Project overview
Flood and coastal risk management depends on timely, trusted information and confident decision-making. Multifaceted Information Modelling (MIM) is transforming how the Environment Agency (EA) plans, designs, costs and decarbonises flood and coastal programmes by embedding digital excellence at a system level.
Developed collaboratively by the EA, WSP Binnies and delivery partners, MIM standardises how time, costs, quantities and carbon data are created and exchanged across the project life cycle. By bringing carbon into early design, improving cost certainty and making programmes visual, explainable and testable, MIM supports better decisions that strengthen long-term catchment resilience for communities, infrastructure and the environment. As Digital Transformation Lead, WSP Binnies translated the EA’s vision for MIM into a plan for delivery and led the development of the data standards, digital workflows and governance needed to embed consistent, decision-ready information across design and delivery.
Scalable, transferable and evidence-based, MIM provides a replicable model for digital excellence in flood and coastal resilience and beyond.
Flood and coastal schemes were often delivered using fragmented, project-by-project data, inconsistent standards and late-stage estimates of cost and carbon. This limited confidence in business cases, delayed assurance, increased manual effort and reduced opportunities to influence outcomes when design choices mattered most.
For a national, multi-asset programme responding to increasing climate risk, the EA needed a consistent, scalable approach that would enable earlier decisions, stronger stewardship and progress towards net zero.
MIM was developed to address these challenges at a structural level. It introduces a user-centred, standards-driven framework that integrates 4D (time) and 5D (quantities, cost and carbon) information from the earliest optioneering stage, creating a shared, trusted data environment that supports better decisions throughout delivery and into operation.
Creating lasting value
Social value and safety
Environmental outcomes
Programme and cost efficiency
Key elements of the approach
- Integrated 4D and 5D modelling linking programmes, quantities, costs and carbon data to 3D models, enabling project rehearsal, improved safety planning and early scenario testing
- Structured, open data exchange extending ISO 19650, the UK BIM Framework and geoCOBie to time, costs and carbon, supported by clear Exchange Information Requirements, an MIM playbook and templated workflows
- Proportionate digital delivery using an MIM scoping tool, plain language questions and enhanced visualisation tools to tailor digital outputs to project need
- Interactive dashboards and visualisation through 3D Repo and Power BI, providing accessible insight for technical and non-technical users
Delivering multiple benefits
Social value and safety
Visual programmes and virtual rehearsals improve understanding across multidisciplinary teams, supporting clearer communication and safer delivery. Duty holders and contractors benefit from explainable construction sequences, while visual outputs support more effective stakeholder and public engagement
Environmental outcomes
By introducing carbon assessment at the point of greatest design influence, MIM enables lower-carbon options to be identified and tested earlier. Consistent carbon attributes and scenario modelling support the EA’s net zero ambitions, with benefits modelling indicating annual carbon savings building to approximately 30 tCO₂ as adoption scales – equivalent to the carbon emitted by a car driving around the world six times or the carbon absorbed by over 1300 trees in a year.
Programme and cost efficiency
Standardisation of quantity take-offs based on 3D models improves cost estimation, strengthening business cases and enabling more confidence in forecasts. Structured programmes aligned to Uniclass unlock the ability to analyse project and construction tasks to target future improvements. Automated data exchange between systems reduces manual effort, ensuring cost and carbon data is visible alongside 3D models in Asite 3DRepo and Power BI dashboards. This structured and standardised approach to cost and carbon data also supports a ‘should cost’ modelling approach by developing a database of historic values across a variety of asset and project types.
MIM was delivered through close collaboration among the EA’s Digital Asset Data and Information Programme, project delivery teams and Collaborative Delivery Framework (CDF) Lot 1 and Lot 2 partners. Co-design ensured the approach was practical, industry-aligned and easy to adopt.
Designed to be software-agnostic, its data models and evaluation methods make it transferable to other sectors, positioning MIM as a reference approach for digital transformation in infrastructure in the UK and beyond.
Collaboration and legacy
MIM was delivered through close collaboration among the EA’s Digital Asset Data and Information Programme, project delivery teams and Collaborative Delivery Framework (CDF) Lot 1 and Lot 2 partners. Co-design ensured the approach was practical, industry-aligned and easy to adopt.
Designed to be software-agnostic, its data models and evaluation methods make it transferable to other sectors, positioning MIM as a reference approach for digital transformation in infrastructure in the UK and beyond.