Month: March 2023

Happy World Water Day 2023

Water is life. A sustainable water future is closely tied to climate change and healthy communities. The water sector is improving infrastructure performance, establishing benchmarks and leading practices to transition to a circular economy to support the communities of the future, all the while making more prominent cultural values of water.

On this World Water Water day, we would like to highlight ISC Water Projects that have accelerated change – Watercare Services Limited, Sydney Water, Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, Downer, Parkes Shire Council, Whitsunday Regional Council.

We also thank our IS Water Advisory Group – an impressive team of water experts across Australia and New Zealand.

GHD, SA Water, Sydney Water, Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, Water Corporation, Sunwater, Wellington Water, AECOM, Aurecon, KPMG Australia, Mott MacDonald, Lumus, Coliban Water, Parkes Shire Council

For more information on the ISWAG, please contact
monique.isenheim@iscouncil.org

 

To accelerate the eradication of modern slavery from infrastructure supply chains.

The ISC Modern Slavery Coalition was established in 2019 in response to the introduction of the Australian Modern Slavery Act. This coalition aims to accelerate the eradication of modern slavery from infrastructure’s supply chains by shifting industry from a place of reactive compliance to one of transformational leadership.

The International Labour Organisation estimates there are over 40 million victims of modern slavery globally. Modern slavery includes a range of severe exploitive practices, including slavery; servitude; forced labour; debt bondage; abuse of vulnerability and other means for the purpose of exploitation. Of the estimated 40 million victims, 25 million people were victims of forced labour of which 18% are in the construction sector.

Current members of the ISC Modern Slavery Coalition

Alexander Coward – Director, Pillar Two (co-chair)

Sebastian Conley – Sustainable Procurement Manager (co-chair)

Sara Lindqvist – Sustainability Manager, Downer Group

Christopher Bourne – Senior Manager, Environment and Sustainability, ACCIONA

Jim Green – General Manager Strategic Procurement, John Holland Group

Anderson Camargo – Sustainability Manager, Ventia

Ramon Dobb – National Procurement Manager

Join the ISC Modern Slavery Coalition

The Modern Slavery Coalition is very keen to hear from any ISC member that might be interested in joining the group. The Coalition meets approximately every six weeks and works together to raise awareness, build capability and deliver positive impact toward the ultimate goal of the eradication of Modern Slavery. Email us (info@iscouncil.org) for further information.

Click here to register your interest in joining the Modern Slavery Coalition today.

 

To accelerate climate action in every town, city and region through a place-based approach.

The cities and regions in which we live, work and play are as unique and diverse as we are as individuals – no two are the same. While we are all working towards a common global goal of positive climate action, how that is delivered from place-to-place needs to be responsive to the specific context, strengths and vulnerabilities of those communities – particularly if we want to leave a lasting positive legacy.

Infrastructure has a leading role to play in delivering climate action. Infrastructure enables up to 70 per cent of emissions through the way we plan, design, build and use infrastructure assets. This coalition will progress a systemic, networked approach to accelerating decarbonisation focused on towns, cities and regions rather than leveraging the knowledge and work undertaken at an asset, sector and material level.

This may include:

• Convening and leveraging existing knowledge, expertise and resources in the sector to lead placed based approaches to climate action for every town, city and region.
• Progress the principles and frameworks outlined in Placed-based Approach to Climate Action which includes:
  • Collaboration between governments, industry, business and communities is needed across powers; partnerships; platforms (data); and people.
  • Integrated, systemic and collaborative governance that plays to the unique strength and influence of each actor.
  • Is built on the principles of placed-based approaches; co-design; systems approach and innovation.
• Identify and partner with pilot places to support acceleration of placed-based approaches while sharing learnings and insights for others to scale.

To accelerate the transition to circular business models and economies in infrastructure.

Minimising raw material extraction, avoiding waste and halting pollution are crucial strategies for achieving net zero emissions and stemming nature loss.

A key mechanism in achieving this is a systemic transition to a circular economy supply chain that maintains the quality, availability and value of a wide variety of used resources through recycling, logistical and re-use processes that work efficiently and effectively for the infrastructure sector. As such, there has been a lot of work locally and globally to accelerate the transition to circular economy. Much of this focus has been on developing innovative approaches to materials and resources e.g. waste management, products, recycled content sorting, processing and manufacturing.

This coalition compliments and aligns with existing progress and initiatives to focus on the ‘economy’ of circular economy looking at how to integrate the infrastructure network of systems to drive circularity through circular business models and local economies.

This may include:

• Understanding and sharing what is a circular vs linear business model for infrastructure including examples from other sectors.
• Understanding and recommending key points in the value chain and/or economic levers (e.g. business case, investment, procurement, development, decommissioning) in which a circular economy framework can be embedded and how to do that.
• What are the economic metrics and indicators of circular management and success.
• How can circular economy support and enable the broader industry reform agenda (e.g. collaborative contracting models).

To accelerate systemic resilience so that infrastructure can enable thriving lifestyles, communities and nations, now and into the future.

There is an increased focus on resilience and adaptive capacity across society, economy and the built environment, particularly in the wake of early climate change impacts and COVID-19. It is becoming increasingly common for resilience planning to be undertaken at the asset and local government levels incorporating placed-base approaches and stakeholder involvement.

The challenge remains how we consider resilience and adaptive capacity in a systemic way – not only in consideration of additive and cascading risks and impacts; but also by embedding resilience through the supply chain; from investors, asset owners, users and suppliers.

Resilience in infrastructure is not just about protecting the built forms but ensuring that the service the asset provides will remain flexible, agile and resilient through the shocks and changes of the coming century:

• Understanding, defining and measuring systems versus asset resilience.
• Understanding the asset and associated levels of service required from infrastructure to enable communities to thrive (and not just survive) during the next century.
• Aligning financial drivers (e.g. investment, insurance) to better reflect the risk, costs and opportunities associated with shocks and changes across the 21st Century.
• Exploring the systemic considerations of additive and cascading risks and impacts which may impact and/or require adaption.
• Exploring the “business model” of new and emerging types of infrastructure that provide a resilience service e.g. blue/ green infrastructure.