The International Construction Measurement Standards (ICMS) will facilitate a better comparison of construction project costs to improve investor confidence and attract more private sector funding.

Organisations including Arup, Arcadis, Gardiner and Theobold, Faithful+Gould, Turner & Townsend and Gleeds have announced their support for ICMS by registering as ICMS ‘partners’.

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According to Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, almost $78 trillion (approximately £59.4 trillion) needs to be spent globally between 2014 and 2025 on infrastructure and the ICMS committee saw the need to de-risk these projects for public and private sector investors.

See Lian Ong, chair of the ICMS Standards Setting Committee, said: “We are delighted to launch this new standard.

“With increasing levels of public private, cross-border financing and construction investment funds underpinning our pension schemes, it is vital to make sure costs can be assessed in a transparent way.

“The ICMS framework will improve ways of working and this collaborative project is an example of the global construction profession uniting to improve ways of working for the public interest.”

The World Economic Forum has also called for professional collaboration to standardise cost definitions and classification.