Abstract

In the UK there is a need to provide more housing in order to meet increased demand. The problemis particularly acute in the social housing sector. There is also a drive to reduce CO2 emissions fromhousing, whilst addressing issues of social sustainability. Accordingly governments have sought tocombine the goals of sustainable development with housing policy in order to provide not just morehousing, but more sustainable housing. In a time of public sector expenditure restraint the PrivateFinance Initiative (PFI) has been used as a means to procure social housing using private money,however sustainability within PFI housing projects has received little attention. This paperintroduces a methodology for evaluating sustainability within PFI bids. Developed and tested duringthe procurement stage of a large PFI housing project in the North East of England, results suggestthat the introduction of clear, transparent and robust evaluation criteria can enhance sustainability.