AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

Sustainable development, after all these years development, has already been accepted as one of the themes of 21st century, especially after the reveal of some serious environmental problems, such as global warming, resource exhaustion, etc. Construction industry, although being considered as one of the traditional industries of which the development speed is slowing down, is currently still playing an important role in the society and economy system. Meanwhile, it is also an industry that relies heavily on resources and energy consumption, especially the construction manufacturing industry. As a result, the pursuit of sustainability within the construction industry seems to be inevitable. In order to stimulate and push for the green transitioning in the construction industry in Europe, the European Commission issued the Green Public Procurement policy to motivate manufacturers of building products to develop green products and technologies. As a gesture of support, many member states quickly issued their own GPP policies which are more tailored for their specific situations. However, many challenges stand in the way toward fully implementation, and one of which is the shortage of qualified suppliers. Many existing literatures elaborate on the possibility of solving this challenge from the perspective of public authorities. This research, however, looks at this challenge from a different angle, the perspective of manufacturers of building products. This research studies into the flooring industry and intends to develop some suggestions for manufacturers who plan to develop green products based on the successful experiences of some frontrunners. To realize this objective, research questions are developed in this study: 1) What are the GPP requirements for flooring products in public construction projects and how are they evaluated? 2) What are the enablers and barriers during the development of green products? How do these factors get influenced by GPP policy? 3) Given the enablers and barriers, how can manufacturers of building products adjust their product development strategies to meet GPP criteria? What green attributes should be emphasized on during green product development? A literature review was conducted to find answers for the first research question. The EU GPP criteria are made for general terms of building products with no specification for each category. Two sets of criteria are contained in the EU GPP criteria, the core criteria and the comprehensive criteria which are built on the former. The main requirements of the core criteria are that products compete for public tenders should either be eco-labeled or provide detailed LCA reports to prove their environmental performance during life cycles, and if the products are wooden based, then the wooden materials are supposed to be responsibly sourced. The comprehensive criteria, based on the core criteria, add two more requirements regarding the recyclability of the products and the amount of recycled materials that should be contained in the products. In… Advisors/Committee Members: Straub, A., Kamp, L.M., Verburg, R.M., Qian, Q..