Constructing Excellence Value Toolkit drives value-based decision making in construction

[edit] Constructing Excellence Value Toolkit announcement

In London on 29th January 2025 Constructing Excellence announced that it is the open distributor of the Value Toolkit – the leading government and industry-backed initiative driving a ‘value first’ approach in construction. The Value Toolkit was previously distributed by the Construction Innovation Hub, following collaboration between industry and government on its development.

The Building Research Establishment (BRE) – which runs Constructing Excellence nationally – has been responsible for facilitating the transition of the Value Toolkit to Constructing Excellence to ensure its continued uptake across industry, and continues to play a crucial role in the roll-out of the Toolkit, alongside several other leading organisations in the built environment. The transition ensures that the Toolkit remains an essential resource for embedding value-based decision-making across the sector.

Designed to support clients, policymakers, and project teams, the Value Toolkit enables organisations to define, deliver, and manage outcomes. Its adoption supports a focus on long-term value rather than short-term costs.

Developed with input from over 200 partners across industry and government, the Toolkit has already empowered clients in both the public and private sectors, including Bristol City Council and East Sussex County Council, to make better-informed decisions, achieving outcomes that contribute positively to the built environment.

[edit] Retaining open accessibility

The move from the Construction Innovation Hub to Constructing Excellence ensures the resources remain freely accessible and positioned for widespread adoption. With its extensive network and shared commitment to driving value in the built environment, Constructing Excellence has also convened a cohort of leading institutions, organisations and individuals involved in the development of the Toolkit to facilitate uptake across industry and embed its ethos in industry culture and practices.

This development underscores the construction industry’s collective commitment to a culture of value creation—one that prioritises the whole-life value of assets and delivers meaningful environmental, social, and economic outcomes for people, places, and the planet.

Today’s announcement coincides with the Constructing Excellence Annual Conference taking place today, bringing together key decision makers from across the Constructing Excellence Movement and wider construction industry.

[edit] Reactions the announcement

Jane Goddard, Managing Director of Building Products and Services (BPS) and Deputy CEO at BRE, said:

“Today’s news reaffirms BRE’s, along with Constructing Excellence’s, commitment to driving value-based decision-making which focuses on the broader outcomes of built assets beyond cost. The Value Toolkit is a crucial mechanism to ensuring the construction sector is a community which prioritises the value of environmental, economical, and societal outcomes of buildings and projects. We are pleased to have been involved in the Toolkit’s development from the outset alongside industry and government; its impact so far has been significant, enabling those in the private and public sectors to make more informed decisions about their projects.

“We look forward to seeing the continued uptake of the Toolkit as the construction sector contributes to a thriving and sustainable built environment which benefits individuals, communities and the wider economy.”

Fergus Harradence, Deputy Director, Infrastructure, Construction & Rail at the Department for Business & Trade (DBT), added:

“The Value Toolkit supports the optimisation of the design and delivery of projects and programmes in the built environment, and their performance when in operation, an objective of the Transforming Infrastructure Performance: Roadmap to 2030. The Toolkit was developed in response to an identified need for public and private sector clients and the supply chain, for a common methodology for defining value for a construction project or programme.

It was funded through the Transforming Construction Challenge and defined and trialled through a collaborative process involving Government and over 200 industry and academic experts from the construction sector. The Value Toolkit provides a methodology for developing outcome-based specifications and, through this, delivering the requirements of the Social Value Framework, as well as those of the Climate Change Act and the Environment Act 2021. Its use is recommended by the HMG Construction Playbook and associated supplementary Guidance Notes.”

[edit] About the Value Toolkit

The Value Toolkit is a government backed initiative designed to change the way the construction industry thinks about and measures value. Decision making in construction has been historically driven by how much something cost, or how long it took to build. A project’s entire value was measured against those two benchmarks.

Together with over 200 partners in industry, academia and government, the Construction Innovation Hub have reframed the definition of value, and how it can be measured through the Toolkit. The Value Toolkit is a suite of tools to empower clients and policymakers to make value-based procurement decisions that will result in the environmental, social and economic outcomes they want.

This world leading value-based methodology positions the UK construction sector, and its clients, at the forefront of conscious and informed decision-making. The high-level methodology was published as a BSI Flex Standard in June 2022. By embracing the Value Toolkit, you can make balanced, informed decisions, maximising the impact of your investments in the built environment and demonstrating the delivery of broader outcomes beyond traditional cost, time and quality.

You can gain access to guidance on how to prioritise value-based decision-making within your project planning process and make more informed and policy-aligned decisions for the future. The Value Toolkit is applicable to both public and private sector, and can be used on single projects, across programmes and at an enterprise level.

This article was issued vias press release as "Constructing Excellence to distribute Value Toolkit as it continues to drive value-based decision making in construction", dated 29 January 2025.

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