Modelling is fundamental to sustainability, particularly when measuring the impacts of development on the environment and society. But when your compliance requirements need you to model impacts to say, kangaroos and trees, and provide a single number as your output, what do you do? ISCA’s Infrastructure Sustainability (IS) rating scheme (version 1.2) emphasises protecting and […]
By Andrew Aitken The Dis-5 Light Pollution credit has troubled many designers and ISAPs alike. It is particularly problematic for motorway projects. The credit criteria reference AS4282 and AS1158 but compliance cannot be shown by assessing your design directly against these standards. The savvy lighting designer will know that AS4282 does not address public lighting—including […]
By Scott Losee It is good to have our thinking and our work challenged. This happened to the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA) when Māori (Mana Whenua) representatives objected to an Australian infrastructure sustainability scheme being applied to Auckland’s City Rail Link project. To ISCA’s credit, it worked with the Mana Whenua and adapted […]
On October 21, Scott Losee received this year’s Individual Leadership in Infrastructure Sustainability Award from ISCA. The award ‘Recognises the individual who best exhibits the most outstanding performance, leadership and greatest contribution to advancing infrastructure sustainability.’ ISCA also recognised Holly Mapson of Laing O’Rourke with a Highly Commended Award in this category. The following citation that accompanied Scott’s award: […]
Mistakes: we all make them, and learn from them, but our business culture is not to talk about them. A Managing Director once counselled me that when submitting ‘traffic light’ board reports for his business line, the lights should all be green. Job interviewees sidestep truthful responses to clichéd questions about personal weaknesses. They offer […]
20 August 2015 …I’ll address infrastructure and sustainability – both long words. Infrastructure is what few people think about but everyone depends on. Sustainability is what everybody talks about but few want to embrace if it means a less affluent, less comfortable or less convenient lifestyle… Trends So, what about infrastructure? Do you know where […]
Tip from an IS Verifier By Scott Losee The goal of the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia’s (ISCA) IS rating scheme is to transform the infrastructure industry to be more sustainable. A key to the transformation must be the way decisions are made regarding the creation and operation of infrastructure assets throughout their lifecycles. The […]
I delivered the following remarks yesterday on the occasion of my retirement from the board of the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia. “Mr Chairman, I have seen a lot since this journey began. Back in 2007, I was seeing a mushrooming of half-baked, project-by-project tools and bespoke rating schemes – when what we needed were […]
Can Australia rely on reduction in greenhouse gas emissions achieved through improvements in infrastructure design? Or, will the opportunity be declared ‘vapourware’ and disregarded? Implementing the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) as part of Direct Action provides another opportunity to re-think policies that might rein-in emissions. With comments on the ERF Green Paper just closed, it seems the […]
The board of the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA) returns to Brisbane for another Queensland based meeting this Thursday, February 20th at the offices of law firm, Holding Redlich. ISCA was born out of a workshop held at Brisbane’s Engineering House several years ago, when some colleagues who had been exposed to early work […]