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New article about Incentivising innovation in the construction sector: the role of consult contracts

3D Virtual view of KTH Live-In Lab in collaboration with SISAB
Published Jun 03, 2020

To enable smart and sustainable buildings, contracts must encourage consultants and contractors to use their full competence. Risks and incentives must be balanced so that all parties are involved in identifying and installing innovative and sustainable solutions.

In all areas of society, a change to more sustainable technologies is needed. This applies not least to the construction and real estate sector, which is estimated to account for 30-40% of energy use in industrialized countries and almost 40 per cent of CO2 emissions. The pace of change needs to be increased and measures are needed in a number of different areas in order for the introduction of new and more sustainable technology to go faster.

One type of measure is to try to make innovative and sustainable technologies more profitable. These can be direct contributions, such as for example solar cells and electricity storage. There may be more generous investment grants for the construction of cheaper rental apartments if the new houses have lower energy consumption. However, the companies' decisions are also based on the risks that different options of action lead to, and typically the risk distribution in the contract between the parties in the markets is regulated. Thus, it is important to think about how this risk distribution looks and what it can have for consequences for innovations and sustainability.

In this article, Jonas Anund Vogel's director of KTH LIL, Hans Lind and Cyril Holm at SU / Oxford propose a number of changes in ABK 09 that can create incentives to build smart and sustainable.

The full text in Swedish can be read in Bygg&Teknik Kontraktsutformning och incitament för innovationer och hållbarhet – exemplet ABK 09

The full scientific article can be read in English Incentivising innovation in the construction sector: the role of consulting contracts

Belongs to: KTH Live-In Lab
Last changed: Jun 03, 2020