Strategic selectivity of sustainability performance in municipal housing provision : A case study of Lund municipality

Amid a green transition in the housing sector, investments in sustainability features in housing projects are on the rise. At the same time, the Swedish housing market is experiencing a crisis, in which rising construction and land prices are leading to an exclusion of groups with lower socioeconomic status from the housing market. This thesis employs the strategic relational approach and the theoretical concept of strategic selectivity to investigate how the green transition in the housing sector influences Lund’s municipal housing provision and whether increased sustainability investments have a cost driving effect on the rents of municipal housing. Through the analysis of strategic documents between 2015 and 2023, the analysis of secondary statistical data and an interview with officials working at Lund’s municipal housing company, this thesis argues that new strategic selectivites have been introduced as a part of the green transition of the local housing sector. This has led to conflicting strategic interests between keeping the municipal housing stock affordable and keeping a high sustainability performance, which has in turn contributed to a lower volume of housing being produced each year in the investigated period, as well as new practises in the municipal housing provision being introduced.