The world has seen exponential economic growth over the past 50 years; growth that has been built on the extraction and use of natural resources associated with the traditional linear "take, make and dispose" model. Under this approach, material goods end their lifecycle as emissions or waste and can have acute impacts on human health and the environment. To meet the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, there is an urgent need to decouple economic growth from the use and extraction of natural resources.
Infrastructure development is resource intensive. In 2015, for example, half of the global material footprint was attributed to the construction sector alone. Sand, as a major component of concrete, also forms a large part of this material footprint, and is the second most consumed natural resource after water.
Rethinking how infrastructure is planned, designed, built and operated across all sectors can help to improve the resource efficiency of infrastructure and make it a driver of sustainable development. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), for example, has estimated that an annual average of $6.9 trillion in infrastructure investment is required until 2030 to raise the probability of holding global warming below 2°C from 50% to 66%, and to help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Integrated approaches to sustainable infrastructure
Given the urgency of the issue and the complex, networked properties of infrastructure systems, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Development Corridors Partnership have issued a joint policy brief focusing on the benefits of integrated, systems-level approaches to making infrastructure more resource efficient.
Integrated approaches consider the interlinkages between different infrastructure systems and sectors, their locations, relevant governance frameworks, and the three pillars of sustainability – economic, social and environmental – throughout the entire infrastructure lifecycle. They do so as far upstream in the decision-making process as possible and involve inclusive stakeholder consultation from the outset.
Integrated approaches also recognize that developments in one sector can have positive cross-over impacts in another. Technological advancements in the transport sector, such as improved fuel efficiency in vehicles and trends towards electrification, can reduce energy demand and the need for new energy infrastructure. Efficient spatial planning can facilitate the transportation of materials between source and user, thereby fostering more circular resource flows. This enables “industrial symbiosis” where, for example, the waste streams from some industrial processes are used as inputs in others.
Enhancing resource efficiency
Needs-based assessments should be conducted to better inform national and long-term strategic infrastructure development and inclusive decision-making. Better planning of infrastructure can help avoid “siloed” and “project-by-project” approaches that often result in inefficient service delivery, which contributes to decreased resource use by limiting the amount of new infrastructure projects that are built.
In addition, better management of existing infrastructure can generate savings of up to 15% on infrastructure investments. Further, economic benefits occur with more resource-efficient practices as the costs of raw materials can reach up to 40-60% of the total construction and manufacturing costs for a given infrastructure asset. This should involve a shift of the construction sector towards reusing as many materials as possible as well as using alternative construction materials since, for instance, construction projects in the US were able to use 27% of its construction material from recycled contents such as fly ash and gypsum wallboard.
The role of nature-based solutions
Nature-based Solutions take advantage of the services that natural infrastructure can provide. For example, natural and artificial ponds, reed beds and wetlands can be used to treat raw sewage and wastewater. Afforestation or protection of existing forests and other ecosystems can enhance traditional flood protection measures and reduce soil erosion, while urban green infrastructure – such as walls and roofs planted with native species – can sequester carbon, remove air pollutants and reduce the incidence of water pollution caused by urban run-off. These natural solutions to infrastructure service needs can reduce the necessity to construct new infrastructure and provide cost-effective and resource-efficient complements and alternatives to traditional “grey” infrastructure.
Tools and approaches
There are a number of existing tools that can be used to support integrated approaches to sustainable infrastructure. The Evidence-Based Infrastructure approach, developed by the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and the Infrastructure Transition Research Consortium (ITRC) at the University of Oxford, is, for example, designed to account for the interconnections among infrastructure systems, and utilizes a “systems-of-systems” approach. This can help quantify the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of different infrastructure development scenarios. Strategic Environmental Assessments can also be used to integrate environmental and social considerations into infrastructure decision-making processes. In addition, standards from financial institutions such as the International Finance Corporation’s Performance Standard 6 can help to incorporate sustainability into financing infrastructure projects.
More resource-efficient infrastructure will be critical to meeting the goals of the global sustainability agenda. The policy brief calls for policymakers and planners to recognize the interlinkages between material resource use, natural resources, and the complex and diverse systems of infrastructure that are necessary to contribute to human and economic development. Integrated, systems-level approaches can help to increase the resource efficiency of infrastructure as a key driver of sustainable development.
To read the policy brief in full length, please follow this link.