Urban rail and the sustainability challenge – Part Two

The following article continues to explore some key attributes of what a sustainable urban rail project might look like, based on discussions with over 25 key industry players representing organisations including infrastructure delivery agencies, sustainability advisors and principal contractors.

To read Part One of this story click here

By Jane Scanlon

Sustainability & environmental management
Interviewees stressed the importance of distinguishing sustainability from environmental management.
“Sustainability is about life-cycle and [the] long-term...environment is often about the here and now. You can have an [environmentally] sound project [that’s] not sustainable,” Mark Hather, environment practice leader at Manidis Roberts, said.
Dr Caitlin Richards, director Environmental Management Outcomes, believes that sustainability needs to be considered a discipline in its own right.
“If you consider sustainability as a subset of environmental management it will not be a key focus… sustainability is an emerging discipline which needs to be taken seriously and considered in detail in confirming infrastructure design criteria,” Richards said.
In terms of where sustainability “fits in” with urban rail projects, Peter Wheen, an engineering manager at the Transport Infrastructure Development Corporation (TIDC), was emphatic that sustainability is not just a “tack on piece” to a project.
“Sustainability is actually inherent in good project management and whole of life delivery. If you attempt to carve it out you can do the project a significant disservice,” Wheen said.
A sustainable urban rail project at the project-level is therefore underpinned by long-term, life-cycle thinking that equips the project to deal with future changes where opportunities can be maximised, and risks minimised across the life of a project. It is also about resource efficiency and is more than an environmental management issue.
Industry sustainability initiatives
AGIC’s forthcoming sustainability rating tool which also covers rail projects should assist project teams to better understand what project-level sustainability outcomes are possible, and indeed measurable. The tool aims to recognise and reward organisations that deliver sustainability outcomes in the design, construction and operation of infrastructure.
The seven categories cover the breadth of possible sustainability initiatives and including emissions, pollution and waste, and people and place. The people and place category seems to link in with achieving macro-level sustainability outcomes as it concerns creating liveable communities through infrastructure delivery.
“Importantly, the tool will be a national framework that will provide a consistent, common language for sustainability across rail and other infrastructure sectors,” AGIC chief executive Doug Harland said.
TIDC, that deliver transport infrastructure projects on behalf of the NSW Government, recently released Sustainable Design Guidelines and Sustainability Targets that provide some guidance as to what might constitute a project-level sustainability initiative. Fil Cerone, sustainability director at TIDC, outlines the benefits of these documents.
“We see the early adoption of tools such as our Sustainability Targets and associated Sustainable Design Guidelines as being critically important in ensuring suitable initiatives are identified, considered and incorporated in subsequent stages of design, and ultimately through to construction and operation,” Cerone said.
This trend is not exclusive to NSW alone, and many proponents and associations across various infrastructure sectors, such as the water sector, are developing project-level sustainability frameworks aimed at identifying and achieving project-level sustainability initiatives. The key will be, as Harland observes, to ensure consistency across the different sustainability approaches so that industry tendering costs are reduced – a consistency that AGIC’s tool is likely to offer.
For example, it may become common-place that AGIC’s tool be prescribed in request for proposal documentation which could streamline sustainability requirements for industry.
At both the macro and project-level, what constitutes a sustainability outcome or a sustainable decision will depend on many variables. These include budget constraints, the delivery method – for example, whether it is an alliance or a design and construct method – and most importantly, the organisational culture and willingness of key decision-makers such as project managers to go “above and beyond” in social and environmental responsibility within the boundaries of reason and practicality.

*Also a PhD candidate at the University of Western Sydney, Jane Scanlon is researching urban rail project governance and how sustainability thinking can be integrated into decision-making processes at the project-level.
Any comments, feedback or for more information on the research email: jscanlon@manidisroberts.com.au