Nottingham is one of the three lighthouse cities in the REMOURBAN project implementing actions in the fields of low energy districts, sustainable mobility, integrated infrastructure, society. We asked Alison Stacey, REMOURBAN project lead from Nottingham City Council, what is their experience with regulatory barriers and what factors need to change to find solutions.
3 key learnings from Nottingham City Council’s experience with regulatory barriers and solutions
- Continuing with existing procurement practices tends to reinforce the established standards of retrofitting and does not encourage innovation – whether that be in the products or the means of applying them. Municipalities become part of the problem because they tender with very detailed specifications that do not test the market.
- Tendering for bids that deliver solutions to urban challenges – rather than tendering for specific items – leads to more innovation. This has to be done in conjunction with a change to the evaluation scoring of the tenders – so that the performance of what is procured is valued as well as the price quoted.
- The Municipality needs to take on the role of the “intelligent customer” and work with the construction sector, in a collaborative way, to optimise the outcomes from results required – i.e. x% of energy reduction per house for y£ per house. This moves the Municipality to a process of purchasing guaranteed results rather than products or processes.
Decisive element involved
With austerity measures and reducing budgets Municipalities are having to review what and how they procure goods and services – across a range of areas from adult care to retrofitting of houses.
Read the full article here.
10 November 2016