Infrastructure Connections

How do you move sustainability from a standalone function to something embedded across an entire business?  In this episode of Infrastructure Connections, we explore how sustainability is being integrated into infrastructure delivery at every level—from strategy and governance to operations, technology and culture. The conversation examines the growing shift from compliance-driven sustainability to long-term value creation, and what that looks like in practice across large-scale infrastructure and asset management.  Joining the discussion is Alexandra Monson, Group Manager - Sustainability at Ventia as she shares how Ventia is embedding sustainability into decision-making through climate transition planning, integrated reporting and science-based emissions targets. The episode also explores the role of innovation and emerging technologies—including AI-enabled asset management, fleet transition and data-driven planning—in improving resilience, reducing risk and delivering more proactive infrastructure outcomes.   This episode unpacks:   Embedding sustainability into business strategy and operations   Decarbonisation and climate transition planning in practice   How AI and data are reshaping asset management   Building capability and resilience across supply chains   Why sustainability is everyone’s responsibility—not just one team’s  As infrastructure owners and operators face increasing environmental and operational pressures, this conversation explores what it takes to create systems that are more resilient, efficient, and future-focused.   👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.   👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!   👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council:   Website: ⁠⁠https://www.iscouncil.org/⁠⁠   LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council        #sustainability #infrastructure #infrastructureconnections

As climate pressures intensify, the way we define infrastructure is being challenged. Increasingly, attention is turning to the role of natural systems—from wetlands and forests to rivers and marine environments—as essential components of resilient infrastructure. In this episode of Infrastructure Connections, David Carter, Executive Chair at Beca and Guardian of the Aotearoa Circle, shares insights from New Zealand’s Natural Infrastructure Plan and the growing movement to integrate nature into infrastructure planning from the outset. Drawing on practical examples, the conversation explores how nature-based approaches can complement engineered systems, deliver long-term economic value, and support the regeneration of ecosystems. Rather than focusing solely on conservation, this episode examines a broader shift toward regeneration—and what it means for communities, economies, and the future of infrastructure.👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below. 👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes! 👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council: Website: ⁠https://www.iscouncil.org/⁠LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council      ⁠#podcast⁠ ⁠#infrastructure⁠ ⁠#sustainability⁠ ⁠#buildingtomorrow⁠ #natureininfrastructure #greeninfrastructure #naturebasedsolutions #sustainableinfrastructure

How much does infrastructure cost?   We spoke with Geoff Cooper from the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga about their National Infrastructure Plan to find out.   We learned some interesting things.  New Zealand spends more on infrastructure than most OECD countries. The infrastructure spend averages 5.6%, swinging between 5% to 7%.  Renewals run to 60 cents on the dollar.   Right now, with aging infrastructure, maintenance and renewals are the megaproject New Zealand can afford.  Rather than just look at what we want or need, the National Infrastructure Plan dug through the past 100 years to determine what we historically feel comfortable spending. We have far more projects we want than money we want to spend.   As governments change and infrastructure priorities shift with them, everyone is looking for certainty. There is more certainty than we'd like to admit. "Nothing is more certain than maintenance and renewals."  The aging population is equally certain. This changes our infrastructure needs dramatically, from shrinking cities to reduced emphasis on land transport as commuter numbers drop, lower school enrollment, and higher health care needs.  Then there are the major shift happening that we need to recognize Decarbonization means a renewed investment in grid infrastructure and generation.  Higher fuel prices mean higher prices for city centre development and falling values for developments outside the city centre.   Click this link to read the National Infrastructure Plan for fascinating insight on where we're headed: https://tewaihanga.govt.nz/national-infrastructure-plan 👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.   👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!   👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council:  Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council        #infrastructureconnections #infrastructure #sustainability #investment #finance

Can investors make a return on sustainability?   "We see really good value creation investing in sustainability," said our guest in this episode of Infrastructure Connections. Alex Ayscough is an Investment Director at the infrastructure investment firm Morrison.  "I think sustainability provided investment opportunities for us, and a lot of other infrastructure investors as well."  Alex holds a Master of Applied Finance from Macquarie University, a Bachelor of Business from the University of Technology Sydney, and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She focuses on originating new investment opportunities and managing infrastructure assets across Australia and New Zealand. She also serves as a Director on several infrastructure-related boards, including Transgrid and Altogether Group. Alex was named Infrastructure Investor's 2024 Rising Star in Infrastructure Finance, saying, "Sustainability is both a driver of investment and foundational to long-term value creation." The ISC is focused on both valorising infrastructure sustainability and providing the framework to achieve it. In order to realize gains, proponents need to incorporate sustainability early, long before they start looking for funding. This allows funding institutions and private investors to align their own internal sustainability KPIs with the projects they invest in. This helps ensure that the projects carry through with sustainability initiatives and realise those returns.   "What we've seen is that those more nebulous physical risks of climate change are translating now into very real commercial and financial risk. They are now starting to form much more a part of the core due diligence on a new investment."  Sustainability can provide core value creation and returns through a strong focus on: Economic Environmental Governance Social   Infrastructure is more than an investment in concrete and steel. It's an investment in our collective future.  👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.   👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!   👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council:  Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council        #infrastructureconnections #infrastructure #sustainability #investment #finance

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝟭𝟬 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶a?Ben Goldfarb found that roads are "the leading direct human cause of vertebrate mortality on land." More than hunting, wildfires, dams, and urban habitat loss combined.  The costs are enormous.  According to the @Insurance Australia Group Limited (IAG) animal-vehicle collisions cost Australia $7 billion every year through:   • Vehicle damage   • Towing and insurance costs   • Human hospital bills   • Almost 150 human pedestrian deaths each year   • Road repairs  But the real damage to animals and the environment is invisible.   • Lost access to breeding grounds   • Lost access to food sources   • Impeded migration   • Biodiversity loss as seeds fail to cross roads   • Reductions in fertile females   • Starvation   • Functional extinction   • Species extinction  There is good news. Australia is increasingly leading the world in wildlife crossings, building:   • Arboreal bridges   • The Crab Bridges of Christmas Island   • Koala log bridges through underpasses   • Flying squirrel poles.   Road ecologists continue to find ways to reduce the impact of roads on our environment. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝘁𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳.   👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.   👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!   👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council:  Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council        #infrastructure #podcast #infrastructureconnections #sustainability #crossings #roadecology

𝗜𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆?  Sustainability feels expensive and hard when it’s bolted on at the end.  But when procurement is involved early, everything shifts: • Sustainability is embedded from planning, not post‑design • Procurement and sustainability teams work together • Suppliers help shape smarter, cost‑neutral solutions  Public procurement is powerful — it influences 13–20% of global GDP and can shift entire markets.  So… is it the most important stage?  We explore this with Bec Timmings, Executive Advisor at ConnellGriffin and a leading voice in sustainable procurement.  👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.   👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!   👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council:  Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council        #infrastructure #podcast #infrastructureconnections #sustainability #sustainableprocurement #procurement

Do you take cars for granted?   What if you learned they were responsible for an increased sense of isolation? A lack of trust in the community?  A source of stress throughout your day? Even where you spend time in your home?   Studies show all this and more, yet we often fail to see cars as anything but urban solutions.   Today we're speaking to Melissa Bruntlett, Co-Founder of Modacity Creative.   She’s a well known cycling advocate, working worldwide to  bring cycling to a city near you. She’s written a wealth of knowledge into three books, Building the Cycling City, Curbing Traffic, and Women Changing Cities. She most recently appeared in The New York Times' Women in Leadership Special Report.   Find out how simple it can be to improve a city, one bicycle at a time.  To make AI more useful, maybe it should tell us who to call? Right now it sends you to a website or Reddit. We need to make people a priority, and that means people who know.   👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.   👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!   👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council:  Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council        #podcast #infrastructure #sustainability #buildingtomorrow

Do you have someone to call when you don't know the answer?   On carbon?  On Nature Based Solutions?  On sustainable finance?  On circularity?   With so many sustainability regulations and requirements, it's impossible for one person to know it all. But it takes hours to read up on these topics and, even then, do you qualify as an expert?   When we spoke with Joan Ko, she suggested the simplest answer:   Phone a friend.   Today, your network is your most valuable tool. If you don't know, you know who to call. That's the value we add as knowledge professionals.   Sure, AI can give you a summary, a crash course. But you can get far more history and context from a five minute phone call with an expert, and that's what matters.   To make AI more useful, maybe it should tell us who to call? Right now it sends you to a website or Reddit. We need to make people a priority, and that means people who know.   👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.   👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!   👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council:  Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council        #podcast #infrastructure #sustainability #buildingtomorrow

Richard Evans is the Founder and CEO of Talent Nation, Australia’s leading Sustainability, ESG, Environment, Sustainable Finance and Climate & Energy recruitment agency. The company is a B Corp and 100% employee owned. He serves part time on the Membership Advisory Group of the UN Global Compact Network Australia. He has a background in management consulting and banking, and joins us from Melbourne.  Richard tells us about the risks and opportunities of a career in sustainability. The good news? The market is picking up after a two year doldrum and salaries are higher than they were a few years ago. The bad news? The focus is still on compliance over strategy. Expect more opportunities over the next nine months, but also expect to buckle down to the core needs of your organization rather than the more lofty goals of the profession.   👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.   👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!   👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council:  Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council        #podcast #infrastructure #sustainability #buildingtomorrow

Host Seth Scott interviews Cathy Bebelman.  Cathy is the Chief Scientist: Head of Science and Sustainability with Auckland Transport in New Zealand. Cathy has an extensive background in the environmental impacts of infrastructure and transport networks, working as a researcher and consultant in the public sector for over 25 years. She advocates for a holistic approach to the management of climate and the environment.  Auckland Transport made changes to their approach to transport after the 2023 Auckland Anniversary and Cyclone Gabrielle storms.   This month they published their Climate Adaptation Framework and Action Plan 2025 - https://at.govt.nz/media/iqebfs0r/at-climate-adaption-framework-and-action-plan.pdf    The storms caused 2,000 landslides across the region at a cost to repair of $360 million. Cathy discusses how they worked to resolve this as well as how their budget might need to change to incorporate climate related storm damage to come.  That hasn't slowed down AT's electrification efforts. Aucklanders now enjoy a fully electric train system, the largest electrified bus fleet in the South Pacific, and new electric ferries on the water.   And there's a lot more to look forward to.  👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.   👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!   👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council:  Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council        #podcast #infrastructure #sustainability #buildingtomorrow

Host Seth Scott interviews David Clubb.David Clubb is the Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales. He is also the Head of Climate Action at Cardiff Metropolitan University. He also founded Afallen, one of Wales' leading sustainability consultancies. Prior to that, he was Director of RenewableUK, the award-winning trade body for sustainable energy.Wales is realising several outstanding infrastructure goals:1. The Wellbeing of Future Generations Act looks out for the generations not yet born2. Active travel modal shift implementation including a "cycle superhighway"3. 65% national recycling rate, one of the highest in the world4. An 80-year Infrastructure Investment Strategy that starts with “Our economic well-being is without any doubt tied to our environmental, cultural and social well-being."5. Nature on the Board👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.  👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!  👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council: Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council       #podcast #infrastructure #sustainability #buildingtomorrow

Toby Kent is the CEO of the Infrastructure Sustainability Council. Prior to this, he worked for PwC Australia, where he served as a Partner in the Energy Transition. He co-founded and managed ResilientCo Consulting and has been an active board member of the Business Council for Sustainable Development Australia for four years. He was also Chair of the Future Business Council for three years.  Today we're announcing all the exciting developments at the ISC: • 2025 Impact Report • ISC 2030 Strategy • IS v2.2 Design and As Built Tool • IS for Professionals Pathway Training  👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.  👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!  👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council: Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council       #podcast #infrastructure #sustainability #buildingtomorrow

Host Seth Scott interviews Andy Hill, Founder of Planet Price  Andy Hill is the Founder of Planet Price, a software company that incorporates the cost of planetary boundaries in infrastructure procurement. A mechanical engineer, Andy is also ANZ Director at Hemisphere Partners, an M&A firm. He serves on the board and is an angel investor and mentor for several startups.  Andy shows us how the so called externalities really account for 20-30% of a project's cost, how to find those costs, and how to reduce them.   👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your thoughts on the comment section below.  👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!  👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council: Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council       #podcast #infrastructureconnections #infrastructure #sustainability #buildingtomorrow

Host Seth Scott interviews Anthony Kane, President and CEO of Assistant Professor of Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure.   Anthony Kane is President & CEO of the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI), a Washington, DC-based nonprofit which facilitates the Envision Sustainable Infrastructure Framework. Anthony also serves as a commissioner on the DC Commission on Climate Change and Resiliency.  Envision is a rating system very similar to the IS Rating, and we often collaborate. IN this episode, we're exploring how the Envision sustainability rating works in countries as diverse as the US, Canada, Columbia, Guatemala, China, and even Ethiopia.  👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your thoughts on the comment section below.  👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!  👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council: Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council       #podcast #infrastructure #sustainability #buildingtomorrow

Host Seth Scott interviews Cailin Slattery, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business. Cailin brings us her findings from the paper “State Capacity and Infrastructure Costs” (co-authored with Yale Law School Professor Zachary Liscow and Columbia University's William Nober). Key findings of the report:   👉 One addtional transport employee per 1,000 residents is correlated with 26% lower costs at the project level.  👉 Experience engineers and professionals in the upper 75th percentile are associate dwith 14% rductions in project-level costs. 👉 A single high-quality engineer can save a project up to $750,000 a year 👉 The departure of an experienced engineer can result in cost increases equal to six times their salary. This is equally true if they leave for retirement, the private sector, or an overseas position. 👉 For all these reasons, proponents should be willing to pay up high-quality engineers up to $300,000 per year, well over twice the industry average, to reain that knowledge in house, in the pipeline, and available to the next generation of professionals.  ⭐ Links to some of the resources mentioned in the podcast:  "State Capacity and Infrastructure Costs": https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4522676  Yale Tobin Center for Economic Policy: "Experienced state employees can deliver big savings on infrastructure": https://tobin.yale.edu/research/experienced-state-employees-can-deliver-big-savings-infrastructure  👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your thoughts on the comment section below.  👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!  👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council: Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council       #podcast #infrastructure #sustainability #buildingtomorrow

Host Seth Scott interviews Tania Hyde, Technical Director & Circular Design Lead (Transport & Infrastructure) at Beca. One of our most detailed episodes yet, Tania talks about Beca's Circular Design Framework, how infrastructure projects can achieve circular principles by asking tough questions, accounting for the Planet Price in purchasing, and free Circular Spatial Planning from TU Delft.   👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your thoughts on the comment section below.  👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!  👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council: Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council       #podcast #infrastructure #sustainability #buildingtomorrow

During our interview with Lisa McLean, Managing Director and CEO of Circular Australia, we learned of some of the impressive circular initiatives happening in Australia, such as: - The importance of building circular "precincts", a place to keep resources in circulation locally. - The new ISO 59000 Global Framework for implementing circular economy principles - Several of Circular Australia's members doing amazing things, such as Allmould's collection of St. Vincent's Hospital's plastics waste to form new plastic blocks for use in the wind industry.  Lisa is the Managing Director and CEO of Circular Australia, an independent peak body for circular economy innovation. She has successfully advised industry and governments to bring market change with new policy frameworks and regulations enabling the circular zero-carbon economy over the next 20 years. Formerly a political journalist, Lisa was also founder of the carbon accounting service Carbonwise and helped establish the Clinton Climate Initiative. Lisa is leading the transition to a zero-carbon circular economy in Australia.  👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.  👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!  👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council: Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council       #podcast #infrastructure #sustainability #buildingtomorrow

Today we're touring one of Waste Management's recovery centres in Auckland and meeting with Ingrid Cronin-Knight, Chief Growth and Sustainability Officer at Waste Management New Zealand. We talked to her about how to turn waste into gold.  We learned a lot from our visit. Recycling isn't easy but when done right we can recover a good portion of our infrastructure materials, especially concrete, steel, gib, and timber. We also learned that the simple act of higher waste levies encourages more recycling and more emphasis on designing out waste. We need  more facilities like to take the load off landfills.   Your impact at work far outweighs your impact as an individual. Not much of what you throw out of your home gets recycled. Even if you're sorting your food waste, green waste, glass, and plastics, the vast majority of what you throw out goes straight to landfill. That's what makes specifying recycling on infrastructure projects so important. Since concrete, steel and asphalt are the easiest to recycle, our work can make a massive impact.  To learn more about Waste Management's construction waste recycling program, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZcK8CemEfU  To learn more about Waste Management's work with Aliaxis Group to recycle plastic pipes, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS4kV4kkwrM

Guest Speaker Georgine Roodenrys is a respected leader in regenerative industrial development, with deep expertise in decarbonisation, circular economy, and climate strategy. She is a Director at Rennie, where she advises clients on navigating the complex transition to a low-carbon economy, integrating sustainability, innovation, and human progress.   👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.  👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!  👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council: Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council    #podcast #infrastructure #sustainability #buildingtomorrow

Dr Nicole Garofano is an Australian leading expert in circular economy systems and sustainable materials management, recognised for her deep expertise in plastic waste and packaging value chains. She is currently the Head of Circular Economy Development at Planet Ark Environmental Foundation, where she works across industry, government, and research sectors to support the acceleration towards Australia’s transition to a circular economy. Nicole has over 20 years of experience in environmental education, waste management, international development, policy design, and circular economy. She holds a PhD from the University of Queensland focused on plastic packaging in island developing states. She has been a key voice in shaping national conversations on circular economy, and her work has advocated for systems-level change to improve design that embraces resource sufficiency and circular solutions.

This week on Infrastructure Connections we're talking to Veena Sahajwalla about micro recycling and the circular economy. The takeaways from this episode give us new ways to look at circularity:  1. Companies are starting to re-think their identity. "We're not a waste company, we're a supply company." We supply resources as feedstock, resources that used to be waste for someone else.  2. "If we zoom down to the micro recycling level, every material is important." If it was an important component of the original product, it will be important to recover for the next product.  3. "Sustainability is a normal way to think. The more we can make it a norm, the more we can think of practical ways in which sustainability comes to life." 4. We need to think of sustainability and recycling on a local level, specific to the local industries who need it, and make that recovery a priority. This is compared to the current method of sending our waste overseas and then buying it back as sources.   Veena puts the re in resource.   Veena is the Director of SMaRT Centre (Sustainable Materials Research & Technology) and Associate Dean (Strategic Industry Relations) faculty of Science, University of New South Wales.   Her research interests include sustainability of materials and processes with emphasis on environmental benefits. She invented an environmentally friendly process for recycling plastics and rubber tyres in electric arc furnace steelmaking.   She is an international award winning engineer. In 2012 she was named Overall Winner of the Australian Innovation Challenge Award. She was awarded the 2012 Banksia Award, the GE Eco Innovation Award and the 2005 Eureka Prize for Scientific Research.  We hope you enjoy this episode. From now on we'll be releasing episodes on Thursdays fortnightly.   👉 We'd love to hear your feedback, share your questions or comments below.  👉 Like & Subscribe so you won't miss out on our upcoming episodes!  👉 Keep up to date with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council: Website: https://www.iscouncil.org/ LinkedIn:   / infrastructure-sustainability-council         #podcast #infrastructure #sustainability #buildingtomorrow

Welcome back to Infrastructure Connections, the podcast where we explore what makes sustainable infrastructure work, brought to you by the Infrastructure Sustainability Council. I'm your host, Seth Scott. And hooray! We made it into Season 2. This season we're exploring Circularity and the role it plays in infrastructure. What better way to start off than by looking at the circularity metrics of steel, a product that is virtually 100% recyclable. Nearly half of all steel is used in the infrastructure and construction industry, things like bridge beams and reinforcing bars and mesh, and much of the rest is used on what uses infrastructure, the planes, trains and automobiles. So today we'll be talking about steel with Steve Porter of Infrabuild.   Steve is Head of Sustainability, Innovation & Trade at InfraBuild Australia, Australia's largest integrated manufacturer and supplier of steel long products. He's spent most of his career as a General Manager in the steel industry, and he is committed to shaping a sustainable, low-carbon future in energy intensive environments.   We discuss circularity initiatives in the steel industry, initiatives like the Electric Arc Furnace which allows phenomenal recycling of scrap metal using renewable energy. We also look at how Material Circularity Indicators (MCI) can enhance EPDs for customers.  For even more information, InfraBuild collaborated on the ISC Impact Notes on the Circular Economy, which you can find here: https://www.iscouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Circular-Economy-Impact-Note_Final-for-Publication.pdf

Guest Speaker Dr Sina Cotter Tait discusses the practice of equity and culture in infrastructure. From her vantage point as Director for the Infrastructure Commission, we investigated the role these will play in the future pipeline of sustainable infrastructure.

Guest Speaker Sam Donaldson, Hub Sustainability Leader at Laing O’Rourke discusses the practice of Nature Based Financial Disclosures as a practitioner who has seen this work in the field. We also zero in on the  implications it has for the future of sustainable infrastructure.

Host Seth Scott discusses with Guest Speakers Neelesh Rampal, Climate Data Scientist and Dr Peter Gibson, Climate Scientist both from NIWA on the role of data in New Zealand climate projections. We looked into their NIWA research on "High-resolution climate projects using physics and AI" and tackled its potential impacts on infrastructure.

Host Seth Scott discusses with Guest Speaker, Kristy Graham, CEO of the Australian Sustainable Finance Institute about her views on sustainable finance and her involvement in the Australian Sustainable Finance Roadmap, its importance in infrastructure investment, and how it impacts sustainable infrastructure.

Host Seth Scott discusses with Guest Speaker, Anna Robak, WSP Canada's Executive Director, Research & Innovation about her view of the future of intelligent infrastructure. We also take a closer look into six criteria that infrastructure should meet to be considered truly intelligent.

Host Seth Scott discusses with Guest Speaker, Toby Kent, Infrastructure Sustainability Council's CEO about his view of the future of sustainable infrastructure and the role resilience plays in infrastructure based on his previous experience as Melbourne's Chief Resilience Officer.