Whether via our carbon tracking tool used throughout the conference, or through our participation in numerous bilateral meetings, industry debates and panel discussions, our team on the ground demonstrated our commitment to addressing the climate emergency, and our capability to drive positive change. 

Now, as post-conference discussion focuses on what must happen next to realize the potential of the final agreement, there is cause to be optimistic for what lies ahead. 

At a time marked by both significant challenge and opportunity, we believe climate ambition is translating into sustainable, meaningful, collective climate action – and that the last few weeks in Dubai have demonstrated that progress is accelerating, particularly across the infrastructure and built environment space.  

The COP28 agreement by nearly 200 countries to “transition away from fossil fuels” is significant after looking improbable early on, and the COP28 pledge to triple renewable energy investment and production is a landmark moment. 

When both agreements are framed in the context of International Energy Agency (IEA) research that predicts global spending on clean energy is to reach US$1.8trillion in 2023 – outpacing the US$1.1 trillion allocated to fossil fuels – it’s clear this “transition away” via investment in offshore wind, solar and hydrogen is already well underway. 

We see investment in renewable energy – and in the global energy transition – as one of several secular trends alongside broader infrastructure investment, and investment specifically focused on sustainability and resilience, that reinforce the “glass half full” view of many at COP28. 

In the U.S., the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have sharpened private-sector focus around clean energy investment, and elsewhere around the world we are seeing significant growth in green investment and technologies. The global “infrastructure renaissance” we’re helping deliver is increasingly being approached through a sustainability and resilience lens, a marked departure from even a few years ago.  

Our recent Future of Infrastructure report – Lost in transition? – finds there is increasing momentum propelling the global energy transition forward, with 74 percent of the organizations we surveyed reporting significant acceleration in their adaptation efforts. While cost and inflationary pressures, skills shortages and competing priorities remain, they are not insurmountable. Practical, profitable, predictable and people-centric strategies exist to achieve net zero. 

Knowledge, compromise and collaboration are critical, and COP28 has been an important and constructive opportunity to build understanding, challenge convention, engage in difficult conversations, bolster collaboration and, as much as is possible, drive consensus on the actions that matter, like decarbonizing supply chains and ensuring the hard work within communities provides tangible social value in the longer term. 

Outside the Green and Blue Zones of COP28, we know our clients around the world are eager to progress the decarbonization of their own operations, as well as learn how to implement ambitious sustainability, resilience and net zero agendas. 

That’s where we see massive opportunity for us to play our part, aligned with our Sustainable Legacies strategy. The investments we continue to make to attract the industry’s best to ArchTam, and to shape our business to deliver impactful work aligned with our purpose of delivering a better world – from day one advisory services to industry-leading technical delivery anchored in digital innovation – is helping transform a desire to change to a demand – truly pivoting from ambition to action.

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Key concepts:

Climate change mitigation refers to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to slow or stop global climate change (i.e. flying less, using renewable energy).

Climate change adaptation refers to adjusting to the impacts of climate change to reduce the negative impacts and exploit opportunities (i.e. building sea walls, planting green spaces, purchasing flood insurance).

Climate resilience refers to the ability system and its component parts to anticipate, absorb, transform or recover from the effects of a climate-related event in a timely and efficient manner.

While the coronavirus pandemic may have driven a record drop in carbon emissions, we know that the climate is still changing and that we remain locked into a degree of warming, along with the associated impacts that it will bring. Collective adaptation to these changes is non-negotiable; even if we continue to decrease our carbon emissions to net-zero, it is impossible to eradicate the risk from climate change impacts. Therefore, we need to put systems in place that allow us to be prepared to adapt and respond to these impacts. Individuals and communities have a crucial role to play.

There is plenty of opportunity for the public and private sector to embed resilience into their programs, policies and operations as we both reimagine and rebuild from coronavirus. We must also recognize, however, that individuals and communities are already taking action to adapt to and become more resilient in the face of climate change, and that there are ways in which individuals and communities can strengthen this resilience going forward.

The Sustainable and Resilient Cities team at ArchTam took part in supporting research for the UK Climate Change Committee’s third Climate Change Risk Assessment (forthcoming 2022). Our research, entitled Understanding how behaviors can influence climate change risk sought to identify what autonomous adaptation behaviors people in the UK are currently undertaking (e.g. without the influence of government or private incentives), why they were undertaking them, and how to incentivize behaviors that are ostensibly risk-reducing.

One key outcome of the research was our delineation of behavior typologies (Table 1). These typologies are useful for the public and decision-makers alike to understand, so that they can be better informed about how they interrelate and influence risk. Similarly, decision-makers can use the patterns in behavior typology to inform how larger scale policies or projects can be best designed to complement local autonomous adaptation.

Table 1.  Adaptive behavior typologies

Source: ArchTam, 2020.

Perhaps even more important than the what people are doing, is the why. The underlying factors that drive people to take adaptive action or not can be leveraged to incentivize autonomous adaptation. Our research found five key factors that strongly influenced behavior (see Table 2).

Table 2.  Underlying factors influencing behavior

Source: ArchTam, 2020.

These factors have a lot to tell us about how local councils and organizations can incentivize people to undertake adaptive action. For example, providing clear and easily accessible information about which adaptation actions are effective goes a long way towards prompting people to do them. One clear way this could be stepped up is articulating to people that adaptation is not all about physical infrastructure. Adaptation also includes actions like having emergency supply kits, having strong social networks so you have resources and support to draw upon in hard times, purchasing insurance to make sure that damage to an asset doesn’t cause someone to fall into debt, and so on.

Additionally, local authorities can support community organizations and schools to integrate makers studios into existing spaces, to support people to feel more confident that they have the requisite skills to take action (perceived self-efficacy). These spaces have the dual benefit of providing knowledge-sharing opportunities but also strengthening the social networks of a community, which is essential to building resilience.

And while we hope that people don’t have to experience climate-related events, the fact is many of us will in the coming years. Therefore, councils have a role to play in supporting people to build their own capacity to adapt, and to build their resilience following these events, as those with direct past experience are more likely to act. This can then translate into social norms that might influence others.

Leveraging autonomous adaptation also fits well with the current shift towards more flexible working environments and more hyperlocal ways of living. As we reframe our existing systems of working and living in response to coronavirus, we need to in-build resilience into these new systems, ensuring these systems are flexible and adaptable. On an individual level, our research recognizes that there is no one-size fits all approach to autonomous adaptation and different approaches will be and should be taken depending on the context and the person. Human behavior is flexible and adaptable, and that’s what councils need to encourage and facilitate if the UK is to adapt successfully to climate change.

This article was originally written for the Local Path to Net Zero series on the UK’s Local Government Association website

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As global risk becomes increasingly systemic and pervasive across society, there is a need to identify leverage points and strategies for more holistic approaches that strengthen coherence, unlock synergies, reduce opportunity costs and optimise co-benefits. Not surprisingly, given our total dependence on the natural world, nature-based solutions have a vital role in strengthening resilience and sustainability.

Nature-based solutions (NbS) cover a spectrum of actions that work with nature’s ecosystems to address societal challenges, whilst providing environmental benefits.

An important subset of NbS is green infrastructure that encompasses elements of natural systems such as forests, flood plains, coastal forests, and combines these with grey infrastructure (built structures) to produce more resilient, high quality services. For example, the restoration of coastal green belts can enhance biodiversity, increase carbon sequestration, absorbs storm surges, reduce coastal erosion, mitigate flooding and increase amenity and livelihood options.

The transition to “next generation” green-grey infrastructure is important for resilience and sustainability; infrastructure is considered the foundation of a nation’s development and is a critical interface between human and natural systems. Private sector infrastructure service providers, like ArchTam, have a vital role in supporting this transition by developing the technical expertise and operational capabilities to integrate nature-based solutions into infrastructure project appraisal, planning, procurement and implementation processes.

Notwithstanding the above, although there is a growing awareness of the potential for combining natural and built structures to yield multiple benefits, to date, only a fraction of infrastructure investments support NbS approaches. Scaling up NbS implementation, including green-grey infrastructure, will require coherent actions across technical, financial and policy domains.

At the project level, there are very few tools, methods and technical standards to support the evaluation, optimisation and implementation of integrated approaches that account for monetary and qualitative co-benefits. This is particularly the case when projects are conceived and appraised against narrowly defined objectives. Under current market conditions, investors will legitimately ask how much they are paying when contributing towards public goods that provide benefits for a wide range of stakeholders beyond the immediate project area and timeframe.

More than technical or financial solutions, government policy and regulatory frameworks define the rules of the game and are key to creating an enabling environment for NbS. This includes inclusive institutional arrangements that facilitate multi-sector and multi-stakeholder collaboration, particularly the participation of local people who have a strong appreciation of the intrinsic value and range of benefits provided by local ecosystem services.

Arguably most important of all, although perhaps the hardest to change, is the crafting of more coherent development paradigms and system-wide frameworks that bring together stakeholders across policy silos and build coalitions for joint action based on shared responsibilities and mutuality. Experience tells us that in the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity. As governments declare climate emergency and plan for COP 26, an opportunity lies in working collaboratively to scale up nature-based solutions to restore our relationship with nature and in so doing, one another.

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Over the next 50 years, the region is expected to gain as many as 4 million people and 2 million jobs. In a place where a crushing housing shortage is already threatening quality of life, how can we welcome new residents and jobs without paving over our green spaces or pushing out long-time community members? To keep pace, and make the region more affordable, the Bay Area will need almost 2.2 million housing units by 2070, according to research from SPUR, San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association.

As part of the Regional Strategy, ArchTam collaborated with SPUR to examine what it would take to house everyone who wants to live in the Bay Area. We’ve published our research in a new report, Model Places: Envisioning a Future Bay Area With Room and Opportunity for Everyone.

To determine where growth should go, we used land use data to assign every part of the nine-county Bay Area to one of “14 place types” based on urban patterns that occur throughout the region — from open spaces and residential suburbs to industrial areas and dense downtowns.

Cul de Sac Suburbs of Tomorrow – Neighbors – both longstanding and new arrivals continue to live close to nature, streets are transformed to make play-space for kids and a place to gather, exercise, and stroll. Last mile mobility solutions move through at a walking pace, between native plantings and permeable swales.

Model Places envisions what six of these different place types could look like if they grew in ways that made them not just more equitable and more sustainable, but more livable and humanizing places to live and work.

Our analysis shows that the Bay Area has plenty of room to grow, but only if every urbanized part of the region is willing to accept its share of the change. The responsibility can’t rest solely with the low- and moderate-income neighborhoods that have seen the most growth in recent years. Affluent places also need to do their part to accommodate new housing and new jobs.

The good news for everyone is that new growth can make existing neighborhoods better places for people, supporting diversity and inclusion, public health, sustainability and community life while retaining many of their essential qualities and lowering our carbon-footprint. And if we do it right, we can grow without sprawl — protecting and restoring the Bay Area’s unique natural environment.

Office Parks of Tomorrow – 20th Century single-use parking dominated offices parks are transformed into complete communities, with places for people to live and work in an highly amenitized environment. Automated shuttles offer internal circulation and regional transit connections.

This vision represents a bold new direction for the Bay Area, so we invited five artists to help us bring it to life, lending their different sensibilities to imagine a region where every place does its part and everyone can thrive. You can see their work in the report.

A Call to Action
To realize this vision, the Bay Area must commit to collectively tackling the challenges of housing, transportation, equity and climate change. Getting there will require profound changes in policies, practices, laws and culture — recommendations SPUR will make in upcoming Regional Strategy reports. Real transformation will require a series of changes at different levels of government over many decades. It’s never easy for communities to commit to massive change, especially when they can’t see ahead to the outcome. We hope Model Places gives a glimpse of what’s possible — and inspires a commitment to what’s needed.

Read the Model Places report.

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Our generation must come to grips with the fact that the California dream is threatened by a historic affordability crisis. Aging and inadequate infrastructure cannot support the current population, and economic development is insufficient to accommodate projected growth or address our growing environmental challenges. All these issues are occurring during a long overdue social revolution and a historic global pandemic. Yet, there is reason for hope.

California’s economy is the envy of many, in part because we have one of the most diverse and culturally rich populations in the world. Despite the lack of national leadership on climate and infrastructure, and inner-California in-fighting on housing issues, much of our state and municipal leadership is at the center of international and national environmental and equity discussions. In our short-term response to the coronavirus pandemic, Californians have worked across the political, economic and social spectrum to keep California relatively safe. We need to channel this collaborative spirit to assess the next stages of recovery and challenge ourselves to look forward to a better normal, where the California dream is available to everyone for generations to come.

The Next Generation of Transportation

California’s identity must change from the iconic image as the birthplace of crowded highways to a reimagined icon of mobility — one aligned with our state’s 2017 Executive Order to be carbon neutral by 2045[ii] and one of cities and communities of pedestrians and cyclists making local trips, while efficient, safe and carbon-free mass transit connects us across regions and the state. We must replace the iconic and prevalent gas stations of the 20^th century with a statewide charging and electric transportation network that is not only accessible, but also a right of all Californians. The 2017 Executive Order set a goal that by 2030, we must have 5 million[iii] zero emissions vehicles, but of the approximately 15 million registered vehicles in California today, only 100,000 are zero emissions vehicles.[iv]

Transit-oriented Housing

For generations, California living has been typified by bungalows and single-family houses in suburban neighborhoods defining the symbolic sunny California lifestyle replete with citrus trees in everyone’s backyards. This vision was not open to all and its sprawling reality is not sustainable. We need a new vision of communities with townhouses and apartments surrounding neighborhood parks, which are affordable to our workforce and are supported by transit — creating places where people can live, work and play within a 20-minute walk or transit ride. This would dramatically enhance the efficiency of our land-use. California has a housing shortfall of 3.5 million units and 41.6% of its residents are rent-burdened.[v]

Creating Quality Jobs

For several generations, we have been proud to see the “Designed in California” labels while ignoring the true environmental and social cost of offshoring manufacturing. Today’s advanced manufacturing can bring back jobs without polluting our air and water tables if we invest in and advocate for an advanced manufacturing renaissance and sustainable agricultural industry here in California. We must invest in all Californians through education and job training and provide a pathway to quality jobs to eliminate working poverty. This will require significant investment in not only workforce training, but also modern energy, water and transport infrastructure[vi] to underpin the growth in California.

Mitigating Climate Change

California’s valleys, mountains and shorelines are threatened by climate change in the form of flooding and wildfires. Adaptation has been studied and strategies developed, but many are waiting to be implemented due to a lack of funding, fragmented governance and permitting challenges[vii]. It was estimated that in 2019, there was $25 billion of damage caused by fire alone[viii]. Real estate worth $100 billion, countless habitats and 25 million residents are still vulnerable to sea level rise and flooding[ix].

We need the social, economic and political resolve to invest in implementing these strategies and as quickly as possible. We need to pivot from investing in recovery to investing in adaptation and resilience that allows Californians to thrive together. Only then can we be closer to turning the myth of a resilient California dream into a reality that is available to all the world’s most ambitious, adventurous and innovative.

[i] https://www.kcet.org/shows/departures/california-calafia-khalif-the-origin-of-the-name-california

[ii]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-california-achieve-a-ldquo-carbon-neutral-rdquo-economy/

[iii] https://www.insideenergyandenvironment.com/2018/09/governor-jerry-brown-signs-sb-100-and-executive-order-to-achieve-carbon-neutrality-by-2045/

[iv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_California

[v] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-california-housing-crisis/

[vi] https://www.labor.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/CA-FOW-Working-Draft-frame-and-architecture-for-recommendations-Mar-12.pdf

[vii] https://cal-adapt.org/blog/posts/maps-projected-change-01142020/

[viii] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-28/california-fire-damages-already-at-25-4-billion-and-counting

[ix] https://sealevelrise.org/states/california/

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According to the World Economic Forum 2020 Global Risk Report¹ , the biggest long-term global risk is climate change and its effects, such as extreme weather, biodiversity loss and natural disasters. When the report was published earlier this year, however, the risk from infectious disease was considered relatively minor. While this assessment now seems out-of-step given the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic, climate change is still a timely and important global challenge. Similar to our approach to planning for a safer way of life following coronavirus, addressing the looming crisis of climate change requires a significant long-term shift across industries and behaviors. In fact, many of these shifts can help with both issues, including promoting low-carbon active travel, greenspaces and more local living.

Science-based targets (SBTs) provide companies with a key roadmap to tackle climate change by specifying how much and how quickly they need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. SBTs are greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets that are ambitious enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Based on climate science, they are the best way a company can know it is doing what is necessary to tackle climate change over the long term. SBTs must be regularly updated in line with the latest research, and the most comprehensive way any company can do this is by going through the process laid out by the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi). The SBTi is a collaboration between a variety of organizations that defines best practices, provides tools and independently assesses targets, among other things. As someone responsible for ArchTam’s sustainability internally, it gives me confidence to be tied to such a robust framework in the long term.

ArchTam is the first U.S.-based company in the engineering and construction sector to set officially validated SBTs through the SBTi. The year-long process followed the early achievement of our previous targets and required significant expertise and input from our operational teams and our global SBT Technical Working Group, all of whom work on GHG emission reduction for clients. At the end of the process we received official validation for two targets:

• 20 percent reduction in operational GHG emissions (fleet vehicles and office energy) by 2025, compared with 2018
• 10 percent reduction in supply chain GHG emissions by 2025, compared with 2018

At ArchTam, we believe it is important to demonstrate our own efforts to tackle climate change as we advise clients looking to create their own innovative sustainable solutions. Having SBTs is only the first stage of the route map and there is still much further to go. This includes our plans to meet our targets including making sure our vehicles are running properly and exploring greener alternatives, right-sizing and increasing efficiency in our real estate portfolio, as well as working closely with our significant suppliers. The key for me is that SBTs are a useful motivator for action and a vital start to our journey which can help us answer that fundamental question: “How do I do the right thing?”

You can learn more about our sustainability efforts and get support with your sustainability goals by visiting www.www.archtam.com/about-aecom/sustainability/.

¹The Global Risks Report 2020, World Economic Forum. Available at: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risk_Report_2020.pdf

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There are significant global challenges to address for which there are no simple solutions, no straightforward answers.

At the same time, both ArchTam EMEA Chief Executive Lara Poloni and I found plenty of reasons to be optimistic, collecting insights and sharing many experiences at this annual gathering of business leaders and policymakers from which to draw inspiration.

For example, there’s incredible passion and resolve among young, emerging leaders advancing new ideas, technology breakthroughs addressing everything from early detection of breast cancer to reducing e-waste, global initiatives aimed at upskilling millions of workers and  partnerships designed to unlock private investment and encourage entrepreneurship.

Underpinning many of the responses to boost economic growth, protect the environment and improve mobility, connectivity and quality of life was infrastructure. In fact, there weren’t many topics that were covered in Davos that our company isn’t part of or thinking about.

As Lara and I engaged on panels and side-bar conversations with clients and leaders from countries around the world, we were able to draw upon the experiences of more than 87,000 colleagues focused every day on delivering transformational outcomes – the kind of outcomes necessary to avert many of the gloomy predictions we heard.

We also had the opportunity to release our 2nd annual research report: The Future of Infrastructure, Voice of the People.

I left Davos feeling proud and energized, with new appreciation for the critical role businesses like ArchTam must play – both in the work we do and through our leadership.

We’ve long understood the value that infrastructure creates. A new Business Roundtable economic study, in fact, finds that in the United States, every $1 invested in roads, bridges, airports, waterways, ports and more can generate nearly $4 in economic growth.

This return on investment isn’t lost on government leaders. Because even with a global undercurrent of uncertainty, there remains an incredible need for modern infrastructure – a need measured into the trillions of dollars.

Government leaders are looking for ideas and partnerships with the private sector to increase the pipeline of bankable projects globally, build capacity and integrate technology to reduce cost and shorten timelines.

This is where I see tremendous opportunities for companies like ours. Not just to design, protect and build – or in the case of cities or regions devastated by natural disasters, build back better– but to demonstrate greater leadership through innovation and advocacy.

New digital tools and pioneering technologies give us the ability to deliver projects faster, better and safer. They allow us to help our clients adapt for what’s next – like electrifying highways to charge connected vehicles, building modular, helping make business and governments more secure and cities smarter.

We can champion resilient infrastructure solutions that address stresses posed by climate change, while also incorporating technologies that can reduce contributing factors, such as carbon emissions. We can also advocate for policies that break down barriers, promote alternative financing, balance risk and advance long-term infrastructure planning that extends beyond administrations and political change.

Our Davos experience this year reaffirms my view that our company, our industry and the business community at large must take on greater responsibilities to work with elected leaders, media, academics and others to find meaningful solutions. We have to think more globally, more creatively – especially at a time when some governments are narrowing their focus.

Walking away from Davos discouraged is the easy way out.

Staying true to our purpose, adhering to the values that define our company and delivering the transformational projects and services for which ArchTam is known will always be the better path for us and the communities and people we impact through our work.

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As part of CHOGM, the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council and the Commonwealth Secretariat convene business leaders to meet with the ministers and national leaders to discuss how to ensure a prosperous, vibrant and sustainable commonwealth. I was honored to participate in the meetings this year and speak on the topic of climate and disaster resilience.

Key areas of debate included the impacts of rising sea levels, understanding and managing risk, climate adaptation and sustainable wastewater management.

In one of the CHOGM sessions on island resilience, Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit noted that the nation now has the opportunity to be the first climate-resilient island as they look at rebuilding the majority of their infrastructure. They want to build back better, but must do so with a different model than historically followed, taking into account a broader approach, rather than just rebuilding what was damaged.

Island nations, especially those impacted by recent tropical cyclones in the Caribbean and South Pacific, face the compound challenges of more frequent and severe storms and the constant and increasing threat of sea-level rise. Dominica, for example, suffered $1.3 billion in damage from Hurricane Maria in 2017 — an amount equal to 224 percent of the island’s gross domestic product (GDP).

My comments as part of this session were focused on the need to understand the risks each country faces in designing a resilience plan, but also how we can use adaptive design to ensure continued responsiveness to a dynamic future. There’s a need to balance the costs and risks of resilience. Some risks can be managed by transferring them through insurance or other mechanisms, and other risks must be accepted. However, there are things we can do to mitigate the real and significant risks faced by these small islands and do so in ways that are appropriate for each situation and cost effective. Sometimes we just need to build smarter, with resilience top of mind. The additional benefit of investing in resilient infrastructure is that it creates jobs and economic growth.

Another discussion at CHOGM focused on the causes and drivers of state fragility and how developed nations can better support fragile states and help others avoid this fate. The discussion with ministers, non-governmental organizations and business leaders was chaired by former UK Prime Minister David Cameron on the occasion of a report from an independent panel he also chaired on state fragility causes and solutions. With two financial industry participants, I was asked to comment on the report and remarks by Rwandan President Paul Kagame on the challenges leaders face in fragile states. We stressed the need to look at climate issues, especially adaptation, as they are the principal drivers of fragility, leading to conflict, mass migration and loss of gross domestic product to drought and famine.

I was honored to close out my time at CHOGM with a brief conversation with HRH The Prince of Wales on the challenges of sustainable wastewater management in small island nations. Prince Charles spoke of his interest in addressing the energy and waste management needs of small islands, while protecting the oceans from pollution and helping people grow their economies sustainably. Through his foundation and sustainability team, The Prince has been deeply involved in these issues, and I look forward to continuing to work with his team on their efforts.

It was clear to me that there is a great desire across the entire commonwealth to be leaders in the issues related to climate change. Today, with innovations in technology and the ability to create hybrid gray and green infrastructure, we’re seeing greater potential to leverage these challenges as opportunities and find solutions that are long-lasting, adaptable and create healthier, more resilient economies and societies.

*Note: The Commonwealth of Nations comprises 53 states across six continents and represents nearly one third of the world’s population. Most member states were once part of the British Empire, the majority being island nations (counting Australia and the UK). With the exception of the United States, most of the English-speaking world belongs to the commonwealth. Queen Elizabeth II is the symbolic head of the commonwealth.

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NBS, including green infrastructure, adopts or mirrors natural systems and processes to improve water availability (e.g., groundwater recharge) and water quality (e.g., natural and constructed wetlands), and to reduce risks from water-related disasters and climate change (e.g., green roofs).

However, the reality is that much of the water management practice has been traditionally dominated by human-built, grey infrastructure. As such, the potential for NBS remains under-utilized. Green infrastructure — as an approach that protects, restores or mimics the natural water cycle and other ecosystem services — has the power to replace, enhance or work in parallel with grey infrastructure in a cost-effective manner. NBS shows potential in achieving progress toward sustainable food production, improved human settlements, access to water supply and sanitation, water-related disaster risk reduction and responding to the impacts of climate change on water resources. Development solutions that integrate ecosystem structure and function will inherently realize cost savings as these approaches conserve and sustain both the natural resource base and the environment, in addition to the infrastructure on which human settlements depend.

Growing interest in NBS is reflected in how it is increasingly incorporated into policy developments in the management of water resources, biodiversity, urban settlements and many other sectors. As we approach the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) deadline (the targets set to provide universal coverage for WASH, or “water, sanitation and hygiene”), the focus is rightly turning toward common objectives and supportive actions in line with these SDG policy priorities.

The real challenge is finding effective ways to blend green and grey interventions that optimize return on investments, maximize efficiencies and minimize costs. WWDR 2018 addresses these points head on and identifies four conditions that need to be met in order to scale uptake:

• Leveraging financing: The need for broader application of NBS can be met with a special call for redirecting and making more effective use of existing financial instruments, such as green bonds.
• Enabling environments for regulation and law: The existing framework for water management is based on a grey-infrastructure approach mindset; so at best, NBS tends to be an afterthought. NBS needs to be promoted more effectively through existing regulatory regimes, rather than creating them anew.
• Improving cross-sectoral collaboration: The nature of NBS requires a much higher degree of collaboration across institutions than grey-infrastructure approaches, as well as better harmonization across economic, social and environmental policy agendas. Policy champions are key in fostering this type of collaboration.
• Improving the knowledge base: Science, evidence and examples from practical application all provide much-needed proof for decision-makers on the feasibility of NBS. As a sector, we need to do a much better job in documenting and articulating the benefits and steps involved in changing practice.

The last point — application and uptake — is the cornerstone of these four preconditions. Without it, little will practically change on the ground, even if the three other preconditions are satisfactorily met.

To this end, USAID has recognized the importance green infrastructure plays in sustaining ecosystem services and has developed practical guidance for decision-makers involved in the planning and design of these solutions. In support of USAID, ArchTam developed the Green Infrastructure Resource Guide^[1] that defines green infrastructure, outlines how it can help communities adapt to human and environmental stress, and introduces 12 benefits that are associated with specific interventions. Interventions such as groundwater recharge to managing soil slope stabilization are reviewed in detail, including specific engineering-design options that can be implemented. The guide concludes with a discussion about how green infrastructure can be applied at various scales, in different settings and under what conditions.

ArchTam has implemented the green infrastructure concepts outlined in the resource guide on USAID-funded projects, demonstrating their importance and how they can enhance and protect natural resources. Through the USAID PARA-Agua project in Peru and Colombia, ArchTam helped communities and water-user groups improve their knowledge base by gathering and analyzing climate and watershed data to enable effective decision making on appropriate green infrastructure design options, and helped develop financial instruments to fund them.

On the USAID Be Secure project in the Philippines, ArchTam promoted effective integrated water-resources-management approaches to safeguard downstream city water supplies. Green infrastructure interventions linking best practices in upper watersheds with downstream water supplies demonstrated the importance of NBS to city water security and climate readiness.

As the WWDR concludes, “increased deployment of NBS is central to meeting the key contemporary water resources management challenges… Without a more rapid uptake of NBS, water security will continue to decline.”

This call should encourage us all to “go green,” not only during events such as World Water Day, but also consistently throughout our work. As such, ArchTam continues to seek opportunities to apply green infrastructure and NBS approaches through our USAID-funded programs and other projects.

This blog post is part of a series celebrating Earth Day 2018.

[1] USAID’s Green Infrastructure Resource Guide was co-authored and co-designed by ArchTam’s Stephen Blanton, Iulia Barbu, Meg Findley, Aaron Weieneth, Elizabeth Durfee, Melissa Hess, Jason Matus and Gina DeSimone. It is the successful result of joint collaboration across multiple ArchTam offices. 

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Some of the world’s driest regions are growing the most rapidly and often experience deep, prolonged droughts with periods of intense flooding — events that take place almost simultaneously.

As the world continues to grow, our population will reach 9 billion within the next generation’s lifetime. This growth is limiting our resources and real-estate options, and traditional urban-growth models no longer meet our cities’ needs.

Because of these reasons and more, our traditional thinking about water management must quickly evolve. Throughout history, nearly every major urban area — from ancient Rome and Athens to Jeddah, Hong Kong, Singapore and Los Angeles — has required policies, planning, engineering, construction and operations of its major infrastructure to be dedicated to bringing “water to the people.”

As we cast our minds back to the development of our water systems and how they have developed, we realize that our ancestors and ancient cultures recognized the vital role the natural environment plays to ensure a safe and reliable source of drinking water. They worked to import high-quality water along tens and hundreds of miles to ensure economic prosperity, while maintaining a pristine environment.

Nature and tech working hand in hand

What was sufficient in the past is not adequate for today’s complex water supplies. In many ways, human development has undone the vital natural protection and barriers that benefited our ecosystems. Balancing the need for livable communities, while preserving our vital natural habitat, is the ultimate challenge facing our communities and planned water-system development in the 21^st century. To address this challenge, we’ll need to combine natural solutions with technology.

As industry professionals, we compartmentalize water management into the following key priorities:

• Source-water protection;
• Land acquisition to limit human impact;
• Diversification of supplies; and
• Advanced treatment — using technology that removes naturally occurring and human derived pollutants to make our water safe.

Natural solutions are part of the fix, yet they cannot adequately protect public health. We seek more sustainable approaches using technology, whether that is increasing our reuse of surface or groundwater, or leveraging desalination when water demand exceeds the natural ability to replenish our traditional sources of water. Water distributions systems — essential for the delivery of high-quality water — rely on chemicals and corrosion inhibitors to preserve and limit dissolution of materials during storage and distribution, while ensuring water remains disinfected.

With climate change and the introduction of new water sources, salt management becomes critical. As water sources containing elevated concentrations of salts are treated to potable standards, technologies will need to evolve to treat waste streams where simple deep-well discharge and dilution is no longer sufficient.

Presently, such technologies are highly energy-intensive. However, many promising techniques are evolving. For instance, many facilities treating such high salt content are located in climates with abundant sunshine. Therefore, they are harnessing solar power and other renewable energy sources to off-set the increased energy requirements.

The future of our water supplies is indeed challenging. However, with skillful management, non-traditional thinking, and the intelligent and appropriate use of technology in tandem with natural solutions, the issues can be resolved. A focus on resilience, diversification and appropriate investment is necessary to sustain our water supplies for future generations.

This blog post celebrates World Water Day 2018. Follow the conversation online using the hashtag #WorldWaterDay.

(Caption for main image: Roman Empire expansion, Pont du Gard, supplied ancient city of Nemausus, modern day Nimes)

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