The Future of Infrastructure

The science on climate change shows that all regions of the world are now vulnerable to its impacts and will become increasingly so. Along with reducing carbon emissions, it is now clear that we will need to drive resilience to anticipate, absorb and recover from the effects of climate-related events.

As a result of this, investors are increasingly looking at the climate dimension of long-term asset management, challenging companies to think about how to report and forecast climate-related risks that lie outside traditional risk analysis.

In this article, AECOM’s Sally Vivian looks at the challenges of assessing climate risk — and the opportunities for businesses who pave the way forward.

To incentivize the transition to a lower carbon world, targets are being set to reduce the net emissions associated with both the generation and utilization of energy. If we're to attain these targets we must embrace the complex world we inhabit, and build in flexibility to adapt to the circumstances of tomorrow. 

This, says AECOM's Toby Uppington, requires a  holistic appraisal of how energy is generated, transferred and utilized across all forms of infrastructure. Changing one part of this system has repercussions for other parts of the system that have to be considered in the round.

We are now fully aware of the extent of the climate and biodiversity crises, and there is growing recognition of the critical need for companies to play a positive role in tackling these challenges. Rewilding is one way to restore what has been lost.

AECOM’s Chris White looks at the approaches developed on a landmark project that can be replicated to enable landowners to better steward their land.  The Natural Capital Laboratory in the Scottish Highlands is a project to restore 100 acres of forest, connect communities, and reintroduce lost species. Over five years the project will capture data about environmental conditions at the site and act as a live experiment to develop, test, and commercialize new tools and approaches for better managing the environment. 

Water scarcity is already becoming an acute concern: at current consumption rates, the World Wide Fund for Nature estimates that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population may face shortages.

The island nation of Singapore is well acquainted with these issues. Lacking a hinterland that can provide a source of groundwater, it has since 1962 relied on neighboring Malaysia for most of its water supply.

As the Keppel Marina East project shows, desalination can offer a solution. In this article Keppel's Goh Eng Kwang and Scott Dunn of AECOM discuss the world’s first dual-mode water desalination plant, which switches between desalinating seawater and treating reservoir water and won Desalination Plant of the Year at the 2021 Global Water Awards.  

Internal combustion engine-based transport has a 100-year head start, but electrification is no longer a question of if, but when. In the transition to mass-transit electrification, road bumps lie ahead. Despite the challenges, there are huge rewards for those who take the lead. 

Governments, transportation authorities and private industry have a significant opportunity to help society over the tipping point of transport electrification, say Ben Prochazka of the Electrification Coalition and AECOM's Andrew Bui.  Fleet owners in particular, whose vehicle operations are often more structured, predictable and consistent compared with personal vehicle usage, could act as a highly visible real-world demonstration of the benefits of EVs, were they to transition. 

All parts of society stand to benefit if public fleet owners and policy-makers at local and state levels seize the moment to bring about the benefits of an electric future faster, joining their forward-looking peers, automakers, utilities and infrastructure companies. Waiting longer is a missed opportunity.

The need to adapt to the effects of climate change and reduce carbon emissions to net zero calls for a reassessment of how and where we grow, giving equal emphasis to environmental net gain and social considerations as we have given to the economy and productivity.

To meet these challenges we need to think well beyond today. Projecting themselves 50 years into the future, deliberately beyond most policy makers’ horizons, AECOM's Stephen Engblom and Andrew Jones consider what successful town centers of the future might look like.

Far from diminishing in importance, they see resurgent urban centers taking on a new role as civic destinations and places where communities come alive, rather than just shopping centers. Not only will such spaces be more sustainable, they will also have the potential to be more equitable.