ONE of the members' pledges in the CICES sustainability policy is to adopt life cycle costing, whole life carbon modelling and post construction modelling. These are concepts that I worked with on capital water industry projects from the early 21st century, and this article will reflect on some of these experiences with a view to providing some insights that you may develop in your achievement of this pledge. I first encountered a contractual obligation for life cycle costing on a capital water project framework in the early 2000s. The water company sought to improve capital efficiency by setting whole life target costs for capital schemes, based on what similar schemes would have cost historically, but with an efficiency factor applied. The contract partner was challenged with finding an even cheaper scheme to enable it to achieve gain share. The capital cost was calculated using a database of historic component costs. The lifetime cost component was calculated fairly crudely, using average costs as a percentage of capital cost for mechanical and electrical components and capital replacement costs for civil, mechanical and electrical costs for life expired components. Thus, the contract partner was incentivised to come up with increasingly efficient schemes.
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