The infrastructure that results post Covid-19 must be the type of sustainable infrastructure that can help societies meet the challenges of the future.
What are the qualities that make infrastructure projects and systems be economically, socially and technologically sustainable to truly meet the moment and endure well beyond it?
6 qualities of sustainable infrastructure
These qualities can help ensure that the infrastructure we build is sustainable in a variety of ways.
Environmental resilience
This includes mitigating the environmental impacts of projects as well as building-in resilience to the effects of climate change already underway.
Benefit-sharing
Including communities in the planning and design process of infrastructure development, considering the needs of the socially and economically vulnerable and ensuring access to essential services to underserved communities to ensure the benefits are dispersed widely.
Social acceptability
By engaging with all stakeholders to respect local sensitivities and understanding their needs, the resulting service will be affordable, it will respect local customs and will integrate special groups where needed to preserve and enrich the social fabric of communities.
Economic and institutional effectiveness
Safeguarding value-for-money leads to projects that are financially sustainable and fairly and transparently regulated. Focusing on this area can also embed knowledge and skills that can guide the development of future projects.
Future-proofed
Future-proofed projects secure adequate maintenance for assets over their lifecycle and plan for aging and end-of-life management. This aspect is ever more important in our increasingly connected world, where future-proofing must also include considering the opportunities and risks of future technology and business model disruptions.
Critical mass potential
A vital component that improves strategic planning ability, replicability and financing scalability. This allows for successful projects that can be implemented repeatedly in different places, saving time and money in the development process.
While these qualities are comprehensive and may seem ambitious, they are by no means impossible to achieve.
There are many infrastructure projects built around the world already that can serve as guides. A group of hospitals developed by Meridiam for the Turkish government incorporates all of these qualities, from focusing on environmental resilience by becoming the first public-private partnerships in Turkey to feature comprehensive ESG, SDG and climate monitoring reporting, to critical mass potential by developing a specific framework for executing on these types of healthcare sector PPPs.
The story is much the same with the Saïss Water Conservation Project developed in Morocco and backed by the European Bank for Reconstructing and Development. To integrate social acceptability, a stakeholder engagement plan was developed that included an emphasis on supporting the creation of women-led businesses to improve female economic inclusion. Future-proofing was also a focus to ensure the long-term viability of the fragile water source, with technical cooperation grants mobilized to monitor the water level and control water extraction.
These are just a few of the examples of the many projects that provide sustainable infrastructure and establishing a clear definition of the characteristics of sustainable infrastructure is an important factor in financing its construction.
With governments fiscally constrained by efforts to stabilize their COVID-ravaged economies, they will likely have to draw on multiple sources for financing to fund sustainable infrastructure development, including the private sector.
ESG-focused investments have become ever more attractive and are projected to increase in value when the pandemic wanes. More concretely definitions help create an investable asset class that can draw in the financing needed.
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