Six data sharing challenges for the construction industry

What are the current barriers to sharing data in the industry?

Recent evidence suggests there are reasons for the construction industry to celebrate, as progress has been made on the reduction of carbon emissions in the built environment.

The latest research, published by the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) in December, shows that emissions from the UK built environment fell by 13% between 2018-2022. However, the majority of this decrease came from operational carbon, with embodied carbon making up just 4% of that number. Although reducing operational carbon remains important, whole life embodied carbon continues to be a huge, yet often overlooked, part of the carbon equation.

We’ve long advocated that sharing whole life carbon data is key to the industry’s journey towards decarbonisation and that everyone in our industry has a collective responsibility to be proactive, no matter their role or seniority. This was the main motivation behind launching the Built Environment Carbon Database (BECD), a pan-industry initiative to report and benchmark carbon emissions. But it would be remiss not to acknowledge the various barriers to sharing data that threaten to impede our progress in acquiring more knowledge and, ultimately, our transition to net zero. Here, we outline the barriers to sharing data and what we can do, as an industry, to help dismantle them.

Old habits die hard

Sharing data can feel daunting for individuals, even within their own departments or organisations, let alone sharing with organisations outside their own. The reluctance to share or be transparent about data often stems from the fear it could be used as evidence against them – for eg: underperforming in their role as a quantity surveyor – and that they could find themselves out of a job.

This is often easier said than done but it’s important for a company to cultivate a culture of transparency and openness, so that organisations are able to learn from their mistakes, as well as their failures.

What’s the cost of a carbon number?

Similarly, from a macro perspective, organisations are unwilling to share their data because they fear the possibility of any carbon data on their projects being used to compare them unfavourably to their competitors. For example, if the cost and/or carbon numbers of a specific building are higher than a competitor’s building that used similar assumptions, the comparisons could result in negative repercussions.

In a costing context, organisations often have concerns that regulatory bodies or governments will slash budgets by a considerable amount if they’ve evidence it’s possible to construct specific types of buildings at a cheaper price. When we began working on the BECD we realised guaranteeing anonymity would be crucial for encouraging data submission.

Fear of the audit trail

Some organisations assume that submitting data will automatically trigger an audit from a regulatory body or organisation that could result in negative or unfavourable representation of their work from a regulatory perspective. For example, there’s a common misconception that RICS oversees the BECD and that submitting data could be an opportunity for them to comb through the finer details and look for mistakes.

Client confidentiality

Not to be confused with GDPR, most contracts include a clause that prevents the consultant from sharing their clients’ data. Historically, the industry has tended to view data sharing as detrimental, rather than focusing on the benefits. Although this is probably the biggest barrier to sharing data in the industry that continues to be a stumbling block, it could be overcome with a shift in mindset.

Aside from the good it can do for the industry, it can bring individual benefits to organisations too – these include the ability to benchmark and gain insights into how they compare to other organisations. BCIS is currently working on outlining a clause that highlights these, which can be added to contracts.

The search goes on

Over the years, traditional procurement routes have been replaced with processes that mean it’s harder to obtain cost data, due to a higher number of contractors in the supply chain. Historically, quantity surveyors would produce detailed drawings and measurements that would be sent to the main contractor to price at a detailed level. This data would then be returned to the quantity surveyor to oversee and control costs. But over the years, procurement routes tend to involve more sub-contractors, which means the granularity of data isn’t as readily available. This is an issue that could continue to present challenges for obtaining carbon data that needs to be reported at a granular level. In addition to this, the industry has got out of the practice of producing such detail.

The devil’s in the detail

Even if the data is available there can be challenges with ensuring it’s captured in a consistent format, which is an issue we’re continuing to work through as we analyse the data that’s been submitted to the BECD. Quality control is a huge consideration for both cost and carbon data and the industry is still developing methods to ensure these can be measured, estimated and benchmarked in the most effective way.

Conclusion

From facing regulatory or financial fines to losing competitive advantage, there are some considerable barriers to sharing data in the industry. But we need a shift in mindset within the industry – one that moves from the fear of losing out to one that embraces all that the industry stands to gain as a collective. While it’s right to celebrate our successes, we need to take ownership of our failures too.

For those organisations that fear any fallout from sharing data, there is the option of anonymity – from the outset of creating the BECD we wanted to make this possible. And, as reporting of whole life embodied carbon becomes more commonplace, or even mandatory, contracts that highlight the individual and collective benefits of data sharing could become more widespread. These are the steps the industry needs to take to begin bringing down the barriers so essential to our progress.

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