RICS launches new global sustainability guide and UN Global Compact report

New publications underline RICS' role in equipping surveyors to deliver sustainable, resilient and inclusive built and natural environments.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has launched a new global guide, Sustainability practice for surveyors, alongside its 2025 UN Global Compact Communication on Engagement report, reinforcing its commitment to advancing sustainability across the built and natural environments.

The new guide provides foundational sustainability knowledge for RICS members, those pursuing RICS membership, early-career professionals and senior practitioners seeking to update their understanding of sustainability in professional practice.

Published alongside the guide, RICS' 2025 UN Global Compact Communication on Engagement report sets out how RICS is supporting the UN Global Compact and the UN Sustainable Development Goals through its standards, guidance, partnerships and professional development activity.

Together, the publications demonstrate how RICS is supporting the surveying profession to respond to major global challenges, including climate change, resource use, biodiversity loss, social value, inclusive growth, ethical practice and the transition to a low-carbon built environment.

With the built environment responsible for a significant share of global energy use, carbon emissions, resource consumption and waste, the guide highlights the need to move beyond short-term decision-making and embed sustainability across the full asset life cycle.

The guide makes clear that sustainability is not a separate specialism to be delegated only to experts, but a cross-cutting responsibility for the whole profession. Surveyors influence decisions at every stage of an asset's life cycle, from investment, valuation, planning and design through to construction, management, retrofit, regeneration and end of life.

The publication focuses on four key sustainability issues for surveying practice:

• climate change mitigation
• climate change adaptation and resilience
• circularity and resource use
• biodiversity and ecosystem health.
  

It also introduces a structured seven-step workflow to help surveyors translate sustainability objectives into practical outcomes: context, scope, data and metrics, assessment and analysis, advice, action and learning.

RICS' UN Global Compact report complements the guide by showing how these principles are being advanced through practical work across the profession. This includes RICS' work on whole life carbon assessment, the Coalition for life cycle emissions alignment and reporting, International Cost Management Standards, the Built Environment Carbon Database, the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard, residential retrofit standards, ESG valuation guidance, responsible business practice, land governance, diversity and inclusion, anti-corruption benchmarks and global partnerships to support built environment decarbonisation.

The guide also explains how sustainability links to RICS professional ethics and standards, including the responsibility of members and firms to encourage solutions that minimise harm and deliver balanced economic, social and environmental benefits.

It includes practical discussion of life cycle thinking, whole life carbon, climate risk, social value, natural capital, sustainable procurement, certification schemes, ESG reporting, taxonomies, disclosure frameworks, data quality and the role of digital tools and AI.

RICS' 2025 UN Global Compact Communication on Engagement report also highlights its broader work to equip members with the skills and insight needed to address complex social, environmental and economic challenges. This includes the Sustainability Advisory pathway, updates to continuing professional development, and work to strengthen sustainability-related competencies across RICS products and professional services.

"Our members advance sustainability across assets, cities, and the natural environment. Today, we are publishing two documents to support their efforts. The new global sustainability guide offers a shared foundation for consistent outcomes across all practice areas and career stages. As a participant in the UN Global Compact, RICS is committed to its Ten Principles. Our Communication on Engagement report highlights our ongoing sustainability initiatives to address the environmental, social, and economic dimensions."

Anil Sawhney, Head of Sustainability, RICS

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