The sustainability challenges for infrastructure

Infrastructure assets, such as roads, bridges, railways, power plants, residential and commercial buildings, pipelines, and water and energy utilities, have several things in common. They are specific to the geographic location within which they must operate and represent capital goods that are typically long lasting (sometimes for centuries). Transportation, power and water systems rely on complex networks to deliver their functions and can benefit from economies of scale. Other types of infrastructure – such as flood protection systems – have the characteristics of public goods, because it is hard to exclude people from benefiting from the protection they provide and the benefit received by one person does not detract from the benefit received by others. Infrastructure systems also minimise human impact on the environment through wastewater treatment and waste collection, recovery and disposal systems that enable people to live in cities.