What role do digital tools play in decarbonising construction?

The whole life picture

The construction industry faces mounting pressure to decarbonise. Although considerable progress has been made in reducing operational carbon, embodied carbon remains an outlier. According to the UK Green Building Council⁽¹⁾, following its Whole Life Carbon Roadmap being published in 2021, embodied carbon emissions fell by just 4% between 2018 and 2022; they needed to fall by 17% to follow the roadmap. Although this figure may be disheartening, the development of digital tools in construction does, in recent years, offer some hope; the advent of technology to both measure and report whole life carbon is the crucial first step towards reducing carbon emissions. And with the mandating of whole life carbon assessments (WLCAs) potentially on the horizon, legislative, investment and reputational requirements for sustainable practices and certifications are adding to the urgency to embrace this technology.

However, as the RICS Digitalisation in construction report 2024⁽²⁾ highlights, adoption of digital tools to assess whole life carbon remains concerningly slow.

The global report examined the adoption of digital tools across six different functions within the construction sector, including ‘cost estimation, prediction, planning and control’ and the ‘implementation of whole-of-life and whole-of-asset thinking’. The data covers responses collated from the Q4 2023 RICS Global Construction Monitor (GCM), which concluded in January 2024, across the UK, Ireland, Europe and Asia Pacific (APAC), the Middle East and Africa (MEA) and the Americas.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the report found that digital tools continue to be embedded into the framework of practices and processes for cost estimating. On a global scale, the use of digital tools for ‘cost estimation’ was in the top three, (alongside ‘monitoring health and safety’, and ‘incorporating ESG principles’) – with 38% of respondents using digitalisation on either all or most projects for cost estimating, up by 1 percentage point on the year before, 2022.

However, using digital tools to implement whole-of-life thinking resides in the bottom three, (alongside ‘designing and measuring social value’ and ‘benchmarking, and reporting’). Across the globe, adoption is considerably lower with just 9% for all projects and 19% for most projects for whole-of-life thinking; although this is up by 2 percentage points from the previous year (2022).

The will to change

Although, on the face of it, these figures look disappointing, attitudes towards digital tools are positive. When asked whether processes and practices driven by digitalisation could help their organisation improve, 57% of global respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that digital tools could improve the implementation of whole-of-life and whole-of-asset thinking; just 3% strongly disagreed. And, although areas like whole-of-life thinking show stagnant adoption rates, over half of respondents (54% in 2023, 53% in 2022 and 54% in 2021) agreed that whole-life carbon assessment benefits from the use of digital tools.

And closer to home there are positive signs. 18% of respondents from the UK and Ireland (UK&I) are sharing data and information through digital tools about life cycle emissions; compared to 16% in 2021.This suggests the will to embrace digital tools is there, but adoption could be slow due to barriers concerning cost, a lack of training and understanding, and access. And, of course, it must be highlighted that the industry’s progress (in both the UK and the rest of the world) has been hindered by a lack of verified, reliable carbon data, as well as a trustworthy, independent methodology to measure it correctly. With the development of the Built Environment Carbon Database (BECD), the International Cost Management Standard ICMS 3 (last updated in 2022) and the recently updated RICS whole life carbon assessment for the built environment standard, we now have the building blocks in place to make substantial progress.

However, as highlighted in the report, barriers (or blockers, as they’re described) remain to adopting digital tools to assist this process. It may come as little surprise that ‘cost, effort and changes needed’ remains the biggest reason in the UK&I; although it’s important to note this is cited as a reason across all the functions of construction in the report, such as cost estimating and benchmarking, not just whole-life reporting. But are they as significant or as insurmountable as they may first appear? Here, we identify the three top blockers and discuss how the industry could address them.

The Big Three

54% of UK&I respondents reported ‘cost, effort and changes needed’ as the biggest blocker, followed by 47% citing skills shortages. In third place, a lack of demand was cited by 46% as a reason.

These barriers reinforce each other and have the potential to hinder progress. But is digitalisation as expensive or complicated as some might initially believe?

Costing the earth

From high inflation to costly finance, the industry continues to weather financial hardships, which are adding to the strain felt by companies already operating on tight profit margins. Therefore, it’s understandable they’re reluctant to take on additional processes that could put increased pressure on their supply chain. Indeed, this is especially so for SMEs, which make up the majority of RICS members, who would be forgiven for perceiving digitalisation as a costly, resource-heavy commitment. But this is where the industry has an opportunity to be more efficient, by delivering carbon assessments through things we already do on all construction projects.

Currently in the construction process, different teams tend to operate in silos. For example, the design team will pass its designs to cost engineers or quantity surveyors, who will pass them to carbon accountants who will make changes to the design, before sending back to the surveyors, who will assess the impact on cost; it’s an inefficient, yet all too common way of working. Conversely, if cost measurement and carbon assessments are combined from the beginning, the process is not only more efficient and streamlined, overall, costs can be reduced.

Historically, in the absence of verified, reliable carbon data, the latter would have been a tricky process. But now it’s possible to measure and report carbon by linking it to measurement processes that already exist on construction projects – cost estimating, cost reporting and cost control.

Although not entirely straightforward, reusing existing cost measurements can help us identify a correlating carbon figure or measurement. The BCIS Cost and Carbon Materials Database currently holds more than 9,200 materials. 70% of these contain carbon data, with verified EPDs and LCAs.

As we continue to feed an additional 40,000 data points into BECD, including those from the recently updated Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE v4), we’ll convert this data to align with BCIS cost data through the BCIS Cost and Carbon Materials Database and BCIS Life Cycle Evaluator. Calculating and reporting on cost and carbon at the same time means the data collection exercise doesn’t need to be repeated or hurriedly added at an additional expense; this makes it easier for the supply chain to embed and deliver. The integration of cost and carbon measurement and reporting is also an opportunity for SMEs to stand out in a competitive market, as demand gradually increases for these services.

The digitally empowered quantity surveyor

BCIS is among the industry experts that argue quantity surveyors are already equipped with the skills to integrate cost and carbon measurement, as cost estimating, cost reporting and cost control all under the remit of cost consultants and quantity surveyors. Therefore, quantity surveyors are a natural fit for bridging this gap. The methodologies used for cost estimating mirror those required for carbon assessments – whether the team is at the early stage in the process and working with ranges, uncertainty factors or contingency allowances, or at a detailed design stage and has the exact specifications of components or materials to hand, the methodical approach required is the same.

This means that instead of requiring entirely new skill sets, the industry can leverage existing industry expertise, a strategy that could ease the transition into using digital tools, from tier 1 contractors through to SMEs. Indeed, the latter are arguably more agile and can embed new practices quicker. If surveyors are upskilled in digital carbon assessment, we could see a rapid increase in adoption rates.

The skills shortage is a well-documented global issue, yet 56% of professionals, according to the RICS report, believe WLCAs would enhance their job role or service, as the report findings show. To borrow a term used in the report, the ‘digitally empowered surveyor’ could become a more prevalent trend in our industry and is certainly one to be welcomed. Of course, it’s unlikely the transition will be completely seamless; it will require support and training from existing experts in carbon reduction.

Demand is growing

As the report highlights, a lack of client demand remains a reason to prevaricate, but there’s evidence this is shifting. The 2024 RLB Procurement Trends Survey⁽³⁾ found 33% of contractors were being asked to provide WLCAs, up from just 14% in 2023. Investors, regulators, and project owners are also increasingly prioritising sustainability, and those slow to adapt risk falling behind. Over the past few years, major investors have placed greater emphasis on investing in projects run by companies that set science-based targets (SBTs). Increasingly, they use frameworks created by the Institutional Investors Group for Climate Change (IIGCC) and The Carbon Trust. Combining cost and carbon could become increasingly important for contractors and developers to accurately predict the chances of their projects being financed or evaluate the risk of their existing portfolio.

Looming on the horizon are the Future Homes and Buildings Standards, which will apply to new homes and non-domestic buildings. These set out technical proposals for changes to Part L of the building regulations, due to come into force this year. Although the proposals don’t apply to the upfront embodied carbon emissions generated from making the products and materials used to construct buildings, the government has stated it intends to consult on an approach to measuring and reducing embodied carbon in new buildings in ‘due course.’ This could eventually lead to the introduction of Part Z, which calls for the measurement and reporting of whole life carbon to be mandated in building regulations.

Equally, as the quality of carbon data continues to improve, the tools to measure and report it are also improving in terms of their efficiency and ease-of-use; companies will become more open to adopting them as the benefits to their organisation and clients become more apparent.

In addition, it’s important the industry doesn’t stay still or continue to stagnate – according to the World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report, the construction industry lags in AI adoption compared to sectors like information technology. This slower uptake may affect productivity and competitiveness. While AI is being integrated into many industries, construction remains one of the slowest adopters of automation and digital transformation. However, the role of construction managers as key figures in the industry’s transformation over the next decade is also highlighted. With sustainability trends and climate mitigation efforts also expected to drive job growth for building framers and finishers, let’s ensure digitalisation is an integral part of this change.

The inextricable link between data and digitalisation

Data sharing is, of course, crucial to the reduction of carbon emissions because we need as much data as possible to enhance our knowledge and understanding. While the 18% of UK&I professionals now sharing digital data on life cycle emissions marks a 2-percentage point increase since 2021, according to the digitalisation report, this remains a small fraction of the industry. The continued development of digital tools will help to make this process easier and more efficient. In addition, we need a sector-wide commitment to:

• Make digital adoption more accessible, with the help of familiar workflows to incorporate carbon and cost measurement in one system.
• Upskill quantity surveyors to take the lead on WLCAs.
• Encourage SMEs to see digitalisation as a competitive advantage, rather than a burden.

Conclusion

Although the report reveals a slow uptake for the use of digital tools to implement whole life thinking – both globally and within the UK&I – there’s evidence that the will is there to embrace digital tools to support this process. This transformation will be aided over the next decade as the industry continues to amass relevant and verified data in BECD and we see wider adoption of whole life methodology; via digital tools and integrated data sources, such as BCIS Life Cycle Evaluator, which combines the measuring and reporting of cost and carbon in one place. With digital tools already well-embedded in the work of most quantity surveyors, it’s quite possible that the ‘digitally empowered surveyor’ will increasingly be in demand, as regulatory pressures and political shifts continue to drive the adoption of digital processes. In turn, this will also assist with the sharing and information of data, so integral to improving our knowledge of assets over their life.

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^{(1) UKGBC – Progress Against the Roadmap – here}

^{(2) RICS – Digitalisation in construction report 2024 – here}

^{(3) RLB – Investing in your supply chain – here}