ASHRAE Insights

By Doug Read, Program Director of Government Affairs, and Ryan Colker, Government Affairs Representative

Sustainable infrastructure is essential to a sustainable society. Growth in human population and economic development strain the world’s finite resources of land, water, food, and energy.

To maintain and improve quality of life we need sustainable development—development that meets human needs for natural resources, industrial products, energy, food, transportation, shelter, and waste management while conserving and protecting environmental quality (indoor and outdoor) and the natural, economic and social resources essential for future development.  

Infrastructure includes constructed facilities and natural features that shelter and support most human activities: buildings of all types, communications, energy generation and distribution, greenspaces, transportation of all modes, water resources, and waste treatment and management. Infrastructure is vital socially and economically; in the U.S. new construction and renovation of infrastructure amounts to about one-eighth of the Gross Domestic Product. To achieve sustainable infrastructure we need appropriate practices, education, and research of infrastructure planning, design, construction, operation, maintenance and renewal or removal.

Practice, Education and Research for Sustainable Infrastructure (PERSI) is an initiative of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) that works to promote and translate sustainable practices into action within its member organizations. ASHRAE was the first organization to formally join PERSI by signing a memorandum of understanding.

By joining the alliance, which will not itself produce standards or guidelines, ASHRAE will work with other PERSI member organizations to assist with educational programs, conduct research, and contribute knowledge about sustainable infrastructure, among other activities. ASHRAE also will assist PERSI in developing a common language for the definition and achievement of sustainable infrastructure. Other PERSI participants include American Institute of Architects, National Institute of Building Sciences, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

PERSI’s mission is to advance and incorporate concepts and knowledge of sustainability into the standards and practices used throughout the life cycle of infrastructure systems. PERSI will complement, and build upon, important ongoing activities related to sustainable infrastructure such as green and sustainable building guidelines and practices for protection from natural, willful and accidental hazards.

PERSI’s scope is novel in four respects:
• It includes all standards and practices used in the life cycle of all infrastructure systems from urban and regional planning, which integrates infrastructure systems, to those for constituent materials and components and for operation and maintenance;
• It involves the private sector organizations that produce and maintain the practices used for infrastructure systems and whose members implement these practices;
• It will use rigorous life cycle assessment procedures to provide consistent indicators of environmental, economic and social effects; and
• It will produce agendas for implementation of best practices, improvement of practices to exploit available knowledge, research needed to fill critical gaps in knowledge, and education for infrastructure professionals and technicians.

PERSI has established task committees to assess current practices and knowledge and develop agendas for:
• Implementation of best available practices,
• Development of improved practices to exploit available knowledge,
• Research to fill important gaps in knowledge, and
• Education of current and future infrastructure professionals and technicians.
The current task committees are:
• Measurements of Sustainability—including means for dealing with seemingly disproportionate environmental, social and economic effects.
• Planning for Sustainability—integrating infrastructure systems for sustainability at community, urban and regional scales.
• Geomatics for Sustainability—spatial and geographical information for sustainable decisions in planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance.
• Education for Sustainability—programs for continuing professional, post graduate, undergraduate, public and K–12 education to provide the motivation and knowledge base needed to achieve sustainable infrastructure.
ASHRAE seeks members to participate in these task groups. Interested persons should apply by mid-June. Contact Doug Read or Ryan Colker (dread@ashrae.org, rcolker@ashrae.org or 202-833-1830) in the ASHRAE Washington Office.