Risk Management

Understanding Risk in the Built Environment

Risk is an inherent part of decisions concerning land, property, construction and development.

Projects and assets operate within changing economic, environmental, social, technological and regulatory conditions. Effective risk management helps identify uncertainty, understand its potential consequences and make better-informed decisions about how risks should be avoided, reduced, transferred, managed or accepted.

Risk management is therefore not simply about preventing things from going wrong. It is about improving decision-making, increasing resilience and recognising both risks and opportunities.

Risk Management and Surveying

Risk management is an established part of professional surveying practice and is particularly important in construction and project management.

Construction projects can involve uncertainty relating to cost, programme, design, procurement, contracts, supply chains, site conditions, regulation and the performance of different organisations involved in delivery.

Surveyors can play an important role in identifying these risks, assessing their potential likelihood and consequences, determining responsibility and helping clients develop appropriate responses.

RICS provides dedicated professional practice information on the management of risk and includes risk management within its wider suite of construction standards and guidance.

RICS – Construction standards and guidance

Identifying and Managing Risk

Risk management should be a structured and continuing process rather than a one-off exercise undertaken at the beginning of a project.

The process typically involves identifying potential risks, assessing their likelihood and consequences, determining appropriate responses and monitoring how those risks change over time.

A risk register can provide a useful framework for recording identified risks, responsibilities, mitigation measures and changes throughout the lifecycle of a project.

The nature and significance of risk will vary considerably between projects. Relevant considerations may include:

cost and financial risk
programme and delay
procurement and contractual risk
design and construction
health and safety
planning and regulatory change
environmental and climate risk
energy and carbon
resource availability and supply chains
technology and data
stakeholder and community considerations
operation and long-term asset performance.

Effective risk management therefore requires both systematic assessment and appropriate professional judgement.

Sustainability and Emerging Risk

The risk environment affecting land, property and construction is changing.

Climate change, biodiversity loss, resource scarcity, energy transition, changing regulation, technological development and evolving market expectations are creating risks that may develop over much longer timescales than those traditionally considered within individual construction projects.

These issues can affect asset performance, operating costs, insurability, investment, marketability, resilience and long-term value.

Sustainability therefore introduces an important additional dimension to risk management: decisions made today may create environmental, social and economic consequences that only become apparent many years into the life of an asset.

RICS's 2026 Sustainability practice for surveyors highlights the need for the profession to manage and adapt to emerging risks and recognises increasing climate and supply-chain risks as reasons for moving beyond short-term approaches to decision-making.

RICS – Sustainability practice for surveyors

Climate Risk and Resilience

Climate change provides a particularly important example of changing risk.

Buildings, infrastructure and land may increasingly be exposed to flooding, overheating, drought, storms, coastal change and other physical climate impacts.

At the same time, the transition towards a lower-carbon economy creates transition risks associated with regulation, technology, energy performance, changing market expectations and investment decisions.

Understanding these risks can help property owners, organisations and project teams make more resilient decisions and identify opportunities for adaptation before risks become more difficult or costly to manage.

Technology and New Forms of Risk

Technology is also changing the nature of risk within surveying and the built environment.

Digital information, data analytics and artificial intelligence can improve forecasting, monitoring and decision-making, but they can also create new risks relating to data quality, security, governance, transparency and professional accountability.

RICS's global professional standard on the responsible use of artificial intelligence, which became effective in March 2026, specifically includes requirements concerning governance and risk management, professional judgement and oversight, transparency and client communication.

RICS – Responsible use of AI in surveying practice

Risk, Resilience and Sustainable Decision-Making

Risk and sustainability are closely connected. A sustainable approach to the built environment requires consideration not only of immediate project risks but also of how decisions affect the long-term resilience and performance of assets, organisations, communities and the natural environment.

This means considering interactions between different forms of risk rather than treating them independently.

Flooding may affect property value and insurance. Energy performance may influence operating costs and marketability. Resource scarcity may affect construction costs and supply chains. Biodiversity and environmental regulation may affect land use and development.

Understanding these connections can help decision-makers develop more robust and adaptable responses.

Sustain Surveying and Risk Management

Sustain Surveying provides independent professional analysis and advice on sustainability-related risks affecting land, property, construction and development.

Our approach brings together surveying expertise, sustainability research, RICS standards and guidance, government policy and wider professional evidence to help clients identify and understand risks and opportunities relevant to a particular property, project, organisation or decision.

Advice may include early-stage identification of sustainability-related risks; review and interpretation of relevant information; consideration of environmental, climate, regulatory and emerging risks; horizon scanning; and consideration of how sustainability risks interact with wider property and project decisions.

Where an instruction requires specialist technical, legal, financial, engineering, health and safety or other risk assessment beyond the scope of Sustain Surveying's expertise, the need for appropriately qualified specialist input will be identified.