Sustainable provision of school buildings in the Netherlands: An empirical productivity analysis of local government school building operations

Abstract

Building operations and construction are responsible for a large part of global energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. In this paper, we present an analysis of the efficiency and productivity of the provision of school buildings by Dutch municipalities. A cost function is estimated for the years 2005–2016 using stochastic frontier methods based on data of Dutch municipalities. The results indicate that inefficiency and unproductiveness are substantial. The provision of school buildings on a more appropriate scale, detailed performance benchmarking and including more incentives for innovative behaviour may result in a more sustainable provision of school buildings and less energy use and emission of carbon dioxide.