The construction industry’s addiction to new acronyms

There are two certainties in construction. One is that every project will take longer than the programme suggests. The other is that, somewhere between concept and completion, someone will introduce a new acronym. It usually arrives in a slide deck. Three or four capital letters, often accompanied by a swoosh graphic and a claim that this changes everything. Heads nod around the table. Some people pretend they’ve heard it before. Others scribble it down to Google later, but nobody wants to be the one to ask what it actually means, writes John Ridgeway.

Construction has always had its shorthand. Some of it is essential. It would be exhausting to say “Building Information Modelling” every time instead of BIM, or to spell out “mechanical, electrical and plumbing” on every drawing. Acronyms can save time and reduce repetition. The trouble starts when they stop clarifying and start obscuring.

Over the past decade, the industry has developed an impressive appetite for inventing new clusters of capital letters. Many are born from perfectly legitimate ideas, such as sustainability targets, procurement routes, digital processes, safety frameworks. But somewhere between the policy paper and the project site, clarity gets lost.

Acronyms have a curious effect. They create the impression of precision. Three letters feel authoritative. They imply structure, consensus, even inevitability. Yet often they conceal concepts that are still evolving, contested or poorly understood.

Take sustainability. A conversation about reducing operational carbon can quickly become a discussion about EPCs, MEES, NABERS, BREEAM, PAS standards and a handful of net-zero variants. Each term has its own meaning, scope and measurement method. Each serves a purpose. But when they are layered on top of one another without explanation, the original question - how do we design and build better-performing buildings? - gets buried.

A young engineer once admitted, quietly, that he kept a private glossary on his phone to survive design meetings. It wasn’t that he lacked technical ability. He simply didn’t want to interrupt the flow by asking what the latest acronym stood for. He is not alone.

Mistaken for expertise

There is an uncomfortable hierarchy embedded in this. Fluency in acronyms can be mistaken for expertise. Those who speak the dialect confidently appear informed. Those who pause to decode it risk looking inexperienced. It becomes easier to nod along than to challenge.

The irony is that construction is already complicated enough. It involves risk, money, safety, time pressure and a dizzying number of stakeholders. Adding layers of opaque language does not improve understanding. It often does the opposite.

Clients feel it first. Particularly those outside the development bubble. A school trust trying to refurbish a building, or a small manufacturer commissioning an extension, can quickly feel excluded from conversations that shape their own projects. They hear about gateways, frameworks, compliance pathways and digital twins, but not always about what these mean for cost, programme or usability.

Acronyms can also mask duplication. Two different initiatives may be pursuing similar outcomes under different names. Entire workshops can be devoted to aligning strategies that, stripped of their capital letters, are simply variations on common sense, such as coordinate early, share information, reduce waste.

There is, of course, a lighter side to all this. Construction professionals have developed a dry humour about the phenomenon. There are bingo cards circulating online filled with predictable combinations of S (sustainable), I (integrated), D (digital), R (resilient) and T (transformational). It is not difficult to invent something that sounds plausible. The danger is that, occasionally, someone does.

But the consequences are not always funny. When language becomes detached from meaning, decisions suffer. If a project team cannot articulate in plain terms what they are trying to achieve, the result is often confusion disguised as progress.

Consider safety. Rebranding long-established responsibilities under a new acronym does not make sites safer. Clear communication, competent supervision and realistic programming do. Yet safety strategies are sometimes wrapped in terminology so dense that their practical implications become secondary.

The same applies to procurement. A new route may promise collaboration, efficiency or innovation, but unless everyone involved understands how risk is allocated and decisions are made, the label offers little comfort. An acronym cannot fix a poorly structured contract.

There is also a cost to constant reinvention. Every new framework requires training sessions, guidance notes and consultant hours to interpret. Teams spend time learning terminology rather than refining craft. Energy that could be directed toward solving practical problems is absorbed by decoding language. This is not an argument for abandoning technical vocabulary. Construction is a specialist field, and precision matters. But precision is not the same as abbreviation.

Can it be explained clearly?

A useful test is this - can the concept be explained clearly to a non-specialist without hiding behind initials? If the answer is no, either the idea is not fully formed or it has been allowed to drift too far from its purpose.

Clarity is not simplistic. In fact, it is demanding. It requires the speaker to understand the subject well enough to describe it plainly. It requires the listener to engage rather than defer to jargon. It encourages shared ownership of ideas rather than gatekeeping.

Some of the most effective project leaders have a habit of translating automatically. When a consultant introduces a new acronym-heavy initiative, they pause and restate it in ordinary language. “So, what you’re saying is…” It is a small act, but it changes the dynamic. It invites questions. It exposes gaps. It brings everyone back to first principles.

The industry faces serious challenges like decarbonisation, skills shortages, regulatory reform and affordability. None of these will be solved by inventing better acronyms. They will be addressed through thoughtful design, robust engineering, collaboration and a willingness to learn from mistakes.

There is something reassuring about plain speech on a building site. Instructions are direct. Measurements are clear. Problems are described as they are found. No one asks for the three-letter version of a misaligned beam. They fix it.

Perhaps that is the lesson. Buildings themselves are refreshingly indifferent to terminology. Steel behaves according to physics, not branding. Concrete cures on its own timetable. Water will find a way in regardless of how elegantly the waterproofing strategy is titled.

In the end, the industry does not need fewer ideas. It needs fewer layers between ideas and action. When language becomes a barrier, projects slow and trust erodes. When it becomes a bridge, decisions improve.

So, by all means keep BIM and the other indispensable shorthand. But before unveiling the next capitalised concept, it might be worth asking a simple question - does this help people understand what we are actually doing? If the answer is yes, welcome to the dictionary. If not, perhaps we can resist the urge to add three more letters to the pile.

Construction is complex enough. Clarity is not a luxury. It is a discipline and one we would do well to practise more often.