Providing Global Consistency to Construction Cost Reporting

The International Cost Management Standard (ICMS), first launched in July 2017 as the International Construction Measurement Standards, revolutionised the global industry by improving cost prediction in construction projects.

The ICMS Coalition has now released the first draft of ICMS 3 - a shared format for reporting carbon emissions.

Construction is a global industry, but the way project costs are measured varies enormously making decision-making risky and creating barriers to investment.

ICMS provides a high-level structure and format for classifying, defining, measuring, recording, analysing and presenting, and other life cycle costs, and now carbon emissions at a national or international level.  It allows:

• construction life cycle costs and carbon emissions to be consistently and transparently benchmarked (comparative benchmarking)
• the causes of differences in life cycle costs and carbon emissions between projects to be identified (option appraisal)
• properly informed decisions on the design and location of construction projects to be made at the best value for money (investment decision-making) and
• data to be used with confidence for construction project financing and investment, decision-making, and related purposes (certainty).

By providing a common global reporting framework for capital costs, life cycle costs and carbon emissions, ICMS 3 provides the data to make decisions about the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the built environment that optimises environmental sustainability.

In addition to extending the use of ICMS to carbon emissions, five new project types have been added: ‘Offshore structures’, ‘Near shore works’, ‘Ports’, ‘Waterway works’ and ‘Land formation and reclamation’ as well as making other minor modifications from ICMS 2 in response to feedback received from practitioners.

Visit the ICMS website

Download the current ICMS 3 standard

ICMS Coalition

ICMS has been developed and implemented by a growing international coalition of 50 leading standards organisations, representing professionals across the multi-trillion dollar construction sector.

NZIQS has been a member of the ICMS Board of Trustees since the coalition started in 2015.  NZIQS supports the move towards greater global consistency of standards.

RIB, NZIQS Platinum Partner, is also a coalition partner to ensure that their product range is well prepared for these standards, which will be of great benefit to their global customer base.

Links

ICMS Website

ICMS 3 Standard 

ICMS 3 Consultation

Technical FAQ

General FAQ

NZIQS ICMS Webinar Recording

NZIQS ICMS Webinar Slides

NZIQS ICMS Press Release