Research and Evidence-based standards: Research and standards in combined efforts for a sustainable transformation of the built environment

Abstract

Standards for products, processes and management systems are important tools for the much-needed sustainable transformation of the built environment. With standards, we refer to documents coming from standardisations bodies such as ASTM/ANSI (USA), BSI (UK), CEN (Europe), and ISO (global). The purpose is to investigate the role standards play in current research to exemplify various ways CIB and standardisation bodies can combine efforts for a sustainable transformation of the built environment (BE). Scientific journal articles were identified though literature review. The paper focuses on the building’s use and operation phase and especially the new Facility Management (FM) standards (ISO 41000 series) developed by the technical committee ISO/TC267. Our findings are based on a closer analysis of 10 journal articles from 2010-2021 after identifying 198 relevant articles. The articles refer to a broad range of standards which proves the relevance of standards in building research. There are no proves of how research has influenced standards, only examples of research aiming to enhance standards. Improving and implementing international FM standards is a driver to improve the BE sustainability. CIB and the standardisation bodies have an important role to accelerate the societal transition processes and contributing to society’s demands of sustainability and resilience.

Research and evidence-based standards paving the way for a digital and sustainable transformation of the built environment

“…Clearly, FM plays a key role in the transition to a digital, sustainable and climate-neutral world. For example, a close relationship exists between the key parts of the definitions of FM in ISO 41001:2017 and sustainability in EN 17485:2021 (Klungseth et al , 2022). Both definitions use a wider scope by considering the economy, the environment and social aspects.…”

“…For example, the development of the metric system involved a lengthy process. A total of 150 years passed from 1801 to 1965, during which the new standard was created and implemented and demonstrated its potential (Klungseth et al , 2022; Wenzlhuemer, 2010). Thereafter, standardisation bodies emerged around the world, and today, most countries and continents have standardisation bodies.…”

Collaboration between researchers and practitioners on developing facilities management standards and guidelines

“…This paper concerns the development of standards and guidelines on FM. Standardization is a topic on which only limited researched has been conducted (De Vries et al , 2018), and there is a major research gap for research on FM standardization (Klungseth et al , 2022). To address this gap, the purpose of the paper is to investigate the collaboration between researchers and practitioners and how this can impact the development of standards and guidelines on FM.…”

Guest editorial: Role of research for standards within the built environment

“…We see the need to build a bridge between these two communities we represent – the researchers and those developing standards (Klungseth et al , 2022). We believe the benefit of such bridging can create valuable contributions both to research and practice and fast forward innovations within the profession.…”

“…As such, we devised a roadmap to help bridging the two communities. Our first step was an article for the CIB-World Building Congress (2022), examining how research dealt with standards in the built environment and in particular for FM (Klungseth et al , 2022). Our second step was to launch this special issue in Facilities and to issue a call for papers and research looking into the relation between research and standards in FM.…”