Mid Sweden University

A large proportion of the earth's resource turnover is caused by building and construction activities. There are also many health and safety problems related to the built environment. All these effects are contained in the concept of sustainability. In order to reduce the impact of the built environment it is important to plan for higher ecological, social, economic and cultural sustainability in all stages of the building and construction planning process. A problem is that these processes are complex with many actors involved in different stages. The complexity can be handled with an integrated planning model that is based on continuous dialogue during the process between the actors involved. Case studies of construction projects show that such models for continuous experience feedback can work in practice. The purpose of this paper is to study and analyze sustainable construction processes with regard to clear goal formulation and continuous follow-up of the sustainability parameters. It is also to develop a general model for managing sustainable construction and housing processes regarding ecological, economic, social and cultural dimensions. The model is the result of action research-oriented case studies carried out within the framework of the EU-project Sustainable Built Environment in Mid Sweden (SBEMS). 

As the building construction industry accounts for a large part of the ecological burden, sustainable construction processes are very important for achieving sustainable communities. Construction is often a linear process, where different actors act at different stages of the process. In this process there are critical borderlines where the information is to be transferred from one actor to another. Over the years, the construction industry has developed a well-functioning and standardized arrangement for how this happens. However, this has proven to be problematic when sustainability is to be introduced in construction projects. Sustainability goals can often be perceived as diffuse and difficult to interpret. Different actors with different values and knowledge level regarding sustainability also interpret the goals differently. A common way is to set environmental goals as checklists with criteria to be met. In this process, it is common for certain aspects to be sub-optimized while other important aspects fall outside the scope. It is therefore very important to simplify the sustainability parameters without sacrificing complexity. The goals must be clearly formulated initially and followed up continuously throughout the process. The purpose of this paper is to study and analyze good examples of sustainable construction processes with regard to clear goal formulation and continuous follow-up. The result end up in a proposal for a model for knowledge management of sustainable construction processes. 

The sustainable building engineering education at Mid Sweden University has since it started 1994 a strong focus on sustainable building. It is also committed to be a pilot case for blended learning. All courses in the building engineering program were from the autumn 2012 adapted to a blended learning concept. That means that all courses are available in an integrated mix of ordinary campus and online distance education in real time. Blended learning is a way of taking in account different needs concerning student study situation. Adult students, bound with house and families, often prefer more distance education while younger students need more campus education. The results of the case study show that blended learning attracts more students, and allows students with different backgrounds to study and gives a more solid base of students for the program. It also allows a more flexible way of allocating resources by integrating two previous modes of delivery for the same program. This provides an education with a well thought through quality assurance. Another strength of blended learning is the possibility to connect individual students to a larger collective of students, making it possible for them to relate to and learn with and from others by social interactions that are difficult to achieve in solely online education. The pilot case is so far limited to the sustainable building engineering program but in a next stage the concept is planned to be spread to other engineering programs and other education programs at Mid Sweden University.

This paper reviews the authors' work on Integrated Planning (IP) as a construction site management tool. IP integrates the different planning skills used by site managers, construction workers and craftspersons into an interactive group which manages a production planning process from the earliest stages to the end of a building project. The studies reviewed in this paper, performed over the last three decades, tested, longitudinally evaluated and refined the IP model for use in modern sustainable building sites. The refined model, Integrated Planning for Sustainable Building Production (SBP), includes the factors: leadership, health and safety, quality management and environmental management.

The municipality of Östersund is presently developing a new township called Storsjö Strand close to the town centre by the lakefront of the lake Storsjön. The ambition is that the new area should be a good example of more sustainable building engineering and societal planning. Mid Sweden University was engaged to follow the process in action research setting, and to enhance the learning process. A triple helix process intending to better achieve such outcomes was presented at the Eco-tech 2014 conference. The process has now moved to a stage where the first two buildings are erected.

This paper reports on present status with a focus on how the sustainability goals have been transferred through the chain of involved organizations and individuals, developers and contractors, but also how the goals affect the production of the building, regarding materials, methods and costs, based on interviews . We have observed connections between sustainability outcomes, and the combination of quality of the goals set for the project and the types of processes for achieving them. So far, it seems like the sustainability goals partly have been transferred through the process. The process will be followed until the buildings has been in use for some time

The built environment is an important component for a sustainable society. Choices made today will affect society during decades to come, both regarding performance of buildings and in affecting what is possible choices regarding mobility, energy, waste handling and human well being in general. There have been several projects in Sweden and around the world aiming at better sustainability performance of new built areas. A strong experience from earlier projects is that it is not that easy to actually achieve high ambitions set up at project initiation; the most common example in this direction that requirements on energy efficiency are not achieved when measuring in actual use of the final building.The project Storsjö Strand, a new township in Östersund in an earlier industrialized area, has aimed to work around identified earlier problems, using a strong interactivity and a triple helix process with the municipality, developers, and the university. The role of the university is to through an action research approach both be involved in the process to help guide it and to document and evaluate the process, with the research goal to contribute to and develop sustainable building processes for Sweden and elsewhere.The Storsjö Strand project is presently an ongoing project. This paper describes the approach taken and how it is a development of earlier approaches for sustainable building processes and also evaluates early experiences of the triple helix process.