South Australia’s State Government has officially launched Australia’s first Infrastructure Sustainability rating scheme.
Developed over four years by the Australian Green Infrastructure Council (AGIC), the tool can be used to assess most types of infrastructure including transport, water, communication and energy.
Projects and assets will be rated on a 100 point scale. An IS rating in the range of 25 – 49 is considered ‘Good’ practice, while 50 – 74 is ‘Excellent’ practice and 75 – 100 is ‘Leading’ practice.
AGIC chair and global planning leader for multidisciplinary firm Arup David Singleton says the launch represents a crucial move towards improving infrastructure by measuring sustainability. He adds that the rating system will help drive innovation, contribute to risk reduction and validate industry achievements through independent certification.
“With Federal and State governments investing billions of dollars each year in our nation’s infrastructure, we want to be certain that it’s sustainable in the long term and that we deliver continuous social, economic and environmental improvements across the design, construction and operation elements of this industry,” he says.
Singleton compares AGIC’s IS rating system to the Green Building Council of Australia’s Green Star rating scheme and said it could result in significant changes to infrastructure development.
“Just as Green Star has changed building design and functionality, we envisage the IS rating scheme will change the design, construction and performance of Australia’s infrastructure,” he says. “AGIC’s scheme has been embraced by industry and we are keen for governments and private developers across Australia to include the IS rating scheme in infrastructure tenders to provide a common national framework for industry to use.”
South Australia was a natural choice for the tool’s launch given its thriving infrastructure sector.
Following the release of the 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide, and progress in updating regional volumes of the South Australian Planning Strategy, an update of South Australia’s infrastructure plan is underway to provide state-wide direction on priorities for investment and policy efforts by governments and to integrate infrastructure planning and delivery by the three spheres of government and the private sector with land use planning.
