be veried [36]. Lack of
environmental data is generally regarded as a main barrier to green
procurement [24,25,38]. Some approaches used to overcome these
problems are:
1. a single issue approach, where just one criterion is used;
2. a life-cycle approach, involving calculation of the environmental impacts;
3. use of eco-labels and guidebooks; and
4. purchasing from suppliers who apply certain environmental
management measures [38].
In order to simplify and aid the green purchasing process, some
call for increased use of tools such as environmental management
systems and decision support tools [3941]. However, it has been
pointed out that the decision support tools for sustainable
purchasing need to be further developed [28].

Another barrier to green procurement is that green products

may not always be available [39]. However, the number of green
products may increase as authorities create a demand for them
[39]. In addition, the green options may be regarded as more
expensive [25]. While many authors discuss how public and private
organisations can achieve environmental gains by replacing products and services by more environmentally preferable ones, van der
Grijp [42] points out that the crucial choice should rather be to
reduce the amount of products purchased.
According to Murphy and Bendell [43], improving organisations
environmental performance through green purchasing can be more
complex than other environmental initiatives. To address this
problem, increased collaboration between organisations such as
NGOs and companies may be helpful [43]. Some organisational
factors that can contribute to successful green purchasing are
committed middle managers [44,45] and the establishment of
a corporate culture of environmental awareness [40]. The importance of training has also been pointed out [26,28,44] and the
presence of an EMS has been recognized as helpful in the implementation of green procurement practices [28,39].
Good communication and coordination, both within the organisation [28,42] and between suppliers and clients [28,46] have also
been called for. Several authors also call for the development of clear
goals [44], green purchasing policies [47] or the inclusion of
sustainability strategies in procurement policy documents [48].
Sanders [49] points out the importance of using different approaches
for different types of procurement and product categories.
As shown in this section, many authors point out the need for
using environmental procurement preferences. At the same time,
there seems to be many difculties involved in applying such
preferences. There thus appears to be a need to study how environmental procurement preferences are applied and the difculties
that procuring ofcers encounter in this work. In order to address
these issues in the procurement of construction contracts in
Sweden, a survey was initiated.
3. Survey methods
The data used in this study are in two parts responses from
a questionnaire and transcripts from an interview series. Whereas the
questionnaire aimed at achieving an overall picture of the application
of environmental preferences in the procurement of construction
contracts in Sweden, the main purpose of the interviews was to
achieve a deeper understanding of the reasons for applying these
environmental preferences, how they are applied in the procurement
and how they are monitored during the construction works.
3.1. Questionnaire
3.1.1. Questionnaire design and procedure
A questionnaire was sent to 62 key persons at clients organisations involved in the procurements at extensive, ongoing
construction projects in Sweden. Information about the projects
was obtained from a database provided by a company that supplies
data about construction projects to organisations in the eld. The
main construction contract for the selected projects had recently
undergone procurement. Their estimated contract cost was above
MSEK 100 (approximately 10 million euros). If one organisation had
several ongoing projects in the database, only two projects from
that organisation were included in the study. Thus, the main criteria
for selecting the projects were:
1. time for procurement of main construction contract;
2. estimated contract cost; and
3. variety of the organisations included in the survey.

A. Varnas et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 12141222

The persons contacted were the ones listed in the database as

contact persons, which were usually project leaders or procurement ofcers.
The questionnaire consisted of seven classication questions as
described by Oppenheim [50] and six other, factual questions
focusing on how environmental issues were considered in the
procurements. Multiple-choice questions were chosen in order to
make the questionnaire easy to answer. The classication questions
concerned the respondents role in the project, project type, type of
client organisation, contract type, cost of the project, time for
procurement and time for project start. The other questions
referred to whether or not environmental preferences were
considered in the procurement, the type of environmental preferences applied, whether project-specic environmental preferences
had been considered, whether environmental evaluation criteria
had been applied and the way the environmental requirements
were monitored during construction work.
Each questionnaire was sent by post in the late autumn of 2005,
accompanied by a covering letter. If no answer had been received
after a month, the respondent was contacted by telephone and
asked to complete the form. This procedure yielded a response rate
of 82 percent, i.e. 51 of the 62 questionnaires were entirely
completed and returned. Projects with a project cost lower than
MSEK 50 (approximately 5 million euros) were omitted, since the
focus for the study was extensive construction projects. This
resulted in a nal response rate of 77 per cent valid responses, i.e.
48 answers remained to be analysed.
Of the remaining 48 answers, 39 were from building projects,
six from civil engineering projects and three of the respondents
answered that the projects were both civil engineering and
building projects. These have been included in both categories in
the analyses, as well as in the tables in the next section. Twentythree respondents were from public organisations, 24 were private
organisations and one answer was categorised as other type of
organisation. Some of the respondents had answered that both
design and build contracts, i.e. a contract where the contractor is
responsible for both the design and the construction, and other
contracts had been used in the project. Some contracts were performed by the client organisation itself. However, the majority of
the projects could be regarded as design and build contracts.
3.1.2. Analyses of the questionnaire responses
In the analyses, four main themes in the questionnaire
responses were targeted:
1.
2.
3.
4.

application of project-specic environmental preferences;

application of environmental evaluation criteria;
types of environmental preferences applied; and
ways to monitor the environmental requirements during the
construction work.

When the application of project-specic preferences and the

application of evaluation criteria were studied, the projects were
organised according to their:
1. project type, i.e. building or civil engineering construction
project;
2. type of client organisation, i.e. public or private organisation;
3. type of contractual arrangement, i.e. design and build contract
or other type.
For each of the three categories, differences in the application of
project-specic preferences and evaluation criteria were analysed.
The three projects that were both building and civil engineering
projects were included in both categories.

1217

3.2. Interviews
Following the questionnaire study, an interview series was
carried out to achieve a greater insight into the application of
environmental preferences in some of the projects. Eight of the
respondents from the questionnaire study were contacted for an
interview. These had all stated that they applied environmental
evaluation criteria, and not only basic environmental requirements.
The interviews were semi-structured with a sequence of themes
to be covered, but with the openness to changes of sequence as
described by Kvale [51]. The main themes of the interviews were:
1. reasons for including environmental preferences in the
procurements;
2. development of the environmental requirements and criteria;
3. reasons for limiting the application of environmental
preferences;
4. the application of environmental evaluation criteria; and
5. how the requirements are monitored during construction work.
All interviews but one were conducted over the telephone, since
the interviewees were spread out across the country. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed. Using a software
tool for qualitative data, the transcripts were organised into categories and subcategories as described by Kvale [51].
4. Results
4.1. Results from the questionnaire
4.1.1. Application of project-specic environmental preferences
According to the respondents, environmental preferences were
common in the procurements. Only three respondents answered
that no environmental requirements or environmental evaluation
criteria had been applied at all. These were all building projects,
organised by private organisations and the contractual arrangement was design and build.
In a slight majority of the procurements, 27 projects, only
standard, basic environmental preferences set up by the respective
procuring organisation were applied. In the other 21 projects,
project-specic environmental preferences had also been applied.
Of the building projects, only standard environmental preferences
were applied in 26 of the projects whereas project-specic preferences were applied in 16 of the projects (Table 1). Among the civil
engineering projects, the distribution was more even. Most of the
private organisations applied only the standard environmental
preferences (Table 2).
When the different contractual arrangements were compared,
no clear difference was found in the application of project-specic
environmental preferences. This was partly due to unclear answers
by some of the respondents.
4.1.2. Application of environmental evaluation criteria
Out of the total 48 valid responses, only nine of the respondents
answered that environmental evaluation criteria were applied.
Both civil engineering and building projects were found in this
group (Table 3).
Of the nine projects where environmental evaluation criteria
had been applied, eight also included project-specic environmental preferences, and not only the standard environmental
preferences set up by their organisation. All the organisations that
applied environmental evaluation criteria were public organisations (Table 4).
As was the case with the basic versus project-specic requirements, comparing the application of environmental evaluation

A. Varnas et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 12141222

1218

Table 1
Number of building and civil engineering projects where standard versus projectspecic environmental preferences were applied.

Only standard environmental

preferences have been applied
Project-specic environmental
preferences have also been applied

Building projects
(n 42)

Civil engineering
projects (n 9)

26

16

Only environmental requirements

were applied
Environmental evaluation criteria
were also applied

criteria for different types of contractual arrangements gave no

clear indications regarding in which type of contractual arrangement the criteria were most common.
4.1.3. Type of environmental requirements
Of the different types of environmental requirements applied,
those regarding waste disposal during construction, environmental
plan during construction, working environment and the contractors environmental management system had a high frequency
among both the building and the civil engineering projects (Figs. 1
and 2). The civil engineering projects tended to have a stronger
focus on emissions connected to construction work, whereas there
was a stronger focus on requirements regarding materials and
substances used in the building projects.
4.1.4. Monitoring the requirements
The contractors self-inspection was the most common way to
monitor the environmental requirements during construction,
followed by revisions and building meetings. Several of the
respondents answered that they applied more than one type of
monitoring procedure (Table 5).

4.2. Results from the interviews

4.2.1. Reasons for applying environmental procurement preferences
It was found during the interviews that directions from the
client organisation and procedures set up by the environmental
management system, as well as the presence of a committed
manager were common reasons for clients to apply environmental
preferences in the contract procurements. Other reasons were legal
requirements and other directions from the authorities, cost
reductions and requests from the tenants in the nished building.
One respondent suggested that stipulating environmental evaluation criteria was a way to nd a contractor capable of fullling the
environmental requirements.
4.2.2. Formulating the environmental preferences
The use of expert judgment appeared as the most frequent
method when clients formulate the environmental preferences.
Although some organisations had their own groups of environmental specialists, the environmental preferences were in most
cases formulated in cooperation with consultants and representatives from the local authorities.
Table 2
Number of public and private client organisations that had applied standard versus
project-specic requirements.

Only standard environmental

preferences have been applied
Project-specic environmental
preferences have also been applied

Table 3
Number of building and civil engineering projects where only environmental
requirements versus also evaluation criteria were applied.

Public
organisations
(n 23)

Private
organisations
(n 24)

11

16

12

Building projects
(n 42)

Civil engineering
projects (n 9)

34

In addition, experiences from previous projects played an

important role. In some cases, the same requirements were applied
in different projects. In these cases, many of the requirements were
associated with the EMS. However, in most of the projects, at least
some of the environmental procurement preferences were specifically designed for the project. These project-specic environmental preferences were often found during specic
measurements before the start of the project, such as groundwater
measurements, carried out during the project planning or design
stages. Some of the tools mentioned to identify environmental
requirements were environmental impact assessment, risk
assessment and life-cycle assessment.
Also of importance for the formulation of the environmental
preferences were laws and requirements from local authorities. In
addition, lists of suggestions from authorities such as the National
Board of Housing, Building and Planning, the Swedish Chemical
Agency and insurance companies were also commonly used to nd
environmental preferences. The verdict of the Environmental Court
was also mentioned.
4.2.3. Reasons for limiting the application of environmental
procurement preferences
Among the reasons for clients to limit the application of environmental preferences in the contract procurements, the fear of
introducing limitations, high costs or time-consuming bureaucracy
into the project were the most common. It was especially pointed
out that when the contractual arrangement design and build is
used, the design is carried out after the procurement, which makes
it less meaningful to introduce certain types of environmental
preferences in the procurement stage.
In addition, the environmental preferences were sometimes
limited in order to simplify the tendering process. Soft evaluation
criteria such as the environmental ones were sometimes limited to
minimise the risk of appeals after the procurement.
Also mentioned as a reason for limiting the application of
environmental procurement preferences was lack of knowledge. In
addition, some respondents found that for certain environmental
aspects, it may be hard to formulate environmental preferences
that are specic, measurable and veriable.
4.2.4. Application of environmental evaluation criteria
Among the types of environmental evaluation criteria applied
by the clients in the procurements, the environmental management system was the most common. One reason for choosing to use

Table 4
Number of public and private client organisations that applied only environmental
requirements versus also environmental evaluation criteria.

Only environmental requirements

were applied
Environmental evaluation criteria
were also applied

Public organisations
(n 23)

Private organisations
(n 24)

14

22

A. Varnas et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 12141222

1219

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%
Harmful
substances

Other
Other
Waste
Environmental Contractor's
Working
Requirements
requirements requirements disposal during plan during
EMS
environment
regarding
regarding use regarding use construction construction
requirements waste disposal
of material of chemicals
works
in the building
works

Fig. 1. Percentage of the building projects where each of the eight most frequent environmental requirements had been applied.

this as an evaluation criterion rather than a requirement was not to

exclude rms without an EMS from the procurement. Other aspects
considered as evaluation criteria in the tender evaluations were the
environmental knowledge of the project organisation and the
handling of environmental aspects, which are usually described in
the environmental plan. The types of machines used and energy
use in the nished building were also mentioned as evaluation
criteria.
In none of the projects in the interview series did the environmental criteria have an effect on the outcome of the evaluation.
Nonetheless, one of the respondents argued that applying environmental criteria was important, in order to make the tenderers
aware of high environmental project standards, which in turn
improved the environmental quality in the project. It was also
pointed out by some respondents that the environmental criteria
could have an effect on the evaluation, in other projects.
The environmental criteria were in most cases assigned
a maximum of 10% weighting in the evaluation. According to one
respondent, the environmental issues and hence the weighting of
the environmental criteria tended to be more important in certain
types of projects.
4.2.5. Monitoring environmental preferences
Among the alternatives for clients to monitor the environmental
requirements during construction work, the contractors self-

inspection appeared to be the most common. The contractor is

usually obliged to report any errors during construction. The clients
often seemed to trust the contractor to contact them before the
purchase of a new product or before calling in another subcontractor.
However, sample tests performed by the client organisation as well as
inspections were also mentioned as a way to check that the environmental and other requirements were fullled. In addition, revisions and project meetings were also frequently mentioned. In some
cases the contractor had to prepare a report prior to such meetings.
5. Discussion
The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of current
practices in green construction contract procurement in Sweden. A
literature review has introduced the issue of green procurement
and the challenges and opportunities related to it. A survey consisting of a questionnaire and a series of interviews has reviewed
the practices of green procurement of construction contracts in
Sweden. In this section, the ndings from the literature review and
the survey are further discussed.
The results from the questionnaire indicate that both private
and public clients in Sweden take environmental issues into
consideration when procuring their construction contracts. Most
of the respondents answered that they had stipulated environmental preferences in the procurements. However, a tendency to

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%
Harmful
Waste
Environmental Requirements Contractor's
substances disposal during plan during
regarding
EMS
construction construction machines used
works
works

Emissions to Emissions to
Working
water during
soil during environment
construction
production requirements
works

Fig. 2. Percentage of the civil engineering projects where each of the eight most frequent environmental requirements had been applied.

1220

A. Varnas et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 12141222

Table 5
Different ways to monitor the requirements.
Type of monitoring

Number of
respondents
(n 48)

The environmental criteria are not monitored

Sample tests
Inspections during the construction project
Inspections after completion
Building meetings
Revisions
Contractors self-inspection
Other type of monitoring

2
20
19
12
26
28
40
13

overestimate the application of green preferences has been

noticed in previous studies [25] and a similar phenomenon may
have occurred also in this survey.
Procurement of construction contracts differs from the
procurement of products. At the time of procurement, there are
limited opportunities to judge whether or not the tenderers will
full the environmental requirements. Here, a comment from one
of the respondents can be highlighted: there are environmental
requirements that the contractor needs to full; the environmental
evaluation criteria are in turn used to evaluate how likely each
tenderer is to full these requirements.
For procurement of construction contracts, the application of
environmental evaluation criteria is especially emphasised, since
they are assumed to stimulate green innovations in the sector [14].
However, the ndings of this survey indicate that this has not yet
reached out to the practitioners. Few of the respondents had
applied environmental criteria when evaluating the tenders.
Among the criteria applied, the presence of an environmental
management system in the contractors organisation was the most
common. The EMS, however, concerns the way environmental
issues are handled and organised and does not specically
encourage innovations [15]. However, if the purchase or procurement concerns a service or work to be performed, EMS can be
a proof of the tenderers ability to take environmental management
measures during the service or work [26].
In none of the cases did the environmental criteria inuence the
outcome of the evaluations. The role of the environmental criteria
can thus be questioned. However, some pointed out that the
environmental criteria could have an effect in other projects. In
addition, the common use of EMS as evaluation criterion raises
a few questions. As mentioned earlier, environmental management
systems concern the global performance of companies, and are not
designed to meet the goals of the project-based organisations [15].
In addition, a certied EMS does not guarantee a high level of
environmental performance [52]. Although EMS can be created to
suit the project-based construction organisation, in the procurement situation, it can be difcult to differentiate between the
companies that only produce nice documents and the ones that
actually perform well [35]. The role of the EMS in the construction
projects and its possible use in bidder assessment and tender
evaluation can be addressed in future research.
Not only was EMS a common evaluation criterion. In addition,
the presence of an EMS within the client organisation was recognised as one of the main reasons for applying environmental
preferences in the procurement. Its importance in the stage of
formulating environmental requirements and criteria was also
mentioned. This is in line with previous research which recognises
the benets of linking EMS and green purchasing in order to achieve improved environmental performance [53,54].
Commitment among the managers was another important
factor for applying environmental evaluation criteria. This nding

supports the idea of the importance of committed leaders to bring

success to the environmental purchasing programme [44,45], as
described earlier.
In formulating the environmental preferences, expert judgment
and experiences from previous projects were important. In the
cases where project-specic requirements were applied, some
tools such as environmental impact assessment (EIA), risk assessment and life-cycle assessment were mentioned. The use of tools
such as EIA to formulate environmental preferences for the
procurement and to identify environmental aspects to include in
the project-EMS could be further explored in future studies.
One of the reasons mentioned behind limiting the application of
procurement preferences was lack of knowledge. A way to address
this problem could be to increase the use of different tools, such as
procurement systems, or generalised requirements and criteria.
The Swedish Environmental Management Council has been
working on developing environmental requirements for building
projects. For civil engineering projects, no requirements have yet
been developed. However, the Swedish Road Administration has
produced a guideline of environmental requirements that can be
used in procurements. For building projects, other tools have also
been developed to improve the environmental performance of the
buildings. One of these is the LEED certication (Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design), which has been developed by
the U.S. Green Building Council. A LEED certication of a building is
made by an independent third party, which veries that the
building follows certain green building requirements. The interest
for LEED in Sweden has increased during the last years. However,
other green building standards are also being utilised, such as the
one developed by the Building-Living Dialogue. Studies have been
made, e.g. [55] regarding different ways to assess the environmental aspects of buildings in Sweden. It could be interesting to
further study how such systems could be used in procurements in
Sweden. Future studies could also address such systems and
possibilities for increased use of them for procurements of civil
engineering projects.
Another way to address the problem of lack of knowledge
among clients organisations could be to aim for increased collaborations between clients, which could be done by for example
using workshops and similar activities for clients. The lack of
knowledge could also be addressed by trying to develop tools to
assist clients in their development of environmental criteria and
requirements.
Another reason for limiting the application of environmental
preferences was the fear that such preferences could bring
increased costs to the project. Yet, a wish to decrease costs was also
mentioned as a reason for applying environmental preferences.
Studies have found that considering life-cycle costs instead of
merely the purchase cost often lead to a lower overall cost [9]. At
the same time, the environmental burden is decreased, since
a lower life-cycle cost often brings decreased environmental
impacts, in forms of energy savings for example in the nished
building. However, a problem here could possibly be that the
procuring organisation may not remain the owner of the building.
For public authorities however, the aim should be to reduce the lifecycle costs and thereby the environmental costs, and not only the
purchase cost. It could be interesting to further study whether
projects in which more environmental preferences have been
applied are in fact more costly than others, and in particular to
make such a study for civil engineering projects. If the same ndings can be found for civil engineering projects as for building
projects, this would indicate that environmental preferences
should be used more in procurements.
Public clients more often applied environmental evaluation
criteria than private ones. The civil engineering projects tended to

A. Varnas et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 12141222

have a stronger focus on requirements during construction works,

such as machines used, and requirements for transport and emissions during construction works. This seems appropriate, since
energy use during the use of the building is usually considered the
main environmental aspect of buildings, whereas for other
construction projects, many of the main environmental aspects are
connected to the construction work [12].
However, this study aimed at achieving an overview of the
application of environmental procurement preferences in the
Swedish construction industry and was limited in its scope. In
addition, the distribution between building and civil engineering
projects was uneven. In order to further investigate differences
between project types or type of organisation, investigations
specically aiming at clarifying those differences are suggested.
Several of the respondents used more than one type of monitoring procedures. Among the monitoring procedures used, the
contractors self-inspection was the most common, followed by
revisions and building meetings. However, as mentioned earlier,
other studies have found that monitoring of the environmental
requirements is often insufcient or inefcient, e.g. [32]. The
connection between environmental requirements and the way they
are monitored can be addressed in future research.
A design and build contract gives more opportunity for the
contractor to make decisions than other types of contract. Hence, it
could be expected that the environmental criteria varied depending
on the contractual arrangement. The results of this survey could not
give any clear indications of that, partly due to the fact that some
respondents had been unclear in their answers. However, the
answers in the interviews indicate that the use of a design and build
contract might limit the application of environmental requirements. When the design is carried out after the procurement, it
may be impossible or less meaningful to stipulate certain types of
requirements in the procurement. Further research could explore
the relationships between contractual arrangement and the chances of stipulating and monitoring environmental preferences more
thoroughly.
6. Conclusions
This study indicates that environmental parameters are often
taken into consideration in procurement of construction contracts
in Sweden. Environmental evaluation criteria, however, are less
common. Some of the reasons for this found in the study were the
risk of appeals that may delay the project and a desire to simplify
the tendering procedure. Other reasons for limiting the application
of environmental criteria were the fear of bringing increased costs
and limitations to the project.
In general, environmental preferences regarding the nished
construction tended to be more common in building contract
procurement, whereas preferences regarding impacts during the
actual construction process seemed more common in civil engineering contracts. Among the projects included in the survey, some
of the most common environmental criteria concerned waste
disposal during production, use of harmful substances, working
environment and the environmental management system in the
contractors organisation.
Use of expert judgment was the most frequent method for
formulating the requirements and criteria. Regular project meetings, revisions and contractors self-inspection were the most
common ways of monitoring the requirements.
The most frequent environmental evaluation criterion was the
environmental management system. The EMS may be used as proof
of the tenderers ability to deal with environmental issues during
the project. In addition, the EMS of the clients organisation also
played an important role as a reason for applying environmental

1221

requirements and criteria as well as for formulating the requirements. Committed management and procedures set up by the clients organisation were some other important motivating factors.
In the cases where environmental evaluation criteria were
applied, they seldom seem to affect the outcome of the evaluation.
Nonetheless, the criteria may function as a way of demonstrating
high environmental ambitions in the project, which in turn may
affect the tenders and the performance during construction work.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank FORMAS The Swedish
Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and
Spatial Planning for funding the project and Reed Business Information Sweden AB for providing the contact information regarding
the construction projects.
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