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CEEQUAL Background
How was CEEQUAL developed?
CEEQUAL was originally developed by a team led by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), with financial support from the UK Government and from the ICE's Research & Development Enabling Fund.
That original development of CEEQUAL was managed by Crane Environmental Ltd, with active support and participation from relevant government departments and agencies, leading civil engineering consultants and contractors as well as professional and industry associations such as CIRIA, the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) and the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA).
The organisations contributing resources to the development project are the Partners listed on the right, many of whom now own shares in CEEQUAL Ltd, the company set up to run the scheme.
Following extensive industry-wide consultation and trialling, the Scheme was launched in September 2003 and the first eight Awards presented at the ICE. The Scheme went public in June 2004 with the publication of Version 3 of the Assessment Manual for Projects.
Since then, CEEQUAL has become the accepted UK industry scheme for assessing environmental and sustainability performance in civil engineering and public realm projects, being now widely used by major civil engineering clients, designers and contractors, and continuing development of the methodology has been an integral part of Scheme management since 2004. The recent launch of not only CEEQUAL for International Projects but also CEEQUAL for Term Contracts now makes the CEEQUAL Methodology available for all civil engineering, infrastructure, landscaping and public realm works.
A substantially revised and updated version of the CEEQUAL Methodology was launched in November 2008 as the CEEQUAL Assessment Manual for Projects Version 4. This involved a range of amendments, upgrades and widening of scope, the most important of which was the addition of carbon assessment alongside energy in the new Section 7, Energy & Carbon. Development of Version 5 of CEEQUAL’s Methodology and its use on all three applications – UK & Ireland Projects, International Projects and Term Contracts – is due to start in late Spring 2011.
What are CEEQUAL's objectives in relation to other environmental tools?
The objective in setting up CEEQUAL was to encourage the attainment of environmental and social excellence in civil engineering, infrastructure, landscaping and public realm works and to deliver improved environmental and sustainability performance in civil engineering specification, design and construction.
In the development of CEEQUAL, account was taken of the substantial body of research and experience relating to environmental issues on construction projects, environmental management of design and construction, and the lessons learnt from the first decade of operating BREEAM, the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method.
However, unlike BREEAM, where there are specific schemes for different types of building, CEEQUAL is an assessment framework appropriate to any civil engineering, infrastructure, landscaping or public realm works. The CEEQUAL Assessment Manuals can be applied to roads and railways, airports, coast and river works, water supply and wastewater treatment, power stations, retail and business parks, landscaping and other public realm works, and to projects of any scale – currently from less than £75,000 to £3 billion and beyond.
The differences between the various types of civil engineering works are taken account of in the scoping-out process carried out at the beginning of each Assessment.
CEEQUAL includes environmental aspects such as the use of water, energy and carbon, land use, ecology, landscape, noise and dust, cultural heritage, waste minimisation and management, and social issues such as the effects on neighbours and community relations.
Awards are made to projects and contracts in which the clients, designers and constructors have gone beyond the legal and environmental minima, to achieve distinctive environmental standards of performance.
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