The impact of procurement methods on delivering environmentally sensitive buildings

In the UK, new building regulations (‘Part L2006’) to reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions within the built environment came into force in 2006. It is now mandatory that all new built and refurbished buildings demonstrate compliance with ‘Target Carbon Emissions Rates’ in the design phase. This has prompted some interesting questions concerning their procurement. Under traditional UK procurement arrangements, designs are, in theory, completed before the contractor becomes involved. However, there has been a significant increase in the use of Design-and-Build procurement: a system which actively supports concurrency in design, procurement and construction. Under such arrangements, the design of environmentally sensitive buildings may be seen as a challenging task, as the iterations required are at odds with the contractor’s incentive to avoid delays and extra cost. This has prompted a preliminary investigation into the opportunities and limitations afforded by different procurement methods for delivering environmentally sensitive buildings. Although these issues are fairly ubiquitous throughout the various building elements, the particular focus was on façade design and construction. Data collection was by structured questionnaire and interviews carried out with large construction companies, architectural practices and building performance consultants. There was a consensus that Part L2006 has major implications for procurement and that compliance is a major step change. A new and indispensable bidding document, the ‘Building Energy Model’, will emerge and in its absence most contractors would decline invitations to bid. There will be an impact on procurement, probably in the form of an extension of the use of ‘novation’. Design-and-Build contractors will ‘freeze’ designs earlier, and forgo the potential for later value engineering in order to avoid risks, which they see as significant. Finally, despite the industry’s ‘fear’ of Part L2006, the regulation has already created a welcome by-product in the form of a clear increase in collaborative work among design and construction teams