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The main purpose of the study is to promote consideration of the issues and approaches available for costing sustainable buildings with a view to minimising cost overruns, occasioned by conservative whole-life cost estimates. The paper primarily looks at the impact of adopting continuity in whole-life cost models for zero carbon houses.

The study embraces a mathematically based risk procedure based on the binomial theorem for analysing the cost implication of the Lighthouse zero-carbon house project. A practical application of the continuous whole-life cost model is developed and results are compared with existing whole-life cost techniques using finite element methods and Monte Carlo analysis.

With standard whole-life costing, discounted present-value analysis tends to underestimate the cost of a project. Adopting continuity in whole-life cost models presents a clearer picture and profile of the economic realities and decision-choices confronting clients and policy-makers. It also expands the informative scope on the costs of zero-carbon housing projects.

A primary limitation in this work is its focus on just one property type as the unit of analysis. This research is also limited in its consideration of initial and running cost categories only. The capital cost figures for the Lighthouse are indicative rather than definitive.

The continuous whole-life cost technique is a novel and innovative approach in financial appraisal […] Benefits of an improved costing framework will be far-reaching in establishing effective policies aimed at client acceptance and optimally performing supply chain networks.

The continuous whole-life costing pioneers an experimental departure from the stereo-typical discounting mechanism in standard whole-life costing procedures.

The essential investments in new product development (NPD) made by industrial companies entail effective management of NPD activities. In this context, performance measurement is one of the means that can be employed in the pursuit of effectiveness.

The purpose of the project was to develop a framework document and input tool for use in local government to enable quantity surveyors and others with enough knowledge to produce a life cycle costing analysis with the minimum of effort. The general perception in the surveying profession of the complex formulae associated with whole life costing (WLC) has led to it being described by local government as “a nebulous concept that falls on deaf ears”. This paper seeks to describe research to develop a user‐friendly approach using a generic software input tool accompanied by a framework document designed specially to assist in WLC analyses. An explanation of the mathematical formulae used is also given.

The research project was commissioned by the Society of Construction Quantity Surveyors (SCQS) in mid‐2004 and to date has involved the development of a framework document and WLC input tool which has been tested by local government. The project is in the final stages of completion and training on WLC and use of the developed input tool has commenced.

The feedback from use of the developed tool by local government quantity surveyors has been positive and the benefits of using such a tool are evident amongst the surveying profession.

The researchers have had to overcome a number of challenges to ensure the effective running of the tool to the satisfaction of the prospective users – quantity surveyors in local government.

A framework document and software tool have been specifically developed for use by quantity surveyors in UK local government.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the whole-life costs of non-residential green-rated building developments in Singapore to derive useful information for research and practice. When industry stakeholders like building owners, architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, builders and facility managers have detailed information about the initial and operating costs of different types of buildings, they will be able to apply whole-life costing to their existing or new projects with the intention of achieving value for money, as well as environmental sustainability. The developed index is useful to green policymakers and building owners.

Data are collected from building projects certified by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) of Singapore under the Green Mark scheme, starting from 2005. Statistical analysis is performed on the collected data to generate the information required to build the index as well as cost database. The Paasche price index method is used to produce a weighted composite index for Singapore’s non-residential building sector.

The results show the classification of whole-life costs components by two main groups – “development and construction costs”, and “operating and maintenance costs”. There are a total of 68 cost significant items selected from 13 construction work categories. Comparing the weights for three non-residential building types, the highest is obtained for industrial building, which is followed by institutional and commercial buildings.

Without data, the description of the research has primarily dealt with the formulation of the proposed index because designing an appropriate methodology is key to ensure widespread acceptance and use.

Prospective users have to be aware that the index cannot provide information about change in absolute terms and is not very accurate as such in reflecting the actual level of costs or prices of the variable of interest. However, it is a good indicator of the relative change over time in the level of costs or prices.

It is expected that this method contributes additional information to BCA’s existing tender price index about a building’s operating costs as well since the proposed index is a measure of change in the average whole life-cycle costs of buildings over time.

Despite existing life cycle costing (LCC) method descriptions and practicable suggestions for conducting LCC analyses, no systematic analyses on actual implementations of LCC methods exist. This paper aims to review reports on LCC applications to provide an overview of LCC uses and implementation feasibility.

A review of LCC cases reported in academic and practitioner literature. Case reports were compared against one another and against the defining articles in the field.

Most of the reported LCC applications were far from ideal. Compared to the methods suggested in the literature many of the case study applications: covered fewer parts of the whole life cycle, estimated the costs on a lower level of detail, used cost estimation methods based on expert opinion rather than statistical methods, and were content with deterministic estimates of life cycle costs instead of using sensitivity analyses.

This review is limited to reported LCC applications only. Further research is encouraged in the form of a field‐based multiple‐case study to reveal context‐specific dimensions of LCC analysis and implementation challenges in more detail.

This review highlights the difficulty of conducting a reliable LCC analysis, and points out typical problems that should be carefully considered before drawing conclusions from the LCC analysis.

First systematic analysis of LCC applications that gives directions for further research on the LCC concept.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate attitudes and opinions of quantity surveyors working for design and construction contractors regarding the importance and use of life cycle costing within private finance initiative (PFI) projects, and the subsequent effects on the maintenance budgets of the facilities management contractor within the PFI consortium.

This research includes a literature review, a questionnaire survey, four semi‐structured interviews and a case study of a facilities management contractor that operated on a completed PFI project.

The research identified that contractors' quantity surveyors generally did consider life cycle costs when procuring new products/elements for PFI projects, but in certain circumstances, such as during exceptionally busy times or when working within tight construction budgets, life cycle costs were not considered and procurement decisions for some products/elements were made on the basis of lowest capital cost. The research found that the occasional failure of contractors' quantity surveyors to consider life cycle costs had significant financial risk implications for the facilities management contractors, as there were likely to be increased maintenance costs in the future, compared to the original budget for maintenance costs.

This research will be of interest to industry professionals working on PFI projects, particularly quantity surveyors and facilities management contractors. Academic researchers with an interest in life cycle costing will benefit from the information on the practicalities of managing costs on a PFI project.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the result of an optimisation via life cycle costs (LCC) depends on the assumptions made throughout the process of calculating LCC.

A framework is used to structure the assumptions made in the process of calculating LCC. These include the following three pairs: technical versus economic life‐span, static versus dynamic calculation method or costs only versus income minus costs. In a broader sense, these LCC are referred to as the life cycle economy (LCE). Two case studies form the basis for the LCC calculations. Using different assumptions, the LCC of virtual design variations of these buildings are compared to each other.

The rankings drawn from the calculations differ according to the chosen calculation method, i.e. the chosen variation for the optimisation of a building is not consistent.

This is essentially an exploratory study and the prognosis of future cash flow in relation to certain design variations requires further research.

The credibility of life cycle costing should improve with a greater transparency of assumptions in the context of the outlined framework.

All players in facilities management who support their decisions with LCC will benefit from this quantification of the impact of different calculation methods. The extension of LCC to LCE will help planners, investors and owners of real estate in evaluating building options with respect to quality, image, flexibility or comfort.

Through a case study, this paper reports on a research project to develop a risk integrated methodology for forecasting the cost of electricity in a National Health Service (NHS) acute care hospital building. The paper is formed of two strands. Strand one presents a rationale for selecting an appropriate time series forecasting method and strand two looks at the implementation of probabilistic modelling of the forecasts generated in strand one. The results of the research revealed that the Holt‐Winters multiplicative forecasting method produced the most reliable forecasts. The probabilistic modelling of the forecasts revealed that after a pair‐wise comparison between data collected at the hospital used as the case study and data collected from NHS acute care trusts nationwide, the forecasts were most likely to belong to the Weibull distribution. The results could then be used as inputs into a whole life cycle cost model or as a stand‐alone forecasting technique for predicting future electricity costs for use in the NHS Trust Financial Proforma returns.

The purpose of this study is to describe life cycle cost (LCC) and life cycle assessment (LCA) evaluation for single story building house in Malaysia. Two objective functions, namely, LCA and LCC, were evaluated for each design and a total of 20 alternatives were analyzed. Two wall schemes that have been adopted from two different recent studies toward mitigation of climate change require clarification in both life cycle objectives.

For this strategic life cycle assessment, Simapro 8.3 tool has been chosen over a 50-year life span. LCC analysis was also used to determine not only the most energy-efficient strategy, but also the most economically feasible one. A present value (PV)-based economic analysis takes LCC into account.

The results will appear in present value and LC carbon footprint saving, both individually and in combination with each other. Result of life cycle management shows that timber wall−wooden post and beam covered by steel stud (W5) and wood truss with concrete roof tiles (R1) released less carbon emission to atmosphere and have lower life cycle cost over their life span. W5R1 releases 35 per cent less CO₂ emission than the second best choice and costs 25 per cent less.

The indicator assessed was global warming, and as the focus was on GHG emissions, the focus of this study was mainly in the context of Malaysian construction, although the principles apply universally. The result would support the adoption of sustainable building for building sector.