ICMS, international construction reporting standards, were initially developed by a coalition of 50 professional bodies, including NZIQS, and published in July 2017.
Life cycle costs (LCC) play a pivotal role in the financial management of construction projects around the world. As a part of the whole life cost (WLC), they allow critical decisions to be made about the importance of capital and longer-term costs that ultimately affect asset performance, longevity, disaster resilience and sustainability. It is for this reason that the ICMS Coalition has revised and extended the scope of the International Construction Measurement Standards (ICMS) to incorporate this broader cost classification. This new edition supersedes the first edition of ICMS (July 2017) although this second edition can still be used solely for capital cost reporting.
"This new standard is a game changer for the global construction industry, representing the first time there will be an internationally standardised way to report the full life cycle cost for portfolios, programmes, and projects around the world." Ken Creighton, ICMS Chair.
"In simple terms, this means that projects can be easily and quickly compared across jurisdictions, giving decision-makers better tools to analyse the impact of their investment in construction, and now across the full life-cycle of the built asset."
Since its inception, the driving principle behind ICMS has been that consistent practice in presenting construction costs globally will bring significant benefits to construction cost management. As such ICMS aim to provide global consistency in classifying, defining, measuring, recording, analysing, presenting and comparing entire life cycle costs of construction projects at regional, state, national or international level. ICMS are a high-level cost classification system.
The globalisation of the construction business has only increased the need to make this meaningful comparative analysis between countries, not least by international organisations such as the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund, various regional development banks, non-governmental organisations and the United Nations. Since their introduction to the market in 2017, ICMS have already been adopted by a number of high-profile bodies seeking to benchmark project costs internationally. To date this includes large public sector project sponsors, global cost consultancies, constructors, and other construction sector stakeholders (for a list of business support partners visit here).
ICMS in practice
The below documents represent a selection of live examples where the presentation of the cost classification data is illustrated in a form that aligns with this ICMS standard. They have been adjusted as necessary to suit local circumstances.
The examples are taken from projects in Australia, Malaysia and Turkey.
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