IN SEARCH OF ALTERNATIVE AWARDING CRITERIA

Abstract

In Austria, the public procurement of construction works is mainly based on two different types-the lowest acquisition costs and the most economically advantageous tender. The first one only considers the price, which means, that the contract is awarded to the bidder with the cheapest price. The other principle refers to the most economically advantageous tender, which has to be chosen for projects that exceed a certain overall tender value or are related to projects with higher complexity. This principle focuses on considering other awarding factors besides the price, but it often fails its purpose due to the lower weighting of these issues. Over the last years the market has not expanded very much, therefore there is a lot of competition related to the lowest price, which results in inadequate quality and opens up the field for further claims. In order to end the tense price competition among the competitors and to increase the quality of the projects, new criteria with serious weighting will be needed and to fulfill the most economically advantageous tender and supporting the focus on construction quality. Even though there are acknowledged guidelines dealing with environmental aspects of construction sites, like the RUMBA guideline (Richtlinien für umweltfreundliche Baustellenabwicklung-Guidelines for Sustainable Construction Site Management). However aspects of sustainability are no common standard within construction processes. To capture the common standards of sustainable measures on construction sites, and the industries’ understanding for environmental topics, research on experts in the field was done. Based on the authors’ acknowledgements, the paper targets the aspects of an environmental friendly construction site and introduces new criteria for the awarding process, and mentions some of the findings such as the “technical equipment expertise” or “sustainable construction site management”.