BCIS – Net Zero Champions

BCIS has been honoured at the Engineering Matters Awards for its commitment to decarbonising the built environment.

The Net Zero Champion Gold Award recognises the BCIS team’s leading role in the development of the Built Environment Carbon Database (BECD). Launched in October 2023, the pan-industry initiative, which has also been funded by BCIS, is free-to-access and is designed to become the main source of carbon estimating and benchmarking for the construction industry.

BCIS CEO James Fiske accepted the award at a ceremony at the Cutty Sark, alongside CMO Richard Maclean.

He said: ‘This award is one that we share, of course, with the BECD Steering Group and Working Group members, who gave their time up freely for the good of the industry.

‘In particular, I’d like to pay tribute to Fabrizio Varriale from RICS for all his hard work. He’s been on this somewhat utopian journey with me for a few years now.

‘I’m very proud that the judges recognised the level of leadership and collaboration required to design a service that moves the industry closer to reducing its carbon emissions.’

Also celebrating was the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) team, which won a Gold Award for its professional standard, Whole life carbon assessment (WLCA) for the built environment.

The standard covers estimating the amount of carbon emitted throughout the life cycle of a project, including embodied, operational and user carbon. BCIS’s own cost and carbon tools have been developed in accordance with the standard.

Fiske said: ‘For both the BECD and the professional standard to be celebrated reflects the collaborative nature that has underpinned our work since the project’s inception and contributed to its subsequent success.

‘The industry needs both the methodology and the data to make carbon reduction a possibility – as the judges acknowledged, these two initiatives working together is key to achieving this.’

Will North, lead producer at Engineering Matters, and a member of the judging panel, said: ‘The judges were impressed by the work BCIS has done to build a foundation for understanding the carbon impact of construction and engineering.

‘This is vital to the development of a low carbon built environment. With the Built Environment Carbon Database, engineers, architects and surveyors can now benchmark their projects against others and calculate the carbon cost of materials used on projects.

‘The goal of the Engineering Matters Awards is to showcase not only great engineering ideas, but to shine a light on the impact these ideas can have on society. The BECD is a great idea, which will benefit the health of the whole planet.

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