Sustainable Procurement for the Regular Building Projects

The project Sustainable procurement for the regular building projects develops a groundbreaking new dialogue-driven method for a safe transition towards more sustainable procurement for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

See video with a project presentation:

The construction industry represents 16% of CO2e-emissions and 29% of waste generation in Norway, and is considered the industry with the highest potential, and need, for a circular transition. Whilst the large projects and large national and multinational contractors are making great headway with some fantastic examples of pilots and flagship projects, the SMEs are not seeing the same demand for climate and environmentally oriented services.

One of the main reasons, we found, is that many buyers don’t know how to develop the correct criteria, which on one side will challenge the SMEs to make a change, whilst not excluding the relevant suppliers.

The project «Sustainable procurement for the regular building projects» will attack this issue specifically. We will create an arena for dialogue so that the buyers, together with businesses from the whole supply chain, together can develop the right criteria, and from the get-go start testing these in real procurements and building projects. And because SMEs more often work on the smaller projects, small to medium sized maintenance and building projects (est. 1-50 million NOK/100.000 – 5 million USD) will be the focus.

The activities of the project’s phase 1 are:

1. Select 3-5 building projects on which new sustainability criteria can be tested. Buyers in this phase are Trondheim Municipality and Trøndelag County Authority.
2. Gather the buyers and the supply chain of the selected projects in a workshop to generate ideas for possible criteria. Circular economy is a prioritised theme.
3. Ideas will be transformed into measurable criteria, in collaboration with leading research institutions NTNU and SINTEF.
4. Carry out building projects and measure results.
5. Plan and finance phase 2 of the project, where the work is planned to be scaled.

The project is a collaboration between Mid-Norway Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Trøndelag County Council, Trondheim Municipality, Håndverkerforeningen i Trondheim, EBA Trøndelag, Rådgivende Ingeniørers Forening, Prosjekt Norge, SINTEF and NTNU.

Project Organisation

The project has a steering committee and a work group, in addition to an informal resource group. Here is an overview of the members in the formalised groups:

Steering Committee:

• Torstein Langeland, Mid-Norway Chamber of Commerce and Industry (head of steering committee)
• Audun Otterstad, EBA Trøndelag and member of the construction resource group
• Rune Venås, Trøndelag County Authority
• Ranka Eric Kvarving, Håndverkerforeningen i Trondheim and member of the construction resource group
• Mie Abelgaard, Trondheim Municipality
• Vikas Thakur, NTNU and member of the construction resource group
• Michelle Wright, Norconsult and member of the construction resource group

Work Group:

• Mads Solberg Eriksen, Marstrand (Project Manager and head of working group)
• Heather Louise Mason, Trøndelag County Authority
• Vegard Knotten, SINTEF
• Petter Nerbye Grønbeck, Trondheim Municipality
• Olav Torp, NTNU
• Torstein Langeland, Mid-Norway Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Do you want to get in touch about the project and/or get involved? Contact Torstein Langeland, Head of Sustainability/Business Developer at the Mid-Norway Chamber of Commerce and Industry.