Achieving sustainable development through the private finance initiative procurement process

"In the UK, sustainable development has been set as a high priority for the Government to achieve a better quality of life for present and future generations. The Central Government realises the importance of using public procurement to demand sustainable goods and service and using its enormous purchasing power to influence the market direction to achieve higher sustainability targets. It is suggested that PFI is better understood as an innovative procurement process to implement sustainability principles with inherent advantages for adopting sustainable construction solutions. The aim of this research is to find out whether improvements in sustainability performance were really happening on the ground in PFI projects and if not, to help find and suggest ways to make sure they do. The research used systems theory to guide the research methodology design. A multi-methods approach was used to collect data including a pilot study, a main questionnaire survey, follow-up interviews and four case studies. Moreover a systemic analytical framework was developed in order to allow for a more extensive collection of both qualitative and quantitative data and detailed analysis. The main research findings could be summarized as: The traditional bio-centred approach of environmental conservation limits sustainability potential in PFI projects; To fully measure PFI sustainability performance it is necessary to take account of four dimensions: social, economic, environmental and technical factors; The social function is critical and should be set as the highest agenda for all sustainability action in PFI projects; Sustainability is significant for PFI development and it could provide direct business benefits for both public and private sectors; PFI clients have a good understanding of sustainability concepts and many projects have integrated sustainability factors into the bidding process; Sustainable development in PFI projects is primarily reliant on the bottom-up mode, which means that the top-down approach relying on central government s policy directives has less influence; Whole life costing has been adopted in most PFI projects and has been seen as a key performance indicator for measuring the sustainability performance from an economic perspective; Key procurement stages are highlighted to enable a better implementation of sustainability principles; A list of critical successful factors are established to enable future development to achieve sustainability excellence. This thesis made a number of significant and original contributions in the area of sustainable development and its implementation into public procurement process. Firstly it defined Sustainable PFI and developed an indicator framework to measure the sustainability performance within PFI projects. Secondly it identified how, when and who should make decisions and articulated an action plan towards better sustainability performance through the PFI procurement process. Thirdly, it developed a systems approach to study sustainability issues within the procurement process. Finally, it provided a better understanding of sustainable development in the real world. The result of this study indicated that while the social dimension is currently under-recognised it is in fact critical for achieving sustainable development objectives and should come to the fore in future PFI developments."