The structure of Swedish research finance was radically changed in 2001, and the present goals of research policy are that Sweden is to be a leading research nation, where research with a high scientific quality is conducted. However, the process of internationalizing Swedish building research leads to an issue of how international standards for scientific quality are applied and how Swedish researcher participation in industry initiatives and European framework programmes is supported. This issue is discussed against a background of a national system where research funding is indirectly and strongly linked to university teaching, which also means that research institutes are comparatively unimportant. International expansion of large firms in the construction industry has led to an increasing engagement with university research. However, the current process intended to guarantee high scientific quality in projects with national funding is inflexible and not fully compatible with what is required for industry and European research cooperation.

The performance of environmental management systems is difficult to evaluate due to insufficient methods for measuring their environmental impacts. A procedure is proposed that contains more environmentally relevant indicators for assessing environmental impacts. In addition, theoretical and practical criteria are suggested for evaluating the relevance of different indicators. This scheme was applied to the housing-management sector with the aim of finding more problem-related indicators. Data from three existing Swedish housing estates were collected and indicators calculated for three environmental aspects: energy use, household waste treatment and embedded toxic substances/materials. The results show that problem-related environmental indicators can be used in the housing sector to measure energy consumption and, to a certain extent, household waste treatment. Finding indicators for embedded toxic substances was found to be more problematic, but an example for further discussion is presented.

CIB's efforts to create an Agenda 21 for the construction sector are introduced here. CIB's unique position within the international construction community allowed it to initiate a specific sectorial response to the international agendas raised by Brundtland, Habitat II, Rio and Kyoto. CIB's recognition of the problems in establishing both a framework for sustainable development; how change within industry occurs, along with CIB's past, current and proposed activities meant that CIB was perfectly suited to respond to sustainable development. This CIB-led project resulted in global collaboration and co-ordination to specifically address sustainable development for the construction community. Situated between the broad international agendas and more local and subsectorial agendas, CIB's Agenda 21 is a conceptual framework that serves as an intermediary and provides for comparison and co-ordination. The three principal objectives are: to create a global framework and terminology that will add value to national, regional and sub-sectorial agendas; to create an agenda for CIB activities and for co-ordinating CIB with specialist partner organizations, and to provide a source document for definition of R&D activities.

Service life planning comprises a model for the determination of a reasonable expected service life for buildings and components, and it establishes a routine for the assessment of design alternatives. A design option is considered reasonable when it meets or exceeds performance requirements over time that have been drawn up specifically for the specific project. Due to this assessment reference, there is a very evident link to the concept of performance-based building. Any stakeholder involved in the value chain or in the design process of the building, as well as regulators and building users, can express performance requirements. Identified requirements, both in relevance and in quality, will vary with the stakeholder and his/her perspective of interest. As building sector manufacturers develop most products with reference to standards rather than with reference to specific requirements, there is no direct link from user requirements to the product design. Instead, the building designer has the responsibility to ensure performance requirements are met by the performance of products integrated into the design. As these design decisions also have to be made at the material and component level, a performance-based building would benefit from an established rationale that enables the communication of performance requirements across the relevant system levels in the relevant design processes. A path for the connection of the established concepts of service life planning and performance-based building is presented. The aim is to identify key elements that need to be developed for the successful linkage of performance-based building with service life planning.

Environmental assessment tools for buildings are emerging rapidly in many countries. Do different assessment tools influence the design process and also guide ‘green’ building projects in different directions? Three assessment tools, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for New Construction (LEED-NC), Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) and EcoEffect, were tested in a case study project in Sweden: a new multi-storey residential building called Grönskär. The content and results of the three assessment tools were compared in general, while issues in the three core common categories of Energy, Indoor Environment and Materials & Waste were compared in more detail. The assessment results for the case study building varied with the three tools, and the design strategies and tactics to improve the overall rating of the building project differed for each tool. This confirms that the tools can influence sustainable building in different directions and illustrates insufficient consensus between assessment tools in terms of issues, criteria and weighting. The divergent results highlight the need for an appropriate structure of assessment tools that are both environmentally relevant and practically useful.

In early design phases, architects, landscape architects and urban planners are key actors whose decisions determine the environmental impact of planning and building projects. Environmental and sustainability assessment tools for buildings and neighbourhoods have been developed to promote sustainable building, but their usage has not been thoroughly evaluated. This study investigated self-reported knowledge and usage of such tools among competitors and jury group from 10 European countries involved in the international architectural competition '€˜A New City Centre for Kiruna'€™ in Sweden. The questionnaire revealed that 13% used environmental assessment tools or management systems in the competition, although 47% had used them previously. Tool users reported greater knowledge of how to handle environmental impacts than non-users. However, the self-rated experience of handling various environmental impacts, in the competition and in general, was low for both groups. Nevertheless, the self-rated importance of environmental impacts was high among all participants. Based on this study, it is concluded that environmental assessment tools, issues and goals can be better integrated into the processes of early design in planning and building projects, and in architectural competitions. Furthermore, to limit environmental impacts in building and planning projects, professionals need to be educated about environmental strategies and solutions.