The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has launched a report on ten principles of good practice for making infrastructure more sustainable. The principles aim to inform “the forthcoming wave of global infrastructure investment” by specifying how to incorporate environmental, social, and economic factors into infrastructure policymaking.

Sustainable infrastructure has great potential to support global goals. Currently, built infrastructure, such as highways, power plants, and office buildings, is responsible for 70% of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It can also displace communities and wildlife when designed without the use of sustainable development principles. In her foreword to the report, UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen highlights an opportunity: the majority of infrastructure that is predicted to exist in 2050 has not yet been built, and the new infrastructure will mainly be built in developing countries.

Investing in renewables and energy efficiency creates five times more jobs than fossil fuel investments.

The UNEP report, titled ‘International Good Practice Principles for Sustainable Infrastructure,’ calls for a more systematic approach by planners and policymakers to incorporate sustainable infrastructure into long-term development plans, ensuring that “human-made systems work with natural ones.” The publication offers guiding principles for such decision-making.

The recommendations include: aligning infrastructure decisions with the 2030 Agenda and other global sustainable development agendas; making services flexible to allow for changing needs over time; assessing the impacts of infrastructure projects on ecosystems and communities, not just at the start of the project but over the projects’ entire lifespan; maximizing resource efficiency to make services affordable and reduce emissions and other pollutants; generate employment and support for the local economy; include stakeholder analysis, public participation, and grievance mechanisms in decision-making about the project; and monitor infrastructure performance and impacts regularly and share resulting data with stakeholders.

The authors assert that these approaches can help governments meet service needs with “less infrastructure that is more resource efficient, pollutes less, is more resilient, more cost effective and has fewer risks” than business-as-usual approaches to infrastructure. The report also highlights the economic return on projects like renewable energy plants, eco-friendly public buildings, and low-carbon transport. It reports that investing in renewables and energy efficiency creates five times more jobs than investments in fossil fuels.

Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary-General and the President of the Global Green Growth Institute, a UNEP partner, said the principles can help governments to “lay the groundwork for a future where sustainable infrastructure is the only kind of infrastructure we know.”

The report is accompanied by a set of case studies from Afghanistan, Austria, Chile, Ecuador, Iran, Malawi, Mongolia, Saint Lucia, Singapore, and Zimbabwe.

The principles and case studies were developed as part of the implementation of a resolution on sustainable infrastructure adopted during the fourth session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA). [Publication: International Good Practice Principles for Sustainable Infrastructure: Integrated, Systems-level Approaches for Policymakers] [UNEP news]