Achieving sustainable resource networks

The aim of achieving a sustainable society is partly dependent on providing an infrastructure to minimise resource flows and associated environmental damage in ways that enhance a community's aspirations and needs. This implies that civil engineers need to understand the impact of population growth and its changing aspirations, developing technology and means to limit environmental impact in order to maintain, enhance or create interdependent infrastructure systems that are multifunctional and operate within complex qualitative and quantitative systems. Developing an understanding of existing resource networks and the interventions and initiatives needed to create a sustainable future leads to a framework that permits political and business decisions to be taken. Such an understanding is essential for appropriate civil engineering solutions for the underlying economic infrastructure – an infrastructure that is now developed through the UK's national infrastructure plan. This paper reviews the interventions, initiatives and barriers that affect the transformation of the food network, as a case study, to a sustainable network. This is to highlight the need for the resource flows to be factored into the national infrastructure plan.