A universal system incorporating life-cycle costs that enables practitioners to classify construction costs across the whole project life-cycle has now published.
Following industry feedback, a 50 strong global coalition of professional bodies, including RICS, have developed the second edition of the International Construction Measurement Standards (ICMS 2) to allow professionals to eliminate inconsistencies and discrepancies when accounting, comparing and predicting project finances.
The second edition of ICMS will bridge the capital and revenue divide and enable the adoption of whole-life costing as the norm for future construction and related facilities management and procurement decisions.
Leading global organisations are collaborating to implement ICMS for benchmarking, measuring and reporting construction project cost. The impact of this should not be underestimated. ICMS meant one major consultancy company was able to save its client $100 million on a $500 million programme over five years.
With the global construction sector expected to grow in output by 85% to $15.5 trillion by 2030, savings like this will make a meaningful difference given that there is already more investment needed than the world can afford.
“Helping the construction sector deliver is the only way the world can build more homes and improve the infrastructure we all rely on to lead positive, fulfilling lives. RICS’ purpose is to deliver confidence in the built and natural environment. Developing and enforcing leading international standards like this is one of the most impactful ways to do that, and we’ve been proud to be involved with our coalition partners in creating ICMS 2,” outlines RICS Director of Professional Standards, Ken Creighton.
Since the first edition, the principle of ICMS has been to ensure global consistency when classifying, defining, measuring, analysing and presenting the entire construction and other life-cycle costs, at a project, regional, state, national or international level.
Having a common cost classification structure linking buildings and infrastructure projects and other facilities, life-cycle costs will have a significant impact on the way projects are designed, built and handed over for operation, maintenance and renewal.
RICS is also developing a Global Professional Statement in Cost Prediction to augment and implement ICMS. This will review global best practices in benchmarking, cost estimating and cost prediction and implement ICMS reporting for qualified professionals