Sustainable Infrastructure: rating and certification, decision-support, calculators and guidelines

As a next step to the FIDIC 2012 State of the World Report this section includes a global review of sustainability appraisal tools used to support infrastructure decisions: rating and certification, decision-support, calculators and guidelines.

 

The 2012 State of the World Report drew widespread approval at the FIDIC conference in Seoul. The report focused “on the nature of decisions made by project teams, their impacts and some of the dimensions of sustainability that influence decision-makers” (FIDIC 2012, p.2). This included a global review of sustainability appraisal tools used to support infrastructure decisions. These tools were grouped into four main categories: rating and certification, decision-support, calculators and guidelines.

 In early 2013 FIDIC requested an update of the various tools, in time for the Centenary conference in Barcelona in September. The purpose of this update was to provide a current and more in-depth assessment of the tools. This allows for an informed discussion of the state-of-play in the development of such tools at a global level. A number of relevant tools had not been identified in the 2012 report and there has been continuing development of others that were. Several additional examples included in this review were identified through feedback from the 2012 report and desktop research.

While the number of tools in this review has expanded, it is not a complete database. There are a plethora of tools that have some claim to sustainability in decision-making in the built environment; it would be a significant task to capture them all. This review does, however, act as a useful reference for industry. It provides an indication of the types of tools available around the world and helps to inform tool selection through providing basic information about the nature of the tools and how they are applied.

This update presents summaries of tools based on templates established for each of the four main categories. The content of these summaries is presented in Table 1. Headline banners (examples shown in Figure 1) provide a quick reference for comparing tools within a category.  Information was collected primarily from the tool websites. Certifying organisations / developers of the rating and certification tools and decision-support tools were contacted to review draft summaries to ensure accuracy of information.[1]


[1] Overall summary tables for each category indicate where a tool has not been reviewed.

Table 1 Outline of tool summaries

Tool type

Summary content

Rating & certification

Headline banner: Applicable sectors; award type (see Figure 1a).

Supporting information: countries where the tool applies; deployment and developments, applicants; government endorsement; support to applicants; sustainability criteria; assessment scoring; performance levels; evidence collection; tailoring (i.e. possibility to scope-out questions); fee; case study example (where use of a case study had been approved by the certifying / administering organisation).

Decision-support

Headline banner: Applicable sectors; function (see Figure 1b).

Supporting information: countries where the tool applies; deployment and developments; guidelines for sustainable design (i.e. what type of guidance is provided); use with other tools; level of support services; sustainability criteria; process summary; design option appraisal functions; fee; level of materiality (tailoring); case study.

Calculators

Headline banner: Applicable sectors; themes (see Figure 1c).

Supporting information: countries where the tool applies; compatibility with other tools; inputs and outputs; database library (i.e. details of data sources); access; guidance for users; methodology; data intensity and flexibility,

Guidelines

Headline banner: Type; themes (see Figure 1d).

Supporting information: countries where the tool applies; applicable sector; date of publication; access; target group/users; development; key sustainability themes.