Advancing sustainability in infrastructure

The Gillard Labor Government has approved $100,000 in funding for the Australian Green Infrastructure Council’s (AGIC) development of a Sustainability Rating Scheme.

This funding aims to develop a national voluntary framework for sustainability assessment, to enable industry participants across government, investment, asset management, engineering, environmental science, and planning and construction to find more sustainable ways of designing, delivering and operating infrastructure.

The scheme will be a practical tool to demystify sustainability in an infrastructure context, establishing a national industry language and metric based on the principles of economic, social and environmental sustainability, and with common benchmarks for internal monitoring, reporting and improvement.

The announcement brings the federal government’s total contribution to this project to $500,000, including $400,000 committed by the Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water.

Once the scheme is ready, infrastructure providers will be able to reduce the environmental footprint of their projects during both construction and operation, while still maximising the social and financial returns on their investment.

Further information on the scheme can be obtained from AGIC’s website: www.agic.net.au.