Infrastructure Sustainability Council calls for industry shake-up

Australia’s Infrastructure Sustainability Council has released two new agendas that it hopes will bring the building industry together around a shared vision to address climate change and combat inequality.

The first agenda, Advance our nations, fair – world-class infrastructure for thriving nations, explores barriers to world-class infrastructure performance.

The second, Place-based approaches to net zero, calls for a systemic, networked approach to decarbonisation focused on towns, cities and regions.

Developed in partnership with Urbis, Advance our nations, fair – world-class infrastructure for thriving nations finds industry fragmentation, subjective decision-making, risk aversion and sectoral capacity are the key barriers to world-class infrastructure performance.

“Infrastructure is about solving problems and enabling opportunities,” says Urbis Future State Director Kate Meyrick. “If we want to be a better ancestor for future generations then we need to take a more restorative approach and make far bolder decisions today.”

Existing approaches to achieving net-zero in the infrastructure sector will not achieve required results. A new approach is required if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

So says the Place-based approach to net-zero report, which was released in partnership with Mott MacDonald.

The report calls for a systemic, networked approach to accelerating decarbonisation focused on towns, cities and regions rather than simply assets, sectors and materials.

“This is a call to action for the infrastructure sector to lead by example, thinking globally, acting locally in the cities and regions which we live, work and play,” says Mott Macdonald Climate Change Practice Lead Amanda Sturgeon.

“The true power of a place-based approach is that it unlocks innovation and new potential that would not be evident from a typical top-down approach, such as local business investment and community engagement in net zero solutions.”

The report calls for collaborative change across a number of areas including:

• For sustainability and climate action to be a core objective of the infrastructure reform and business case
• Embedding of quadruple bottom line outcomes in infrastructure planning from earliest possible opportunity
• Accelerating our transition to more collaborative ways of working through both contracts and culture, and commit to putting people and places at the heart of what we do
• Investing in capability, resources and systems to enable an accelerated transition to net-zero
• Leading with good governance that enables collaborative planning, delivery and decision-making across every town, city and region.

Image by AleSpa – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29290121