If you want to future-proof construction, stop using standards and indicators, believes Jan Willem van de Groep in this Sightline. 'Challenge parties to come up with the maximum, then developers and contractors will start designing again instead of calculating. Then competition on quality will arise.'
The construction industry is bursting with ambition. Everyone talks about future-proof construction, circularity and carbon reduction. The words are great and the intentions sincere, but the results lag behind.
Not because the sector can't do it, but because we are asking the market to do the wrong thing. Because we continue to believe that sustainability is primarily a technical issue. That it's all about the right standard, the perfect indicator or ever-higher ambition. As if better measurements and sharper ceiling values automatically lead to better solutions.
But only one party can really determine what is feasible: the market itself, in a concrete design and with a real offer. We hardly ever use that knowledge. Instead, we figure out in advance what should be feasible. We set ceiling values: a maximum MPG, a CO₂ limit, a percentage of biobased. Then we have consultants calculate whether all of that fits within the financial framework. In this way we create false security, and often even false unfeasibility, before even one serious market party has given its opinion.
By defining the solution before anyone has a chance to come up with one, we completely shut out creativity. We organize mediocrity. The question should be: how do I realize the highest possible future-proof value within the context and preconditions of my project? Not optimization to the norm, but far beyond the norm.
Ironically, we do all this out of fear of uncertainty. We don't want financial setbacks and no delays, so we close everything upfront. Consultants in particular excel at this system. But the result is predictable: you get exactly what you asked for, often a little less, and a lot of hassle in execution.
Fortunately, practice also shows something else. Once you give the market room to show what is possible, solutions arise that you simply couldn't imagine beforehand. Smarter combinations, unexpected insights and above all: offers that you know are feasible. Not because a consultant has calculated them, but because a party actually wants to offer and realize them.
Those who want ambitions to be realized must turn the process around. Formulate the ambition in clear, qualitative terms. Include preconditions. Be transparent about the price or minimum land bid. Put only 0 to a maximum of 10% of points on the financial bid, and above all value future-proof quality through a nationally harmonized assessment framework for future-proof area development.
Don't forget one crucial part: design together how you assess. After all, the assessment framework determines latitude, creativity and ultimately quality.
Designing how you assess is at least as important as designing what you build. Do this together with the market: ask how they want to be tendered and assessed. Organize dialogues, give bidders insight into the thinking of the assessment committee and be open about what 'quality' means. And: pay market parties for their effort. This is not only fair, but often cheaper. The earlier you involve the market, the less project and consultancy costs you incur.
Then organize a process in which parties are challenged to come up with the maximum. Then developers and contractors go back to designing instead of calculating. Then competition will arise on quality. Then solutions emerge that no one could have specified beforehand. And then it turns out that the question of what is feasible does not have to be answered in advance. That answer comes naturally, in the form of a real offer.
Ambitions never have to be lowered. Ambitions can always be maximized as long as you give the market room to prove it.
