3. VOLUNTARY DRIVERS
Since the mid-1980s when the concept of a ‘low-energy building’ was introduced in the Danish Building Regulations Danish building designers and construction clients have had voluntary schemes that have ensured improved the energy-efficiency of the Danish building sector. The scope for sustainability was broadened in 2006 when the Nordic Ecolabel (also known as the Swan Label) was introduced for single family homes in a Danish project titled ‘Future Single-family Homes’. During the period leading up to the release of the Danish version of the DGNB system in 2012 Denmark saw the first BREEAM International and LEED registered projects and the transformation from low-energy towards a more holistic approach to sustainable building design was complete.
Despite having a nationalised adaptation of the DGNB system available and despite the fact that the LEED system is not the most ambitious certification system in a Danish context some companies still choose to adhere to the LEED system when it comes to sustainable building certification or company policies on sustainable building concepts. Based on experiences with companies like these it is this author’s experience that the reasoning behind this choice is strategic and market driven rather than ignorance.
In 2015, the Danish Association of Construction Clients (DACC) conduced a market analysis of how 1) Construction clients, 2) Consultants, 3) Contractors and building product manufacturers perceived sustainability. The survey results are available at DACC’s webpage and the results of the survey show that:

• 65% of construction clients regard the term sustainability as a relevant issue in their project organisations
• 62% of the construction clients define their approach to sustainability as a holistic and integrated approach to sustainability and that 53% of the construction clients define their approach to sustainability to include energy-efficiency
• The construction clients identify life cycle costs (LCC) (61%), total value (51%), branding (54%) and future regulatory requirements (32%) as drivers for sustainable development.

In 2016, the Danish Green Building Council followed up with a market analysis in which:

• 75% percent of the construction clients revealed that they expect the demand for sustainable buildings to increase and 25% expect the demand to remain at its current level.
• The construction clients with experiences with sustainable construction were asked to identify which of the following drivers that motivated them to choose sustainable building certification: environmental considerations (65%) lifecycle costs (48%), CSR (44%), Innovation (41%) Future regulations (37%), Fewer construction and design mistakes and a leaner process (27%), Increased sale and leasing opportunity (24%), increased market value (20%), increased demand for sustainable buildings (20%), 3rd party verification (17%).

The answers to these surveys demonstrate that whilst environmental benefits, as well as, current and future regulatory and voluntary drivers are considered important by construction clients’ they also place great emphasis on economic drivers as well as tenant requirements which typically focus on social- and economic considerations such as operation costs, indoor climate and health. It is also worth noticing that the market analysis from 2015 did not focus on identifying the drivers of sustainable development but rather the main motivation and that the answers were slightly limited by the pre-defined answers in the survey.

4. THE IMPORTANCE OF MARKET, CULTURE AND ORGANISATION

4.1 The importance of market scope
The market scope of the construction client or tenant is essential when it comes to sustainable development where multinational co-operations or multi-nationally funded or insured co-operations in Denmark tend to choose the American LEED system whilst the nationally focused co-operations and organisations adhere to the Danish version of the DGNB system. The general impression of the development in Denmark is that LEED and DGNB are the main players in the market and other systems like the Swan Label, the Passive House and Active House concepts also appeal to some construction clients. This was confirmed in the DACC market analysis from 2015 where the construction clients have answered that 0% favour BREEAM, 14% favour LEED, 71% favour DGNB and 29% favour another system.
Sustainability consultants thus experience different market-driven approaches to voluntary certification schemes: 1) Nationally focused clients that choose to comply with the Danish version of the DGNB system, 2) Multi-national co-operations that choose to adhere to the LEED system because that simplifies their decision making process and thus their building design paradigm 3) Multi-national co-operations that choose to adhere to the scheme that is the preferred, and often most ambitious scheme, in the country where they planning a new project and 4) Multi- national co-operations or national co-operations that wish to comply with more than one scheme e.g. both the Danish DGNB scheme and the American LEED scheme.
Market scope and uniformity are thus important motivators when it comes to voluntary schemes that promote drivers of sustainable development. This also means that the voluntary drivers of sustainability vary a lot from project to project.

4.2 The importance of culture
When looking at the number of buildings in Denmark that have either undergone certification or that are registered for certification there is an increase in the number of tenders and projects that request sustainable building certification. However, if one only regarded the number of projects registered for certification one might think that neither DGNB nor BREEAM or LEED is very popular in Denmark when in fact most construction clients or tenants request sustainability these days. The difference between the Danish market and international markets with a large percentage of certified buildings can be ascribed to the fact that Danes are still a very trusting people. Because of that they regard certification as a stamp of approval of something that they expect their consultants and contractors to comply with regardless of whether or not they request building certification.
This means that voluntary building certification becomes a motivational driver when the construction client or tenant either 1) Wishes to brand his/her property via third party certification or 2) Wishes to change business as usual and challenge his/her organisation, consultants and contractors to improve their performance towards a more sustainable development. The latter is especially true for clients that take CSR reporting seriously and thus have a need to monitor and report progress. It is also interesting that, after having worked for the same companies more than once and having seen multiple tender material from the same clients, a lot of developers and municipal construction clients start out with the first type of motivation and end up with the latter. This is a testament to the fact that once they gain a better understanding of their approach to sustainability they start to use it as a developmental driver.