In the past decade the relationship between the client and contractor in the Dutch infrastructure sector has been disrupted. This disrupted relationship can mainly be characterised as adversarial and distrusting. Additionally, this has resulted in a growing number of disputes between the client and the contractor. As a result of the adversarial relationship and the high expenses to resolve the growing number of disputes, construction projects are more likely to face with time and cost overruns. Currently, the Dutch infrastructure sector is searching for possibilities to improve the client-contractor collaboration. In this study the client-contractor collaboration in ECI projects is compared to collaboration in D&C projects. To assess the client-contractor collaboration, the RECAP tool is used. The results of this research are evident. The client-contractor collaboration in ECI projects is better for all collaborative aspects.

The efforts to embed a Circular Economy (CE) within every organization in the Netherlands have taken both, scholars and practitioners, to look into the design of Circular Business Models (CBMs) that allow to make this transition possible; one of the Dutch industries taking this approach is the real estate development sector. Different business modelling tools have been proposed to design CBMs, however, to this date no academic research has been performed on their implementation process within real estate development firms. This study can be seen as the next step on the current developments on CBMs within real estate organizations and through a qualitative analysis of nine in-depth semi-structured interviews taken from people involved in the development of real estate assets in the student housing private sector, investigates the process of CBMs implementation and proposes a conceptual framework that encompassed it. The resulting framework includes 19 elements that emerged from the analysis grouped into 5 categories that represent the relationship of these elements to a core category. These categories and relationships are seen as the first conceptualization of the process within a real estate development firm and foster further studies to investigate and evaluate the validity of these arguments.

The last couple of years the concept of the Circular Economy (CE) has been gaining more and more attention. The Netherlands want to become a CE as well and the government presented a national policy programme including goals to reach a CE in 2050. One of those goals is that Dutch public authorities should procure all their projects 100% circularly by 2030. Practice shows that in the infrastructure sector public authorities start with high circular ambitions, but throughout the procurement process it seems to diminish. Public authorities tend to specify their need in detail, and make little use of the knowledge and experience that is present in the supply chain. The fact that the circular ambitions are only partly reached after the realization of the project makes the public procurement process not very effective. A possible contribution to increase this effectiveness can be a specific procurement approach that focusses on utilizing the experience from the supply chain, called the Best Value approach (BVA). However, no literature so far has described the opportunities of the BVA as an approach to procure circular infrastructure in the Netherlands.

The goal of this research is to create a guideline for Dutch public authorities about how they can procure circular infrastructure more effectively by making use of the BVA. This results in the following research question: In what way, if any, can the Best Value approach contribute to the effectiveness of public procurement in order to stimulate the transition towards a circular infrastructure sector in the Netherlands?

Over the last few years several documents have been published about the need for more efficient and cheaper selection processes in municipal land sale procedures. The current costs of selection are often considered too high. New, light selection methods−in which a partner is chosen based on a vision instead of a design−are suggested as a solution. However little research has been conducted about how to choose a fitting process to sell municipal land. Therefore the research question of this thesis is: ‘How can decision making regarding selection processes for municipal land sale procedures be improved to decrease transaction costs for public and private parties involved.’ A basic framework for the research was set up by performing a literature study. Subsequently, a document review was conducted and interviews were held to study two specific cases. Additionally, several general examples of processes in competitive land sale procedures that raised transaction costs were explored. The literature review and the empirical review have led to a synthesis that has set the foundation for a framework for municipalities to make improve decision making for the design of competitive land sale procedures. This has led to the conclusion that there is not a single optimal solution. Multiple factors have to be considered in light of the specific case when choosing a fitting process for a competitive land sale procedure. From this research it is deducted that it is advisable to select one process as a starting point based on a balance between goals and transaction costs for the specific plot. From this starting point municipalities can use transaction cost theory to improve cost efficiency of the preferred procedure to come to an optimal selection design for a successful competitive land sale procedure.

Many notions are taken the last decades to control production of waste and solve the scarcity of raw material. Circular Economy is a concept, designed to help solve this problem with a financial and environmental agenda. Combined with a Product to Service model, it can offer new opportunities in resetting the way we see ownership and what should be considered waste. As the combination model of circular lease has started being applied in the market, a lot of questions have arisen about its efficiency and risk allocation between owner and user. The main goal of this thesis is to investigate the aforementioned topics, with a focus on cost, duration and legal aspects, as well as evaluating the role of Circular Economy and whether it affects these topics.
Two case studies were done with the help of four interviews, while a literature research on Circular Economy, Product to Service and relevant legal aspects was conducted. The findings of the theoretical and practical research were compared and used to develop an understanding of risks occurring in circular leases.
This thesis investigates the case where ownership model stays with the manufacturer/supplier. The legal strategy to ensure this is through the right of superficies. This model was chosen as responsibility and ownership are strongly connected and by giving the ownership to the manufacturer/supplier also pushes them to extend the lifecycle of products, minimise the waste during production, reduce the use of raw materials and use secondary materials.
The end result of this research is that the main bearer of risks is the owner of the product. First and foremost, owners have to secure that ownership remain on his/her side. Even though having a constant income during the lease, offers a financial security, the owner must be prepared to pay in case of malfunction and any need occurring from the close maintenance offered to the client. The owner must also take care of the after-end treatment of the product and arrange for a new circle for it. Long duration leases require a strong alliance between owner and client, but also trust that both parties will be able to fulfil their responsibilities. On the client side, they may pay to avoid taking risks, but some risks are still there. The ownership issue is affecting both sides as there is always the risk of bankruptcy. Serviceability-wise the client has to ensure that the level of service is constant through the years and can cover the needs of the client. Committing to same level of needs is a risky move, especially if the type of product is a fast-evolving technology or if the needs of the client are not steady. Finally, the price point is also at risk, in case an intermediate is involved.

The circular economy is a hot topic and seen as the solution to the depletion of the earth. According to multiple researchers procurement is an important mean to stimulate circularity, thereby boosting the transition towards a circular economy. However, one thinks the Dutch procurement law is obstructing circular procurement, and one does not know how to implement circularity in a tender. This research focusses on how circularity can be implemented in a tender, and if the Dutch procurement law is indeed obstructive to circular procurement. This explorative qualitative research used different research methods; literature review, explorative interviews, semi structured in-depth interviews and a case study. Based on this research it is concluded that the Dutch procurement law is not obstructive in any way or form to integrally implement circularity in tenders. Within a circular tender, three aspects are of crucial importance; (1) a DNA-match between contracting entity and contractor needs to be found, (2) vulnerability, transparency, communication and collaboration are important during the procurement process, and (3) circularity is not a goal on itself, but merely a mean to achieve higher objectives.

Toezicht en coördinatie zijn elkaar deels overlappende activiteiten die van groot belang kunnen zijn voor het succesvol verloop van een bouwproces. Zowel toezicht als coördinatie is in de eerste plaats een bouwactiviteit die binnen de context van het bouwproces uitgevoerd wordt met als doelstelling het bouwproces succesvol te laten verlopen. Toezicht en coördinatie vormen derhalve geen puur juridisch onderwerp. Aan zowel toezicht als coördinatie zitten echter heel interessante juridische aspecten, die de vraag oproepen: op welke wijze dienen toezicht en coördinatie juridisch geregeld te zijn om een optimale bijdrage te leveren aan het succes van bouwprojecten?@en

The integrated contract UAV-GC 2005 is gaining popularities in Dutch construction industry, which is meant to bring added value to the employer. Nevertheless, due to embedded culture and other social factors, people are still strongly influenced by the ‘old way of working’. For instance, project problems between employer and contractor are often settled too late, which leads to excessive amount of costs. As a result, parties begin to blame each other, and vicious cycle starts. From a legal point of view, it is deemed that the duty to warn obligation of UAV-GC 2005 does not necessarily play its role in facilitating problem solving between the employer and the contractor. While in an international level, the early warning of NEC3 ECC originated from U.K. construction industry is catching increasingly attention all over the world, which is known as its ‘proactive risk management’ approach in dealing with project problems. Under early warning obligation, parties are obliged to inform each other of any matter which could affect costs, completion, progress or quality of the project. It is even praised as ‘jewel in the crown’ by many. Therefore, it is inspired that whether the duty to warn of UAV-GC 2005 can be “substituted” by the early warning of NEC3 ECC, so as to improve problem solving on Dutch Design and build construction projects. Nevertheless, the NEC3 ECC contract has not been extensively applied in the Dutch construction industry, so that it is both legally and culturally alien to the “Dutch approach”. Therefore, problem in this respect is twofold, which is the deficiencies of the duty to warn of UAV-GC 2005 on one hand while the unfamiliarity of the early warning of NEC3 ECC to the Dutch construction industry on the other. Accordingly, the primary research objective of this dissertation is to investigate the deficiencies of duty to warn of UAV-GC 2005 and the added value of early warning of NEC3 ECC in terms of facilitating construction problem solving between the employer and the contractor. The secondary objective is to probe into the requirements for early warning to function with its genuine intention, from both contractual and cultural perspectives...

‘Agile1’ or ‘Agility’ currently is a popular expression within project management. Agile project management is a method to meet the ever-changing needs and requirements throughout a project. An agile approach requires small multi-disciplinary development teams, working iteratively and in close collaboration with the client. This project management approach is developed in the information technology (IT) industry in the 1990’s. Since then, agile gets more and more attention from different industries; the construction industry is no exception. More and more guidelines and tools appear in literature to manage projects in an agile manner. Yet, contractual guidelines suited for an agile approach in construction industry are currently missing. Ample research has been conducted on contracts for projects that use conventional project management, like the ‘waterfall approach’. But due to a different management style, agile project management may not be compatible with these existing construction contracts. This gap in knowledge resulted in the following research question. How to effectively enable agile project management through construction contracts? The scope of this research is the front-end development phase of construction projects between client – engineer, consultant or architect (hereafter referred to as supplier). The following activities were conducted to find an answer to the research question: literature review, exploratory interviews, development of an agile contract proposal, validation and synthesis of the findings.