1 Introduction

The complexity of the topic “infrastructures” is demonstrated first of all by the different definitions that are given to this subject. Considering a territory made up of places (e.g., buildings) in which the most diverse functions can be performed, from the residential to the industrial, artisan craft or commercial, “infrastructure” can be defined as the set of connection systems between these places. This definition is clearly reductive since a railway network can be considered to be an infrastructure, but at the same time, a railway station, a physical place similar to a building, can also be considered as an infrastructure.

Attempts to define infrastructure have been made by public and private institutions, professional organizations, stakeholders associations and, of course, researchers. Although a complete overlap between the definitions is impossible, there are common elements that concern physical components that make up the infrastructure, interrelation systems and social needs understood as the need for services that must be guaranteed.

Among the different definitions, one of the most complete and the current one is the definition proposed by the American Society of Civil Engineers: “The infrastructure supporting human activities includes complex and interrelated physical, social, ecological, economic, and technological systems such as transportation and energy production and distribution; water resources management; waste management; facilities supporting urban and rural communities; communications; sustainable resources development; and environmental protection” (Fulmer 2009; ASCE 2009).

In the report published in 2009, ASCE (2009) supply cards describing the infrastructures considered cover water and environment (dams, drinking water, hazardous waste, levees, solid waste and wastewater), transportation (aviation, bridges, inland waterways, rail, roads and transit), public facilities (parks, recreation and schools) and Energy (Table 14.1).

Table 14.1 Infrastructures divided by sectors and functions (adapted from Fulmer 2009)
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Fulmer (2009) states that there are two general types of infrastructure, hard or soft:

  • Hard infrastructure that refers to the physical networks necessary for the functioning of the modern industry (e.g., roads, bridges, railways, etc.);

  • Soft infrastructure that refers to institutions that maintain the economic, health, social and cultural standards of the country (e.g., educational programmes, official statistics, parks and recreational facilities, law enforcement agencies and emergency services).

In the cited paper, Fulmer provides a complete list of hard infrastructures and soft infrastructures, although it must be remembered that technological evolution and possible future needs on the part of users could extend both lists (e.g., one thinks of the possible evolution of 5G and autonomous driving of vehicles).

If the purpose of green planning is also to stimulate and harmonize the relationship between urbanized areas and natural areas, we can consider a further classification between grey infrastructures, namely traditional infrastructures (roads, bridges, railways, etc.) and green (blue) infrastructures.

By this term is meant the infrastructures designed to structurally enhance the relationship between a city and nature (Table 14.2).

Table 14.2 Green and blue infrastructures in urban contexts
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Green infrastructure refers to ecological systems, both natural and engineered, to provide clean water, conserve ecosystem values and functions, biodiversity and a wide array of benefits to people and wildlife.

Infrastructures significantly affect the economy of a nation as they represent an important element in public and private economic balance sheets.

Infrastructures create value and contribute to the economic growth of countries thanks to both direct and indirect effects, increasing GDP (worldwide annual investment in economic infrastructure is included, between 4 and 8% of GDP) and creating jobs. Infrastructures can therefore favour, in principle, the overall well-being of a territory (Secchi and Riela 2019).

If the infrastructures are so important not only from a social but also from an economic and environmental point of view and represent important (often public) investments, which features should they have?

On the subject of infrastructures, important indications come from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development proposed by the United Nations in 2015.

SDG 9, industry, innovation and infrastructure, aims to build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation. To make infrastructures and industries sustainable by 2030, resources will have to be used more efficiently by clean and environmentally friendly technologies and industrial processes will have to be encouraged. Technological development, research and innovation will have to be supported in particular in developing countries. Furthermore, the access of industries and other small businesses to financial services, including credit at advantageous conditions, should be fostered, and their integration into markets and value creation chains should be increased. Finally, in less-developed countries, Internet access must be simple and widespread.

The topic of infrastructures is also considered in the SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) aimed at making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, and in SDG 15 (life and land), whose aims are to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

To achieve the objectives defined by the aforementioned SDGs, it is necessary to ensure that the design premises related to sustainability, inclusiveness and resilience of infrastructures are really implemented.

The environmental sustainability protocols, structured to manage all these aspects, can be used as an effective control and verification tools in all the design phases, from the conception of the projects to that of infrastructure management after their execution.

2 How International Rating Systems Deals with Infrastructures

International rating systems for measuring the sustainability of buildings, neighbourhoods and cities enhance the presence of infrastructures in the territory, on the one hand by defining pre-requisites to be respected in order to obtain certification and on the other by allowing them to obtain credits.

In this section, the rating systems closest to the concept of green planning will be specifically considered, i.e., whose purpose is to measure and certify sustainability on an urban scale.

Generally speaking, rating systems for sustainability value urban planning works do not require the construction of new infrastructures, for example an efficient public transport network or the presence of services for citizens, but rather exploit existing ones, thus making the new intervention of urban planning of lesser impact and more sustainable.

2.1 LEED® for Neighbourhood Development

LEED® for neighbourhood development (LEED® ND) is a rating system promoted by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) that integrates the principles of smart growth, urbanism and green building into a national system for neighbourhood design. This rating system recognizes development projects that successfully protect and enhance the overall health of the population, the natural environment and the quality of life. The rating system encourages smart growth and New Urbanism best practices (Boeing et al. 2014).

While the potential of LEED® ND has already been described in Chap. 13, in this section, we examine in depth how the protocol interfaces with infrastructure and sustainable transport. The protocol is not only a certification system but also a set of sustainable standards for land development which can be useful to anyone interested in sustainable community planning and design, including community leaders and government officials (US GBC 2015).

The protocol is organized into three sections:

  • Smart Location and Linkage—SSL—(where to build)

  • Neighbourhood Pattern and Design—NPD—(what to build)

  • Green Infrastructure and Buildings—GIB—(how to manage environmental impacts).

LEED® ND has the aims of connected neighbourhoods (i.e., frequent street connections and pathways to surrounding areas), neighbourhoods that use land efficiently (compact development requires less infrastructure to serve the same number of people) and bicycle-friendly design (bicycle network).

Categories which are most related to infrastructure and sustainable transport are smart location and linkage and neighbourhood pattern and design, and in particular, the credits are given in Table 14.3, where the credit requirements and objectives are explained.

Table 14.3 Credit requirements and objectives of LEED ND Protocol related to infrastructure and sustainable transports
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2.2 LEED® v4.1 for Cities and LEED® v4.1 for Communities

In 2016, USGBC introduced the LEED® for Cities and LEED® for Communities to help city leaders to communicate performance across an array of objectives and to differentiate types of stakeholders.

New and developing cities and communities can use LEED® v4.1 for Cities and LEED® v4.1 for Communities to plan, design and develop sustainable strategies across six LEED® categoriesFootnote 1:

  • Natural systems and ecology;

  • Transportation and land use;

  • Water efficiency;

  • Energy and greenhouse gas emissions;

  • Materials and resources;

  • Quality of life.

More than 90 cities and communities around the globe have been certified through LEED® v4.1 for Cities and LEED® v4.1 for Communities (October 2019).

Most of the pre-requisites and most of the credits of these protocols involved the infrastructures (e.g., green spaces, walkability and bikeability, smart mobility and transportation policy, integrated water management, organic waste treatment, recycling infrastructures, smart waste management systems, social infrastructures, smart water systems, wastewater management, storm water management, light pollution reduction, renewable energy and grid harmonization).

The indicators collected during the protocol application process can be included in the ARC platform developed by the Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) and managed dynamically to assess the effects of implementing the actions and to create a comparison, on a global scale, with other cities and with other communities.

Scores generated by ARC can be used in a variety of different ways, including streamlining green building certification, tracking project performance, guiding portfolio management and supporting city-wide sustainability efforts. Arc performance scores are an integral part of the LEED v4.1 rating system.Footnote 2

2.3 BREEAM® Communities

BREEAM® promoted by BRE is an international scheme that provides independent third-party certification of the assessment of the sustainability performance of individual buildings, communities and infrastructure projects.

BREEAM® Communities is a certification standard based on the established BREEAM® methodology, and the scheme covers the assessment of the designs and plans for new development and regeneration projects while post-construction is not included. There are three steps involved in the assessment of sustainability at the master planning level that interfaces also with infrastructure and sustainable transports (Table 14.4) (BRE Global Limited 2017):

Table 14.4 Credits and objectives of the credits related to transport and movement category
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  1. 1.

    Establishing the principle of development.

  2. 2.

    Determining the layout of the development includes requirements regarding how people will move around and through the site.

  3. 3.

    Designing the details involves more detailed design of the development including transport facilities.

BREEAM® Communities has five assessment categories; a sixth category promotes the adoption of innovative solutions. The categories are listed below:

  • Governance. Encourages community involvement in decisions.

  • Social and economic well-being. Considers societal and economic factors affecting health and well-being.

  • Resources and energy. Addresses the sustainable use of natural resources and the reduction of carbon emissions.

  • Land use and ecology. Promotes sustainable land use and ecological enhancement.

  • Transport and movement. Directs the design and provision of transport and infrastructure to encourage the use of sustainable transport.

  • Innovation. Promotes the adoption of innovative solutions.

Within the transport and movement categories, the credits related to infrastructures are:

  • Transport assessment;

  • Safe and appealing streets;

  • Cycling network;

  • Access to public transport;

  • Public transport facilities.

In November 2015, CEEQUAL®, a sustainability assessment, rating and awards scheme for civil engineering, infrastructure, landscaping and public realm projects became part of the BRE Group. The scheme is now operating alongside BREEAM®.

3 Envision® Rating System for Infrastructures

In the previous section, it has been illustrated how some international rating systems relate to the structures present in the territory, enhancing their presence. This section, instead, examines an international sustainability rating system, Envision®, specifically designed for infrastructures.

3.1 General Concepts

The Envision® Protocol is the first rating system to create sustainable infrastructures through an analysis grid, adaptable to any infrastructure development project. Envision® is an independent assessment tool, able to concretely support companies, designers, public sector administrators and citizens in infrastructure design. In terms of investment effectiveness, respect for the ecosystem, climate and environmental risk, durability, leadership and improving the quality of life, Envision® looks at the development of the infrastructure and its sustainability in a holistic and long-term way.

The protocol was developed in joint cooperation between the Zofnass Programme for Sustainable Infrastructure at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI) which is a non-profit organization grouping other organizations and individuals involved in the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of infrastructure. Envision® was launched in 2012.

With Envision®, it is possible to design and build roads, railways, ports, airports, power lines, power plants, communication networks, etc., based on the objective measurement of the advantages that the project brings to the community, management and maintenance capabilities throughout its entire useful life and on the opportunity of sharing investment between public and private capital.

Envision® can be used by proponents and infrastructure managers, designers, community groups, environmental organizations, builders, public sector authorities and private administrations to:

  • meet sustainability objectives;

  • obtain public and super-partes recognition for the levels of sustainability obtained;

  • optimize the location of the project;

  • assist local communities and proponents in the participatory planning process and in creating consensus;

  • make decisions about the destination of investments;

  • include the needs of the territory and local communities in infrastructure projects.

Envision® tools help the project team by:

  • facilitating dialogue with stakeholders in order to speed up the implementation process and reduce the risk of territorial disputes;

  • enhancing sustainable choices, both environmental and social, in design;

  • stimulating creative discussion within the team;

  • evaluating the costs and benefits throughout the life cycle of the work (location, design, implementation, operation and disposal);

  • evaluating environmental benefits;

  • identifying result-based goals;

  • achieving higher levels of sustainability;

  • valuing high-performance design choices.

Envision® has been applied widely throughout the USA and Canada but is in fact applicable worldwide. Indeed, the protocol was implemented and is being used for something in excess of 100 projects worldwide, whereas 59 projects are pending for certification, 47 of these have already been certified. These projects include two water treatment plants, one water supply network, one road, one industrial facility for fish farming, one wind farm and various plans for industrial area redevelopment. The link https://v3.sustainableinfrastructure.org/projects/map is available for viewing the map of all Envision projects “Registered” or “Verified” (ISI 2019).

In Italy, Envision credentialing and verification are administered by the joint initiative of ICMQ—a certification body specialized in the construction sector—and Stantec, a leader in engineering and architectural consulting and design. In 2019, the first project in Europe to earn Envision Award for Sustainable Infrastructure was the Frasso Telesino—Telese—S. Lorenzo section of the extension of about 21 km of the Naples–Bari railway route, obtained by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI).

3.2 Structure of Envision® Rating System

The structure of the protocol is based on three different levels: categories, sub-categories and criteria (Table 14.5). There are five categories, and they represent the macro areas of impact according to which to assess the sustainability of the project and are:

Table 14.5 Indicators of Envision rating system (Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure 2018)
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  • Quality of Life. Some important questions should be asked upstream of the planning phase, including: does the infrastructure preserve and enhance local resources? Does it help local communities to develop while minimizing potential negative impacts? Is the existing transport network used? The Quality of Life category answers these questions. According to the protocol, the infrastructure project must first take into account the priority objectives of the community, defining what and how many long-term benefits it can really derive, while minimizing the negative impacts on the community.

  • Leadership. A greater involvement of the community and the main stakeholders in the planning of an infrastructure allow the adoption of far more efficient design solutions. In fact, for a project to be considered sustainable, it is not sufficient that it is efficient from an energy point of view, because the evaluation needs a broader vision. The Leadership category enhances the actions that emphasize a real and continuous community involvement and the project teams’ and clients’ attention to all aspects of sustainability.

  • Resource Allocation. In the design, construction and management of an infrastructure, the resources employed play a fundamental role in terms of influence on overall sustainability. The protocol, through the credits of this section and the three sub-categories materials, energy and water, deals with the issues of energy consumption, water and materials in general, providing an operational methodology on their use and exploitation in respect of conservation of non-renewable resources and the containment of water and energy consumption.

  • Natural World. The infrastructural systems generate a high impact on the landscape in which they are located, producing both short- and long-term effects on a considerable quantity of elements such as ecosystems, habitats and geomorphological systems. The Envision protocol, through the Natural World category and its three sub-categories siting, conservation and ecology, highlights and rewards the best practices that an infrastructure project should implement in approaching the environment and the natural world.

  • Climate and Resilience. The infrastructural system is a very complex concept that encompasses many aspects related not only to the design and engineering field, but also to the social, economic, environmental and climatic aspects. The protocol provides tools to evaluate all these aspects and in particular, through the Climate and Resilience category, offers indications to implement a preventive assessment of climate and pollution risks and a consequent optimal design.

This family of credits and its sub-categories, emission and resilience, examines fundamentally two aspects that, respectively, reflect a medium- and short-term vision and a longer-term one: the minimization of the emissions of an infrastructural element or system and the concept of resilience.

The 14 sub-categories identify the main elements of each area and group together a total of 64 sustainability and resilience indicators called “credits”. Each criterion provides an indicator of sustainability related to a specific aspect of interest—environmental, social or economic.

These credits measure infrastructure sustainability and address areas of human well-being, mobility, community development, collaboration, planning, economy, materials, energy, water, siting, conservation, ecology, emissions and resilience.

Credits have multiple levels of achievement representing the possible performance goals beyond conventional practice. Following the evaluation of the results achieved in each of the credits, the project teams establish how the project is positioned with respect to the sustainability indicators and decide how to pursue higher performance.

Each of the 64 credits has multiple levels of achievement representing the spectrum of possible performance goals. Teams establish how well the project addresses the full range of sustainability indicators and are challenged to pursue higher performance:

  • Improved: Performance that is above conventional;

  • Enhanced: Sustainable performance that is on the right track;

  • Superior: Sustainable performance at a very high level;

  • Conserving: Performance that has achieved essentially zero negative impact;

  • Restorative: Performance that restores natural or social systems.

Scores of each credit are added together to give the total score. The final Envision score is a percentage of the total achieved points compared to the total applicable points.

Finally, Envision rewards innovative methods that promote sustainable practices or demonstrate exceptional performance beyond what is expected in credits. Innovation credits include three options to earn bonus points:

  • Innovation;

  • Exceptional performance;

  • Additional aspects of sustainability.

Envision promotes high performance across three dimensions (Fig. 14.1):

Fig. 14.1
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Strategies for Envision® approach (ISI 2018)

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  • Performance achievement: through the recognition that success in sustainability is incremental;

  • Project phases: addressing the full project life cycle, beyond planning and design through construction to operations and maintenance;

  • Stakeholder collaboration: when an inclusive, representative group of stakeholders is engaged throughout the project, the results satisfy the widest possible portion of the community.

Envision was designed to help infrastructure stakeholders implement more sustainable projects to offer benefits for each category of stakeholder: from owners and design teams to community and environmental groups, construction companies, regulators and policymakers.

3.3 Application and Verification of Envision® Rating System

The process starts with the initial self-assessment of the project using the Envision® scoresheet, after which it is possible to register the project for verification.

The Envision scoresheet is an online tool that allows the project team to jointly evaluate projects, and it also allows to calculate the scores of each credit automatically and finally to register it for third-party verification. Verification is an independent review to confirm that a project meets the evaluation criteria.

At the beginning of the verification process, ISI assigns a qualified Verifier to verify the levels of achievement and the final score submitted by the project team.

Verification enables projects to become eligible for ISI awards, as described below. To qualify for an award, a project must achieve a minimum of the total applicable points (Table 14.6).

Table 14.6 Award levels of Envision® rating system (ISI 2018)
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A project team may choose to pursue verification after the design phase or after the construction phase, so projects may follow one of the two pathways of verification:

  • Path A: Design + Post-Construction

  • Path B: Post-Construction

The steps of the two verification pathways are shown in Fig. 14.2.

Fig. 14.2
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Envision® verification pathways (ISI 2018)

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The diffusion of the Envision® approach also involves the creation of a community of professionals able to master and promote its contents, as a heritage of shared know-how. For this reason, the protocol includes training sessions and an exam for the qualification of Envision® Sustainability Professionals (Envision SP), essentially:

  • Reference persons figures for the project teams, who must document the achievement of the sustainability objectives set out in the protocol.

  • Guarantees of the adequacy of the project for the purposes of assigning the Envision® certification.

  • The protocol also provides for an annual maintenance of the Envision SP qualification obtained.

4 Conclusions

Infrastructures are essential elements of the territory at different scales, from national (or international) to urban: they guarantee connections between different places but also energy and information flows. Their integration with the territory, although indispensable to guarantee the necessary services to the community and to individual users, if not managed correctly, could generate environmental impacts and risks for safety. The infrastructures must consequently be evaluated in terms of sustainability and resilience.

A green planning of cities and communities cannot ignore the careful consideration of infrastructures which, over time, thanks to technological innovation and changes in human needs, are subjected to continuous renewal. Infrastructures often require considerable investments and very long planning and implementation times when compared to those of buildings; however, they do represent a considerable added value for the economy. Their execution, in addition to stimulating technological innovation, creates investments and jobs, not only during the implementation phase but also in the subsequent phases of operation and maintenance.

The management of a complex issue such as infrastructure must be able to count on effective tools that are able to support not only the decision makers but also the stakeholders involved in making choices. International rating systems for sustainability such as LEED® or BREEAM® can contribute in this direction since they enhance the added value determined by the presence of infrastructures in the territory. A protocol dedicated exclusively to infrastructures such as Envision®, examined in this chapter, can moreover contribute in a remarkable way to a sustainable, and at the same time, resilient management of the infrastructures.