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Reimagining AEC is Dr Sepehr Abrishami's independent podcast on how the built environment handles information. Each episode takes one subject from digital construction, from the ISO 19650 series and the common data environment to the golden thread, soft landings and the arrival of artificial intelligence in design and surveying practice, and tells it as a single argument built on the published standards, guidance and evidence. Sepehr is a researcher and former architect who leads the Centre for AI in Construction and teaches building information modelling at master's level. The episodes are written for postgraduate students and practitioners who want the reasoning behind the rules, not a summary of them.
One organisation in this episode finished its commitment to better information management with years of work still ahead. I am Dr Sepehr Abrishami, host of Reimagining AEC, and the research framework I built ends on one word, together. That word is the point of this episode, because the Information Management Initiative asks the whole industry, one organisation at a time, to manage information to a common standard, building on what it learned from building information modelling, or BIM.
Consider ALEC Holdings, a contracting group based in the United Arab Emirates. On 29 July 2026, nima, the industry body formerly called the UK BIM Alliance, reported that ALEC was one of the first international contracting groups to complete the four-step process of the Information Management Initiative. Completing those steps gave ALEC an internal information management policy covering all of its business units. Each unit implements that policy in proportion to its current capability, in a rollout phased to 2030. The steps were finished, yet the change they bind the group to will run for years.
The Information Management Initiative, usually shortened to the IMI, asks organisations across the built and managed environment to commit to managing data and information well through the life of their assets. The question this episode answers is what it takes for one organisation, from its board to its newest technician, to make that commitment and keep it. To keep the answer concrete, I will follow one organisation through it, a hypothetical engineering consultancy invented for teaching, with several design teams, a bid team and a small facilities management service.
You should come away able to explain why the Initiative exists, who leads it and how it is built. More than that, you should be able to tell its four steps apart and plan how an organisation would take part. I start with its origins and the organisations involved, then its structure, then its four steps in two pairs, and finally how an organisation signs up today.
The origins come first. The Initiative builds on two earlier mandates from government. In 2016 the UK Government required building information modelling at what was then called Level 2 on centrally funded projects. That language of levels is now history, and current practice follows the ISO 19650 series, the international standards for managing information using BIM. In September 2021 the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, or IPA, published its Transforming Infrastructure Performance Roadmap to 2030, which carried an Information Management Mandate. The summary of the Initiative, written by nima and the Construction Leadership Council and published without a date, names both mandates as its foundations.
Industry then took the lead. On 7 November 2024 the Construction Leadership Council, or CLC, launched the Initiative with nima. A task group led by the nima chair, Dr Anne Kemp, had worked to bring the two mandates together. In May 2025 nima announced that the UK BIM Framework, the collection of standards and guidance launched in 2019, had been renamed the IMI Framework. nima maintains it with the support of the British Standards Institution, or BSI. The Initiative's target is that by 2030 the sector moves to a common and consistent approach to managing data and information across the whole life of its assets.
Government does not own the Initiative. At the launch nima described the CLC as leading it with nima's support, and nima's pages now describe it as led by nima and supported by the CLC. In both accounts industry is in charge, and the summary hopes its momentum will in time encourage adoption by UK Government. That lineage explains why the Initiative asks for commitment rather than imposing compliance.
The summary sorts the organisations it touches into three kinds of player. The Parties are those in direct appointments, such as clients, designers, consultants and contractors, and they follow the Framework's rules. The Gatekeepers, such as regulators, insurers and warrantors, need key information and can require the Parties to follow the Framework. The Supporters, such as manufacturers, academia and publishers, help the Parties comply with consistent data, technology or training. Our consultancy is a Party. Its professional indemnity insurer is a Gatekeeper, because an insurer is in a position to require it to follow the Framework.
The next part concerns how the Initiative is built. The summary describes five layers, and I will take them from the top down. The Call for Action answers why and when, with the vision, the benefits and the 2030 target. The Sector-Wide Directive sets out what an organisation agrees to, a set of principles and a route map. The Organisation-Level Mandate turns those principles into over-arching rules inside one organisation and assigns the roles. The IMI Framework supplies the how, with specific rules drawn from standards and guidance, and rests on the pre-existing UK BIM Framework. Resources sit at the base, with how-to guides and tools that depend on funding. The principle running through them is a cascade. Commitment is made at the top, and the rules become more specific as they reach teams and individuals.
The procedure that moves an organisation down this cascade has four steps, each paired with one of the first four layers, from the Call for Action down to the IMI Framework. On-boarding answers the Call for Action. Planning and mobilisation prepares the organisation to sign the Sector-Wide Directive. The third step prepares and issues the Organisation-Level Mandate. The fourth is where teams and individuals follow the Framework rules that match their role. The summary is candid about pace, which can run from weeks or months to several years, depending on readiness and capability.
The first pair of steps is where the commitment is made. Step one, on-boarding, is decided at the top. The organisation commits that it supports the Initiative and that all its teams and individuals will move to fulfil the step one principles. These ask every participant to support the digital transformation of the built and managed environment through better through-life management of its data and information. Each does so proportionately and to the best of their ability. They also ask every participant to understand why six things are important to know. Three concern the information itself, which are its purpose, its content and where it is stored. The other three concern how it is handled, which are how it is shared and used, who has access to it and how it is maintained. I will return to these six at the close.
For our consultancy, on-boarding is one board decision. The harder work follows, as each team, from design to facilities management, begins to answer those six questions for its own information.
Step two, planning and mobilisation, prepares the organisation to sign the Directive. The summary stresses that directive here means a direction towards a goal, not an instruction or an order. Its thirteen principles fall into four groups, and each group carries one idea. Purpose asks organisations to think about the whole sector and whole life, treating an asset as both the physical structure and the data held to manage it. People asks for basic digital literacy as a minimum and, under a principle the summary calls accountability, a recognised and empowered information management leadership. For our consultancy, accountability would mean naming its information management lead. The business function group, which is about process, asks for a common, interoperable framework and data-centric working. Data and information asks for clear governance, storage that avoids duplication, and information treated independently of technology. nima's website now compresses the thirteen into four principles, one for each group.
The Directive comes with a route map, which the mandate later uses to fix where an organisation stands and where it is heading. It sets out five positions, and the summary links moving along them with a growing return on investment. At the starting point, information sits in silos and travels by email, with poor quality and significant risk. The second position follows BIM Level 2 principles, with files held in document management systems and a modest return. The summary marks this second position as a dead end, because file-based working cannot meet growing demands for information without automation, and automation needs data standards and freed data.
The third position is purpose-driven practice under the ISO 19650 series, with data freed and machine readable. The fourth is an outcome-driven, whole-life approach that maintains digital twins. The fifth relies on merged ontologies and data standards, with highly automated processes. The summary also allows a short cut from the starting point straight to the third position, because bypassing file-based methods opens up automation sooner. On currency, the 2018 editions of ISO 19650 Parts 1 and 2 remain in force. In March 2026 nima reported that revised drafts had gone out for UK public comment. Our consultancy might place itself at the second position today.
So both steps of the first pair are decided at the top, one agreeing to take part and the other signing up to principles and a route.
The second pair moves the commitment downwards. In step three the organisation issues its own Organisation-Level Mandate. It identifies the organisation's existing and target positions on the route map, and it must be proportionate to the organisation's roles. Five over-arching rules bind it, and they come down to three commitments. The first is progress. The organisation reaches its target capability within a stated timeframe, and it keeps training its people to get there. The second is practice. Each participant follows the Framework rules relevant to their own activity, and the organisation sets up a process to encourage and monitor compliance. The third is openness, because the organisation shares its progress internally and across the Initiative.
The summary adds a sharp point. The Directive is signed at the top, yet the mandate empowers the lowest tier of activity to manage data and information day to day. For our consultancy, the mandate might state a move from the second position on the route map to the third, and the date by which it will get there.
Step four is where individuals act. The specific rules come from the standards and guidance within the IMI Framework. For now, the way into them follows the three party groupings of the ISO 19650 series. The appointing party, such as a client, sets the requirements and accepts the information. The lead appointed party coordinates information across its delivery team. An appointed party produces information within a task team. In our consultancy, the bid team, when it leads a delivery team, would follow the lead appointed party rules, and the design teams would follow the appointed party rules.
The facilities management service could lead somewhere else. If the firm managed information for a client's assets in operation, the route would lead into ISO 19650-3 of 2020. Its process runs from assessing the need for information through to aggregating accepted information into the asset information model, or AIM, the information used to manage an asset in operation. The episode on information management in the operational phase covers that process in full.
The summary names three outcomes that successful adoption should show. There should be clear definitions of the information needed and of how it is produced and reviewed. Information should be just sufficient for the need, without compromising health and safety or security, because too much is wasted effort and too little leads to uninformed or misguided decisions. Information should also transfer efficiently between those involved in each part of an asset's life. So the second pair of steps turns the commitment into an internal mandate with a date attached, and then into rules that fit each role.
The last part leaves the summary, written before the launch, for what nima reports now. Its undated answers to frequently asked questions set out a practical route. A senior executive, whom nima calls the IMI champion, makes the commitment. A designated manager, the IMI coordinator, handles the follow-up. The organisation then tells its employees and other stakeholders, signs the Sector-Wide Directive, and involves its staff in developing the Organisation-Level Mandate.
nima also describes three levels of involvement. A signatory commits to the Initiative and encourages adoption of its principles. A supporter commits people to help the Initiative and its Framework develop. A sponsor helps to fund that development, and sponsors and supporters are also signatories. Supporter in this sense is a level of commitment, which differs from the Supporters among the three kinds of player. For our consultancy, the realistic first move would be to become a signatory, appoint a champion and a coordinator, and start drafting its mandate.
nima's forums show where the Initiative stands now. At its quarterly forum in September 2025, nima reported that the Initiative had moved into its second phase. At its June 2026 forum, nima named the Initiative as one of two mechanisms in its long-term strategy, called IMPACT 2035, alongside a pathway to chartership. The same forum marked the methodology for preparing and implementing an organisation's mandate as completed, and listed a tool, the IMI Maturity and Benefits Framework, as due during 2026.
The July report on ALEC Holdings shows the later steps at work in a real organisation. nima's account of ALEC words the four steps a little differently from the summary, with a stage of assessing maturity across people, processes, data and technology before the mandate is issued. ALEC's mandate took the form of an information management policy, which every business unit implements in proportion to its current capability. That proportionate, phased mandate matches what I traced for the invented consultancy.
To draw this together, the opening question asked what it takes for an organisation, from its board to its newest technician, to commit to managing information well. The answer runs through the four steps. The board commits through on-boarding. The organisation plans, mobilises and signs the Sector-Wide Directive. It issues a mandate naming its present and target positions on the route map and a timeframe. Then every team and individual follows the Framework rules for their own role. Taking part starts with a champion, a coordinator and a choice between acting as signatory, supporter or sponsor.
When you read an organisation's commitment, look for the mandate behind it, because the summary requires that mandate to state existing and target capability and a timeframe. Expect pace to differ between organisations, from weeks to several years, and read the Directive as a direction rather than an order. Above all, put the six on-boarding questions to each team in turn. A team that can say why it holds its information, what it holds and where, how it shares it, who can reach it and how it is kept current is already moving towards the Initiative.
For reading, take the summary of the Initiative by nima and the Construction Leadership Council in full, then nima's pages on the Initiative and its answers to frequently asked questions. The episode on parties, teams and processes in the delivery phase explains the three party groupings behind step four.
The route map is the part of the Initiative most worth taking into an organisation you work for or study. It fixes where that organisation stands before it says where it is heading, and that is what you will hear from me, Dr Sepehr Abrishami, whenever Reimagining AEC comes back to the Initiative.