Number of CEEQUAL assessments soars

Take-up of CEEQUAL has reached treble figures over the past year. A total of 114 assessments have been carried out or are underway since the scheme was launched. The overall value of projects that have been or are being assessed under CEEQUAL is now approaching £3.5bn.

Since CEEQUAL's launch in 2003, thirty-one Awards have been made – most of these are listed on the Awards page. The Interim Award option, introduced in 2006, has proven popular, with six Interim Awards already made since then.

The CEEQUAL Scheme Management Team and its Technical Advisory Group have just started work on Version 4 of the CEEQUAL Manual (Scheme for Projects). A CEEQUAL Scheme for Term Contracts will be finalised in parallel with this.

What is CEEQUAL?

CEEQUAL is an awards scheme assessing the environmental quality of civil engineering projects - a civil engineering equivalent to BREEAM for buildings. It is being promoted by ICE, BRE, CIRIA and a group of committed industry organisations. Its objective is to encourage the attainment of environmental excellence in civil engineering projects, and thus to deliver improved environmental performance in project specification, design and construction.

CEEQUAL uses a rigorous points-scoring-based assessment, which is applicable to any civil engineering project and includes environmental aspects such as the use of water, energy and land as well as ecology, landscape, nuisance to neighbours, archaeology, waste minimisation and management, and community amenity.

A CEEQUAL award publicly recognises the achievement of high environmental performance. Awards are made to projects in which the clients, designers and contractors go beyond the legal and environmental minima to achieve distinctive environmental standards of performance.

Benefits of CEEQUAL

• promotes improved environmental performance in project specification, design and construction
• demonstrates the commitment of the civil engineering industry to environmental quality
• celebrates the achievement of high environmental standards in civil engineering projects.

• measures and compares standards of performance,
• respects people and the society in which it operates,
• seeks to undertake its work in an ethical and sustainable manner,
• acts in a socially and environmentally responsible way,
• protects and enhances the environment,

and is concerned about the major impacts of construction on the environment and the earth’s resources.

If you would like to register a project for a CEEQUAL award, please read the 'How CEEQUAL works' page, and then use the link at the bottom of that page to register your interest.

The first set of CEEQUAL Awards were presented to eight civil engineering projects in the UK at a launch ceremony at the Institution of Civil Engineers on 9th September 2003.

Since then, many more applications for CEEQUAL Awards have been received and are being assessed, many of them for large-scale projects.

All projects that have successfully completed their CEEQUAL assessment and have received an Award are listed on the 'Recent Awards' page.