CHARTING THE COURSE: NAVIGATING SUSTAINABILITY PRIORITIES IN SWEDISH HOUSING COMPANIES

Paper in proceeding, 2024

Housing companies must increasingly prioritise between multiple and often conflicting sustainability demands to address wicked societal challenges. The paper seeks to understand this prioritisation, and what criteria influence their decisions on what sustainability goals to pursue and solutions to implement. By conducting 22 interviews within Swedish housing companies, and by applying a multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework, the findings show how housing companies struggle with sustainable decision making. To facilitate this messy process, they base their sustainable decision-making on criteria related to calculations, evaluations, and visualisations; what is most profitable and cost-effective; on internal and external demands; and on urgency. By understanding these criteria, the paper contributes insights into improving sustainability practices, highlights the importance of structured decision-making processes, and how this can be achieved.