Integrating Energy Efficiency into the Municipal Procurement Process of Buildings—Whose Responsibility?

Abstract

This study addresses the challenges in ensuring energy efficiency and high indoor climate quality with efficient use of public money in the municipal building procurement process. Energy efficient municipal building procurement provides a significant leverage when steering the built environment towards the low-carbon economy targets of the EU. Municipal building department professionals need more skills and knowledge to appropriately define the requirements and identify the energy efficient design options accounting for the building’s changing operational environment. This study presents how to systematically integrate energy efficiency in the municipal procurement process of buildings by presenting the list of energy efficiency factors to be included into the procurement process. This list of factors clarifies how indoor climate quality, energy use, and the life cycle economy are related through technological solutions and how the optimal compromise solution can be determined. Furthermore, this list of factors explains the responsibilities in integrating energy efficiency within the municipal building procurement process. Applied in the design of the municipal building the list of factors contributes to more informed and transparent decision-making process.

The Journal Buildings: A Bibliometric Analysis (2011–2021)

“…The nodes in the flows are core documents with high citations (both local citations and global citations are taken into account). The largest citation stream is in blue, starting with the research of Vinokurov, M. in 2018 [30] and 2019 [31]. This path provides several new insights on the efficiency, economy and climate implications of the energy solutions.…”

Life Cycle Prediction and Maintenance of Buildings

“…Vinokurov et al [1] performed a detailed and extensive literature review in order to clarify how municipal building departments can adopt life cycle cost-effective measures to promote energy efficiency and a high-quality indoor climate in buildings. This study is focused on the design phase of the building's procurement process, describing the relationship between indoor climate quality, energy use (and GHG emissions), and the life cycle economy from the perspective of design-related factors.…”