Aligning Cost and Carbon
Learn more about our how we can help integrate your cost estimating processes with reliable carbon data below.
What are Integrated Cost & Carbon Estimating Processes
Cost & Carbon Estimating is a novel approach which can accurately estimate and report carbon impacts across the whole lifecycle of complex infrastructure projects. This is achieved by aligning appropriate carbon factors to existing cost estimating data hierarchies, to facilitate carbon estimates without the need to duplicate efforts or undertake additional reporting.
This approach to carbon estimating can harness substantial amounts of data already captured through cost estimations and existing data hierarchies to baseline, estimate, manage and reduce embodied and operational carbon. Cost & Carbon Estimating can also help to achieve your carbon reduction targets, as well as demonstrate compliance with frameworks such as PAS 2080 and RICS WLCA (Whole Life Carbon Assessment for the Built Environment).
The most effective and impactful actions to reduce emissions typically occur in early-stage project development, where there is a greater feasibility and likelihood of implementation. Carbon estimating can help to highlight potential carbon hotspots early within the planning and design stages and allow more focus on the most effective and best value-adding actions and areas.
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Often, cost estimations and carbon assessments are undertaken separately, in isolation from one another. Where this occurs it can be difficult to combine this information to make informed decisions which are both commercially beneficial and drive decarbonisation. Aligning cost and carbon estimating can help to remove these barriers.
Typical cost estimations often require information on both the quantity and cost of resources. This same information can also be utilised to identify a project’s carbon hotspots in both absolute and intensity terms, by highlighting and ranking the most “carbon intensive” elements. This information can drive decision making at concept and design stages, leading to exploration of different engineering solutions or material specifications to achieve carbon reductions.
Cost & Carbon Estimation vs Standalone Carbon Reporting?
It can be beneficial to use Cost & Carbon Estimating instead of Standalone Carbon Reporting:
- When seeking to integrate cost and carbon estimating processes
- When seeking to compare cost and carbon side-by-side, at the same level or work breakdown structures
- When seeking to model a wide range of items with differing functions, specifications, and/or materials
- When the stage of project development means there is still a level of uncertainty around the details of some items
- Where opportunities exist to make decisions to reduce carbon and cost
- When estimating for bespoke and/or complex projects
- At pre-construction or design stage of a project or program
- When comparing different options and engineering solutions (e.g., asset renewal vs asset replacement)
- Where it would be useful to report outputs in terms of carbon intensity (kgCO2e/£)
Who could benefit from Cost & Carbon Estimating?
Some typical examples of organisations who could benefit from utilising Carbon Estimating include:
- Infrastructure clients – such as Transport, Energy, Power & Distribution, Water, Waste, Flood Protection and Major Infrastructure Projects
- Governments & Local Authorities delivering infrastructure projects as a client
- Contractors & subcontractors
- Design & engineering consultants
- Asset and facilities owners and management organisations
- Manufacturing organisations
- Estimating software companies looking to expand their service offering to their clients
Process
At Circular Ecology, we develop innovative carbon data solutions focused on resource modelling, capturing uncertainty & risk, ensuring completeness, and accounting for future scenarios, across all life cycle modules.
Our solutions can provide accurate carbon modelling aligned to cost estimating line items and supported by robust calculation methodologies and assumptions. Both generic assumptions and specific information can be utilised as part of the process, dependent on the required stage of project estimate. Typically, more generic data might be used earlier in the development of a project, which can then be supplemented by more specific data (such as specific product EPDs) as a project matures to completion.
System boundaries and scopes are often bespoke, based on the specific needs of the client, however Circular Ecology can provide reliable carbon data across all PAS 2080 carbon management modules. From pre-construction through to end-of-life.
Circular Ecology can also provide a “Cost to Carbon” fallback approach to ensure completeness of coverage, by using known and modelled data to inform suitable cost-based carbon factors which can be applied to resources that may be difficult to accurately model from first principles. These factors are based on a high-level category approach and are applied to resources in the unit of kg CO2e/unit spend. These factors can be used to quickly establish reporting and get a carbon estimating process up and running, whilst detailed refinements take place on an iterative basis.
Circular Ecology can work in partnership with cost estimating software providers, offering bespoke, accurate and transparent Carbon Libraries and can support the integration of Carbon Libraries into any existing cost estimating software, to enable aligned cost & carbon estimating for clients
Quality Assurance & Audit Trail
A robust approach to quality and transparency, of data sources and assumptions, is a fundamental part of all business processes. Cost & Carbon Estimating is no different, despite often occurring at early project life cycle stages where specific information is not always available.
Circular Ecology maintains strong audit trails, with all modelling assumptions transparently detailed and any supporting data sources fully referenced. Internal quality assurance processes and data quality index (DQI) frameworks can be developed to demonstrate data quality of the supporting carbon datasets.
To supplement the development of the Carbon Estimating process and datasets, Circular Ecology can provide supporting methodology reports, to detail transparency, data quality, completeness and any limitations of the approach undertaken. Method reports will always be provided in a format suitable for communicating with any interested stakeholders.
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