ICMS 3
The third edition of the International Cost Management Standard: a free classification and presentation structure for construction costs, life cycle costs and carbon emissions, agreed by 49 professional bodies.
ICMS gives construction projects a common reporting structure, so that two figures can be compared without first reconciling what each party counted. The first edition, in 2017, covered capital costs. The second, in 2019, added life cycle costs. The third, published in November 2021, added carbon emissions alongside cost, in the same classification, so the relationship between money and emissions on the same asset can be read from one structure.
It is not an estimating method and it does not say what anything should cost. It is a presentation standard: a hierarchy into which costs and emissions are placed so that a figure produced in one country, sector or firm can be set against a figure produced in another. The ICMS Coalition, which RICS convenes, publishes the standard and a separate Basis for Conclusions recording why each position was settled, and both are free, which remains rare among international standards in this field.
Sources
ICMS Coalition, International Cost Management Standard: Global Consistency in Presenting Construction Life Cycle Costs and Carbon Emissions, third edition, November 2021, with its Basis for Conclusions published separately. ISO 15686-5:2017 for the calculation standard the classification sits beside.
Read the sources
- ICMS 3, International Cost Management Standard, life cycle costs and carbonthird edition, 2021; read 2026-08-29.Free. Agreed by 49 professional bodies through the ICMS Coalition, which RICS convenes.
- ICMS 3 Basis for ConclusionsDecember 2021; read 2026-08-29.Free. The coalition stating why the standard says what it says, which ISO does not publish.