Skip to main content Skip to navigation
It is Constructing Excellence's mission to improve the performance of all sectors of the built environment industry. Delivering excellence at industry level begins with delivering individual and corporate excellence.
Constructing Excellence is at the forefront of bringing the latest best practice knowledge to the industry. With an extensive and growing bank of knowledge, Constructing Excellence is able to work with your business to develop a package of improvement services designed to meet your needs, and delivered in the format most suited to you: from conferences and mentoring, to publications and training.
As a member, our guidance and training will enable you to develop your personal skills and improve your business' potential.
| Guidance - Plain English Guide to Sustainable Construction | Published February 2008 | The Plain English Guide is designed to appeal to a broad cross section of staff across the whole construction supply chain, and not necessarily those who are involved with sustainability issues on a day-to-day basis. The document is broken down into ten key sections:
The Plain English Guide is free to download for members or can be purchased from the Constructing Excellence Shop for £50 by non-members. |
| Guidance - Making a Difference: Corporate Responsibility for the Built Environment | Published July 2008 | Making a Difference: Corporate Responsibility for the Built Environment looks at the four main areas of Corporate Responsibility (CR):
The guide examines the issues and considerations for construction in each area and includes a crib sheet of ideas for implementing CR and a page of useful links to help organisations progress their CR strategies. This guide is only available to Constructing Excellence members. Click here to download a copy of Making a Difference: Corporate Responsibility for the Built Environment |
| Guidance - Construction Legacy reports | Published April 2008 | The Construction Legacy Programmes operate as a partnership between The Housing Forum and ConstructionSkills. The purpose of the programmes, through Demonstration Projects is to promote leading employment and training projects around the country. The programmes aim to ensure there are long term benefits to local communities to fill skills gaps whilst making an investment in the communities they serve. Currently there are a total of 40 projects in the housing and regeneration sector across two parallel programmes which are operating under the Construction Legacy banner. Interim reports from the two complementary programmes, Construction Legacy - Housing and Construction Legacy - London are available to download. |
| Guidance - Outputs from The Housing Forum working groups | Published April 2008 | The outputs from The Housing Forum's working groups for 2007/08 were published at its Annual Conference in April 2008. Links to the documents, which are available to Housing Forum or Constructing Excellence Group members can be found below:
|
| Guidance - Clients' Commitments | Published November 2008 | The Construction Clients' Group (CCG) has launched the Clients' Commitments at their recent inaugural national conference. The Clients' Commitments, which replaces the existing Construction Clients' Charter, is a framework for action and guidance for all clients irrespective of their experience and expertise. Critically, it is geared towards full engagement of supply chain partners through the use of the Construction Commitments. The backbone of the Clients' Commitments are six best practice guides that have been developed by CCG members representing construction clients from both the public and private sector and has been developed to enable clients to get better value from their construction procurement. The framework is supported by mechanisms to measure project performance and project team behaviour. The CCG is also signposting clients to other organisations and websites for relevant additional information. For more information on the Clients' Commitments please visit the CCG website. |
| Other key guidance documents | 1998 - 2008 | Since its inception in 1998 Constructing Excellence has been responsible for a number of publications and guidance documents that have changed the face of construction. Members of Constructing Excellence have access to all of our outputs and it is generally 12 months before these are accessible by others in the industry. Previous examples of our work include: |
| Toolkit - Construction Clients' Group CDM Self Assessment Tool | Launched November 2008 | The CDM Self Assessment Tool is a web-based tool for businesses that procure construction work. The Tool helps businesses; assess whether or not they are compliant with their CDM duties, points them to guidance, provides a benchmarking facility and allows them to record actions against their assessment which is summarised in a simple one page report. |
| Toolkit - Strategic Forum for Construction's Integration Toolkit | June 2008 | In June 2008 Constructing Excellence took on responsibility for hosting the Strategic Forum for Construction's Integration Toolkit. The Toolkit focuses on the behaviours that need to be adopted, identifies the critical elements that need to be considered and offers some tools and techniques that can engender the appropriate culture in which collaborative working can thrive and signposts to existing best practice to help companies implement the relevant processes. |
| Other toolkits | 1998 - 2008 | Constructing Excellence has developed a number of other online tools to help companies improve performance:
|
| Knowledge brokerage | Ongoing | Constructing Excellence is in a unique position as an honest broker sitting at the hub of industry, clients, government and the research community. As such, part of our role is in signposting to any outputs that can help improve industry performance. We are currently developing a web-based portal for our members' use that will better enable them to find the guidance that will best meet their needs. |