CIRIA has launched a new tool for calculating the benefits of green and blue infrastructure CIRIABEST (CIRIA’S Benefits Estimation Tool)

The tool and guidance make assessing the benefits of blue-green infrastructure easier, without the need for full scale economic inputs.

CIRIABEST was first produced and released as a spreadsheet tool (‘BeST’) in 2015 and was updated in 2019 (‘B£ST’).

New for 2023 will be the online, spatial version of CIRIABEST, which guides the user through the estimation process.

CIRIABEST was launched at our hybrid event on 27th April.

This new product will be available for purchase from the CIRIA bookshop from 29th May.

If you would like to try before you buy please go to www.ciria.best – you will be asked to create a CIRIA login and will be able to access CIRIABEST for free until 26th May. Any work will be retained should you then wish to purchase the tool.

The Benefits Estimation Tool, CIRIABEST, is a structured way to estimate the value of the multiple benefits of blue-green projects. It provides a method to assign monetary value to a range of benefits that are not normally quantified. Rather than assigning definitive figures to values, best encourages the user to think about the level of confidence they have in the data they have used, and the value assigned to the benefits in the context of the project.

The main goal of CIRIABEST is to enable robust business cases to be made to give confidence to decision makers in the value of such projects to society, the environment and the economy.

The new CIRIABEST:

• encourages conversation between those involved in a project
• shows what benefits can be provided by a project in comparison with a ‘do nothing’ baseline
• is map-based, helping users to visualise the context of the project and import their own data
• guides the user through a structured process of benefits estimation
• enables a number of projects to be evaluated and compared within an identified area boundary
• provides downloadable pdf outputs for use in presentations, funding bids and business plans
• can be used in retrospect to demonstrate the multiple benefits of an existing project
• draws on the latest and most reliable published data, saving time and effort in locating evidence

We are keen to hear about your experience at the launch would be grateful if you could complete this short survey before it closes on Friday 5 May 2023.  Your feedback makes a difference and helps us to shape future events.

If you would like to receive a CPD certificate for your attendance, please answer the relevant question in the survey. We will issue the certificates in about ten days’ time.

We will upload the event recording as soon as possible and email you when this is available. In the meantime, you can access the speakers’ presentations here.