CIRIA’s tool and guidance, BEST (Benefits EStimation Tool – valuing the benefits of blue-green infrastructure) makes assessing the benefits of blue-green infrastructure easier, without the need for full scale economic inputs.

B£ST was first produced and released as a spreadsheet tool in 2015 and was updated in 2019.

New for 2022 will be the online, spatial version of BEST, which guides the user through the estimation process. Watch this space for more details!

The Benefits Estimation Tool, BEST, 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 BEST 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 BEST:

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

Previous updates to BEST are presented in the table below:

2015 version	2019 version
Focused on SuDS measures only	Also includes NFM (natural flood management) and other elements of blue-green infrastructure
Includes evidence up to 2015	Includes evidence up to 2018
Monetary values in 2014 prices	Monetary values in 2017 prices
Includes 19 monetised and 4 non-monetised benefit categories	Following rationalisation and addition of new categories (noise and traffic calming), includes 15 monetised and 3 non-monetised benefit categories
Results presented for ecosystem service and triple bottom line categories	Interactive results dashboard in tool
Detailed information requirements	Information requirements set out more clearly for both simple and detailed assessments
Results presented in terms of ecosystem services and triple bottom line	Results presented in terms of ecosystem services and natural, social and other capitals

The usability of B£ST has been improved, it follows a simple structure that begins with coarse screening and qualitative assessments to quickly identify the benefits to evaluate further. It then provides support to help quantify and monetise each benefit. On completion of the evaluation, the tool provides a series of graphs and charts to present the benefits in terms of ecosystem services and natural, social and other capitals.

B£ST 2019 tutorials are available to view on our YouTube channel.
Click here to view B£ST tutorials.

 

Downloads

Please be aware some of these free downloads require logging in, or registration into the CIRIA website. To download the tool, please follow the instructions and "Add to Cart".

B£ST 2019 tools

W047a B£ST: Benefits Estimation Tool – Valuing the benefits of blue-green infrastructure (Release 5.1.1 20/09/19)
W047c B£ST: Comparison Tool – Enables the comparison of more than one assessment (Release 3.01 12/02/19)

B£ST 2019 guidance

W047b B£ST: Guidance – Guidance to assess the benefits of blue and green infrastructure using B£ST (Release 5 v0B June 2019)

B£ST - Presentation - PPT with notes (Release 2, 12/02/19)

B£ST 2019 case studies

A number of case studies using B£ST 2019 have been developed. These include the B£ST spreadsheet (.xls) and the case study information (pdf).

Burpham Court case study
Burpham Court B£ST spreadsheet

Clothworkers Wood case study
Clothworkers Wood B£ST spreadsheet

Killingworth and Longbenton case study
Killingworth and Longbenton B£ST spreadsheet

Roundhay Park case study
Roundhay Park B£ST spreadsheet

Glasgow SWMP case study
Glasgow SWMP B£ST spreadsheet

Other B£ST resources

B£ST is underpinned by evidence and information, these have been reviewed and used since 2013 and links to information can be found here.

Demonstrating the multiple benefits of SuDS - A business case - Literature review (2013)

 

Demonstrating the multiple benefits of SuDS - A business case - review of sources (2015)
Making B£ST better - Evidence review summary (2018)

 

We will be including case studies with completed valuation spreadsheets in the forthcoming weeks.

B£ST focuses on the benefits of blue-green infrastructure, rather than the costs. There have been projects and initiatives to capture the costs of SuDS. However, cost information is going to be very context specific depending on the site, the design approach, components and maintenance arrangements. Further information on costs can be found here.

Feedback

We would be very keen to understand how you found using B£ST so we can make any necessary changes. If you have any feedback it would be helpful if you could please complete this simple survey.