Best Policy Practices

Best Policy Practices
Building, Living, Property! – Management for the Future
Sweden
Construction involves a large number of
different professions and interest groups.
Cooperation and mutual understanding is
a must. This is a Swedish stakeholder
dialogue project.
Voluntary environmental agreements can complement instruments
such as legislation and government-financed incentives.
The project Building, Living, Property Management for
the Future is based on a voluntary agreement between the
government, some municipalities, and companies within the
building and property sector. The approximately 40 different
participants include housing companies, contractors, consultants
and municipalities. The agreement was signed in 2003.
Three strategic topics are especially highlighted:
• Healthy indoor environment
• Efficient use of energy
• Efficient use of resources
The commitments that the participants have signed include
seven strategic areas:
• Sustainable community planning
• A holistic view to the entire life cycle of a building
• Quality and efficiency in the construction and
property management processes
• Energy efficiency and the environment in
property management
• Energy rating and environmental classification of
buildings according to energy use
• Invest in research, development and training for
a sustainable building and property sector
• Follow-up and evaluation
The project also includes training programmes. As a first step,
all workers involved in the building process and in building
maintenance have been trained.
The written agreements between the participants and
the government help in making the commitment stronger, as
compared to a totally informal roundtable. The names of the
participants are published and the participating companies
33