June 2011 - Parsons Brinckerhoff

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Roundtable “PB’s approach to engaging many perspectives in developing solutions is a key aspect to promoting sustainability.” “It is my sense that most people simply don’t really understand what sustainability is.” Peter Halsall Michael Meyer Peter Halsall Evaluating the tradeoffs is tough to do without some common metric, especially when you’ve got different experts all talking different languages. Layer that on top of a citizenry, which is growing ever more skeptical of their government and it makes it tough to get things built. So PB’s approach to engaging many perspectives in developing solutions is a key aspect to promoting sustainability. Gary McVoy: PB is currently developing a tool called PRISM that will provide common, measurable metrics to better understand a project’s economic, environmental, and societal value. Moderator It would appear that designing construction infrastructure to meet sustainable guidelines would only be in society’s best interest. However, sustainable design remains a tough sell. Why? Michael Meyer It is my sense that most people simply don’t really understand what sustainability is; that there is a large percentage of the population who are viewing sustainability as a component of a liberal or “environmental” agenda; and finally many professionals have the perception that whenever you talk about sustainability, you are talking about adding expense to a project. Many professional groups and transportation officials balk at considering sustainability because they believe that sustainability means you are going to use scarce dollars to “sugar coat” existing projects to the detriment of project functionality. These are the reasons why the sustainability bandwagon is not one that a lot of people have jumped on. Peter Halsall There is serious skepticism about anything promoted as being in “society’s interest.” The whole environmental movement was basically a negative reaction to things that engineers have been linked with over time, like interstates going directly through communities, rivers that caught fire, etc. Who wants to spend very scarce money on more projects that lead to failure? So we need to get more people to believe what we have to say about costs and benefits of a project which analysis can show. Gary McVoy I should add that it would be wise for professionals to integrate asset management into the sustainability discussion. Peter Halsall I agree. And we should use language that connects to the politicians. In Canada, the politicians had made “deficit” a dirty word. So we started talking about the “infrastructure deficit.” That has led to the asset management kind of thinking that’s going on. Moderator I’m hearing that there is the need to build a belief in the predictions presented by the PBs of the world. There’s a need for contributing to the education in a rational, pragmatic or unbiased way. How do you build trust that the predictions made by a PB represent an unbiased presentation of facts in a fractured, agenda-driven society? Peter Halsall A lot of infrastructure is fundamental to the society as we know it and yet it’s hidden; people don’t realize its benefits and they take it for granted. I would say that people EFR Discourse on the Global Sustainability Initiative | 3
Roundtable need a real understanding of the benefits that accompany a functioning, performanceoriented infrastructure, and what that means to a modern society. Gary McVoy I think that as professionals, we’ve got to present numbers. We’ve got to make things clear and objective and transparent to facilitate dialog on the issues—on the data as opposed to the personalities. Peter Halsall Because of the special-interest nature of today’s political systems, building credibility as an impartial predictor of future outcomes is extremely difficult. PB, being multidisciplinary and focused on teamwork for solving problems, has an excellent foundation for being seen as credibly independent and without an agenda. We also need to get infrastructure to be seen as a solution rather than just a cost. Moderator: Are the three pillars of sustainability valued equally today? Gary McVoy Equal is a difficult term for this; they’re certainly all essential. If you want to have a healthy body you need to have good nutrition and you need to have exercise and you need to have purpose. Without all three, you’re not going to be healthy, but it’s hard to say which is most important. Michael Meyer It depends on who is doing the valuing. In terms of decision making today, the economic elements seem to dominate—jobs, jobs, jobs. The economic impacts from a political decision-making perspective in many cases outweigh the community and social equity elements. They probably outweigh, in the minds of the decision makers, the environmental side of it as well. In contrast, environmental groups will place much heavier weight on environmental considerations than they would to economic impacts. So my sense is that the three pillars of sustainability are not equal; they vary by which group is actually doing the valuation. “We need to get infrastructure to be seen as a solution rather than just a cost.” Peter Halsall “In the long run, to really make a difference, you have got to have both public agencies and private companies taking action. Not just talking, but taking action.” Michael Meyer Moderator Who is currently playing a larger role in driving the evolution of sustainability: the public or private sector? Do you see public-private partnerships as drivers or inhibitors of sustainable design? Looking into the future, which side needs to play a larger role? Gary McVoy I think the public sector is playing a larger role in talking about it, but I wouldn’t sell the private sector short in terms of doing something about it. Michael Meyer In transportation, my sense is that the public sector is much more active in sustainability than the private sector. However, in the long run, to really make a difference, you have got to have both public agencies and private companies taking action. Not just talking, but taking action. Peter Halsall Sustainability in the stock market is really driven by the insurance industry, recognizing that climate change is causing an amazing increase in claims. They saw this 20 years ago, and realized something needed done about it. They then set up the Carbon Disclosure Project to get companies to advise investors, if you will, about 4 | Discourse on the Global Sustainability Initiative
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Articles “Indian Country” Lesso
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Articles all findings of the reorga
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Articles PRISM tblv: Triple Bottom
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Articles Emerging solution PRISM tb
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Articles Finally, the user can visu
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Articles PB benchmarks organization
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June 2011 - Parsons Brinckerhoff

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