Inter-American Development Bank
facebook
twitter
youtube
linkedin
instagram
Negocios SosteniblesCaribbean Development Trends¿Y si hablamos de igualdad?Puntos sobre la iIdeaçãoSeguridad CiudadanaSostenibilidadFactor TrabajoImpactoEnfoque EducaciónGobernarteKreatopolisPrimeros PasosCiudades SosteniblesEnergía para el FuturoGente SaludableMás Allá de las FronterasBeyond BordersIdeas MatterIdeas que CuentanAbierto al públicoMoviliblogVolvamos a la fuente Gestión fiscalHome
Citizen Security and Justice Creative Industries Development Effectiveness Early Childhood Development Education Energy Envirnment. Climate Change and Safeguards Fiscal policy and management Gender and Diversity Health Labor and pensions Open Knowledge Public management Science, Technology and Innovation  Trade and Regional Integration Urban Development and Housing Water and Sanitation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Ciudades Sostenibles

  • HOME
  • CATEGORIES
  • Authors
  • English

The Future of Infrastructure is Sustainability

March 14, 2014 by Autor invitado | Leave a Comment


By Graham Watkins, Environmental and Safeguards Lead Specialist

English |  Español

A large proportion of my time at the IDB is spent working with project teams on infrastructure projects to enhance sustainability through minimizing potential impacts and risks for people and the environment. As human populations have continued to grow and become increasingly urban, the demand for infrastructure to provide energy, transport, and water services has increased. At the same time, there are more vocal demands for improved environmental conditions and avoiding negative consequences for people.

MarioCovasBridge.SaoPaulo.BIg

In this context, in December 2013, the IDB released its new Infrastructure Strategy titled “Sustainable Infrastructure for Competitiveness and Inclusive Growth.” This important document describes the IDB’s approach to supporting the efforts of Latin America and the Caribbean to address the growing demands for infrastructure and balance the need to meet people’s environmental needs. Energy, water, sanitation, and transportation infrastructure investments across the region will have to grow from US$150 billion to US$250 billion each year. These investments will reduce the costs of transport; improve living standards in urban areas; respond to natural disaster and climate change risks; and address water and food security challenges while maintaining environmental services.

Importantly this new Infrastructure Strategy includes as one of its six priority actions to “support the construction and maintenance of an environmentally and socially sustainable infrastructure.” The implementation of the strategy is accompanied by initiatives throughout the IDB to enhance sustainability including the work of the climate change and sustainability division, the biodiversity and ecosystem services program, the Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative, and approaches to enhancing sustainability in specific sectors such as transport. The private sector group of the IDB also evaluates and rewards sustainable infrastructure projects as well as recognizing and adding sustainability value to infrastructure projects.

MarioCovasROAD.SP.Big

Various approaches have been developed throughout the world to rate and establish standards for sustainability in infrastructure projects. These rating and standards systems are helping to create a framework for evaluating and improving the sustainability of infrastructure projects.

Amongst these approaches, the Civil Engineering Environmental Quality Assessment and Award Scheme (CEEQUAL) has been accepted in the United Kingdom as a standard against which to assess sustainability performance. Australia has established the Infrastructure Sustainability rating scheme. In the United States, the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure have developed a tool – ENVISION – as a holistic framework to evaluate and rate sustainability in infrastructure projects. Also in the United States, the Federal Highway Administration has developed the Infrastructure Voluntary Evaluation Sustainability Tool (INVEST) as a basis for improving sustainability in infrastructure projects. Finally, based on a more process oriented perspective, the Nature Conservancy has worked with the World Bank Group to strengthen the application of the mitigation hierarchy in infrastructure projects.

All of these approaches respond to the need for infrastructure projects to demonstrate sustainability from social, environmental, resource management, project management, and climate and risk management perspectives. Furthermore, while there may not be agreement on the specific language for defining “sustainability,” there is a general concordance on what constitutes a sustainable infrastructure project.

LimaTransport.Big

Environmental and social safeguards play a key role in ensuring sustainability in infrastructure projects through supporting effective environmental and social evaluation, planning, and management. A major focus of my and my colleague’s work is to ensure the application of the mitigation hierarchy – avoid, minimize, restore, and compensate – focusing on avoiding and minimizing the negative impacts of projects. This work can lead to improvements in design and efficiency of projects and reduce inherent environmental and social risks, so increasing the overall value of projects.

In our experience, we have found that the early and effective participation of stakeholders in planning – either at regional and national scales or in projects through environmental and social impact assessment – is a critical determinant of the success or failure of a sustainable infrastructure project. That is, being able to identify and rate sustainability in a project and being able to effectively develop the project with stakeholders are equally important to achieving sustainable projects.

To further evaluate this premise, we, in the Environment and Safeguards Group are working with sector specialists from within the IDB, experts in sustainable infrastructure, and a consulting company DNV-GL to understand the enabling conditions that support the development and implementation of sustainable infrastructure projects. Part of this work will be to review existing sustainability rating schemes and to describe and learn lesson from sustainable infrastructure case studies in Latin America and the Caribbean. The ultimate purpose is to help provide guidance to clients to prepare increasingly sustainable and successful infrastructure projects.  We feel that it is particularly important to recognize the critical role of stakeholder engagement and institutional capacities in developing and implementing successful sustainable infrastructure projects.

To this end, we are holding a round table discussion with international specialists in sustainable infrastructure and we would very much welcome your inputs and ideas. This event will take place at the IDB in Washington, DC, on March 19, 2014 from 10 AM in the morning. We hope to see you there.

 

 


Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: emerging and sustainable cities initiative environmental safeguards infrastructure sustainability sustainable infrastructure

Autor invitado

Autor invitado

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Description

Este es el blog de la División de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano (HUD) del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. Súmate a la conversación sobre cómo mejorar la sostenibilidad y calidad de vida en ciudades de América Latina y el Caribe.

Subscription

¡Síguenos en nuestras redes!

Search

Recent Posts

  • KIUDA: ‘nurturing’ international exchanges for better global urban development
  • Cutting-Edge technologies for Smart Cities in Israel
  • Vienna Calling: A residency on innovations in urban development
  • Why should governments and cities use their data better?
  • The day of what? Cities, a concept with many definitions

Categories

Tags

belize Big Data Brazil caribbean China cities citizens climate change collaboration community strengthening emerging and sustainable cities emerging and sustainable cities initiative energy espaço público espaços verdes Gehl Architects housing hurricanes IDB mar del plata melhoramento de bairros migration mobility México night-time economy planejamento urbano planning poverty Residency rios urbanos SE4ALL smart cities Smart City sustainability the Caribbean tree canopy urban design urban design lab urban development urbanism urbanization urban planning Vienna Walkability Washington

Similar Post By Author

  • Sustainable Infrastructure: What’s next?
  • What do We Mean by Sustainable Infrastructure?
  • How to measure urban sustainability—one neighborhood at a time
  • Where the Sidewalk Ends: Facing the Challenges of Urban Growth
  • From “Magic Town” to Smart City: The Case of Tequila, Mexico

Footer

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo
facebook
twitter
youtube
youtube
youtube

Blog posts written by Bank employees:

Copyright © Inter-American Development Bank ("IDB"). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives. (CC-IGO 3.0 BY-NC-ND) license and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed. Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC- IGO license. Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.


For blogs written by external parties:

For questions concerning copyright for authors that are not IADB employees please complete the contact form for this blog.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDB, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent.

Attribution: in addition to giving attribution to the respective author and copyright owner, as appropriate, we would appreciate if you could include a link that remits back the IDB Blogs website.



Privacy Policy

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo

Aviso Legal

Las opiniones expresadas en estos blogs son las de los autores y no necesariamente reflejan las opiniones del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, sus directivas, la Asamblea de Gobernadores o sus países miembros.

facebook
twitter
youtube