It is easy to cite heart-stopping statistics when discussing the urgent need for worldwide sustainability initiatives. How about 1.1 billion of the world’s 6 billion people not having adequate access to clean drinking water and 2.6 billion not having adequate sanitation services. Or 3 billion people in developing countries living on less than $2 per day. Clearly, action is required if we intend the planet to support society into perpetuity, not to mention offer the opportunity for all people to realize the quality of life enjoyed in the developed world.
But is better infrastructure really what the developing world requires in relation to more basic concerns like water, health, and food? Bentley COO Malcolm Walter has struggled with this question himself. “Some people maintain that factors other than infrastructure are more important. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for example, is all about addressing health issues to improve our quality of life.”
Walter continued, “I recently asked a World Health Organization representative, who has a bias, obviously, to offer her opinion on the health-versus-infrastructure discussion. She responded by saying that they are very much tied together. Without infrastructure, she said, it is difficult to deliver health. The single biggest health issue worldwide is water — and infrastructure is how you deliver water. Same with food, she said. It is estimated that in India, 40 percent of farm produce rots on its way to market — and that is a problem certainly solved by better transportation infrastructure.”
So when you move the needle on infrastructure, you also move the needle on more basic necessities. This being the case, it follows then that the way to care for humans and the planet is to care for infrastructure. The choices we make as a global society in regard to infrastructure investments will directly affect the level of the quality of human life and the long-term health of the planet. Given the scope of infrastructure and the central importance of infrastructure to society at large, infrastructure is a central factor in achieving sustainability objectives.
{sidebar id=271} “Bentley has articulated a vision of the role infrastructure plays in creating a sustainable world and we have rallied the company and are positioning our product and solutions offerings around that vision,” explained Bentley Senior Vice President of Applied Research Buddy Cleveland. “We are connecting that vision with events in the real world and with real projects. When the history of Bentley is written, people will agree that this was a big deal.”
Cleveland’s recently released white paper concisely defines sustainability and details how meeting the basic human needs of everyone on the planet and the generations to follow inevitably implies development — electricity, clean water, sanitation systems, shelter, and transportation and communication systems — to provide access to critical services.
“In short, meeting the basic human needs of all people in the world means more and better infrastructure. This is directly tied to sustaining the environment as well, because until people reach a certain level of affluence,” he cautioned, “concerning themselves with global environmental sustainability is a luxury they cannot afford.”
To Bentley, this means that infrastructure first needs to be used to improve the quality of life for all so more attention can then be focused on reducing negative environmental impacts. Walter offered a concrete example drawn from two decades of visits to China. “The cities are modern now, but in the last six years I haven’t seen a blue sky, not once. In fact, when I walk around Beijing, you notice the impact to your eyes and lungs,” he related. “So the middle class — and there is a large middle class now — is interested in cleaner energy simply so they can breathe.” It follows, then, that China now leads in some alternative energy technologies. For example, it is currently the world’s largest producer of wind turbines.
Sustained Advantage
Supporting sustainability is no doubt good global citizenship, but is it good business? Walter explained how sustainability tangibly translates into solid business performance. “In a world of constrained resources — limited money, talent, energy, and environmental resources — it is now imperative that what the infrastructure profession conceives and creates is as high-performing and long-lasting as possible.”
As an example, Walter cited the new San Francisco Federal Building, a 600,000-square-foot flagship office building that houses five different agencies of the federal government. Among other innovative technologies, the building deploys an integrated custom window wall to regulate internal comfort standards through natural ventilation, thermal mass storage, and both passive and active sun-shading.
As the only large modern building in the United States that does not require air conditioning, it has reduced energy usage by 30 percent. “Now that is high performance,” Walter said, noting that Bentley solutions can be used to design that type of building, which in fact they were in this case (MicroStation, TriForma, and Bentley Structural). “Of course, you can also use our solutions to design low-performing buildings as well, but part of our role is to encourage high-performance infrastructure. We cannot force it, of course, but we can encourage it and make it easier to realize.”
Walter pointed out a common fallacy. “Many people look at the need for a sustainable planet and assume we will have to make do with less. We do not believe that. We believe that infrastructure is the key determinant. If we are going to have alternative energy, those plants are going to have be designed and built. If we are going to have better public transportation, there will have to be new design and construction. If current buildings are inefficient, they will have to be replaced. The solution is not to ratchet back — the solution is learning to live smarter. This then speaks to profitability.”
Andrew Winston, co-author of Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy To Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage, used multiple examples to demonstrate that sustainability is no longer considered a cost center by big business in his keynote at BE Conference 2008, Bentley’s annual conference for users of its software held this year in Baltimore, Md., on May 28-30. Rather, it is viewed as a potential contribution to the bottom line.
In fact, acting on behalf of sustainability is no longer particularly notable. Wal-Mart, for example, is not only actively reducing packaging waste, it has begun to ask vendors to provide their carbon footprints — and those with the best footprints are getting better shelf space. “What gets measured gets managed,” said Winston, “and when businesses start considering environmental impact, good results cascade.”
Winston also reported that 92 percent of undergraduates want to work for environmentally responsible companies. Walter pointed to evidence of this in practice at Bentley: “The people we are hiring out of college are asking about our emissions programs. I am glad that we can tell them that we are measurably reducing our own carbon footprint.”
Like most organizations, Bentley also faces the challenge of constantly improving the collaboration across global operations while becoming more energy-efficient at the same time. And like the annual sustainability reporting that many of its software users conduct, Bentley has embraced a goal of reducing its per-colleague carbon footprint by 15 percent before the end of 2009 in respect to its 2007 baseline.
{sidebar id=272}Bentley has been measuring its own carbon footprint since 2006. Back then it realized that it needed to start with an accurate measurement, so it engaged the leading consultants in this space — ICF International — to help calculate 2006 consumption. When validated with comparable 2007 data, Bentley plans to report this metric and encourage other firms to benchmark as well.
The sustainability initiative also means concrete changes in its internal organization, product offerings, and acquisition strategy. For example, earlier this year Bentley acquired Hevacomp, Ltd., a leading U.K.-based provider of building services design software dedicated to improving the performance of buildings. By adding applications to Bentley’s portfolio that help architects, engineers, and low-carbon consultants design buildings that consume less energy, reduce CO2 emissions, and cost less to operate, this acquisition is a good example of the firm’s commitment to sustaining infrastructure and increasing the inventory of high-performing buildings around the world.
Passion Drives Action
Infrastructure may be Bentley’s passion, but what does sustaining infrastructure mean as an organizing metaphor for a corporation and how did infrastructure and sustainability become so woven into Bentley’s culture? Cleveland explained that Bentley has always embraced infrastructure as fundamentally related to quality of life, a passion that permeates the firm. He illustrated this passion by relaying an instance of helping prepare for the Bentley-sponsored Future Cities India 2020 student competition one year and how Bentley executives suddenly came to the realization that what they were really trying to say was that they wanted the students to get into infrastructure so they could save the world.
Added Walter, “In North America, we take infrastructure for granted, but when you travel, you see how important it really is. Eighteen years ago, for instance, when I visited Shanghai, I traveled from the airport to the city on a paved highway, but the city itself had dirt roads and one hotel. Now Shanghai is one of the most modern cities in the world. I have witnessed similar transformations in India and South America — infrastructure is truly game-changing.”
Since there is a strong correlation between economic uplift and concern for the environment, growth in the developing world could well equate to more sustainable societies. Infrastructure appears to be the linchpin connecting reasonable quality of life to a sustainable world, and Bentley is one of many companies directly influencing the course of infrastructure. The 2005 report, “Connecting East Asia: A New Framework for Infrastructure,” co-sponsored by the World Bank, attributes investments in infrastructure over a five-year period to lifting 250 million people out of poverty — establishing a clear link between infrastructure and quality of life.
To even with an expanding spectrum of critical global issues jeopardizing the world’s sustainability — CO2 emissions, climate change, the availability of clean water and sanitation, chronic hunger, unsafe bridges, earthquakes, severe weather, terrorist attacks, civil wars, coastal flooding, hazardous waste, and depletion of nonrenewable resources — Cleveland remains positive.
Although I am excited in terms of the possibilities, it is going to take a ton of pragmatism. I do believe that we can indeed adapt to a changing world while maintaining a good quality of life, but the question is how we get our political leaders to do more than talk about it and begin to take tangible action. It is going to take a lot of political will to propel this path forward.” With an engineer’s wry optimism, he concluded, “Net? I’m still hopeful.”
When Failure Is Not an Option
When it comes to sustaining infrastructure, Bentley is not looking to religion, social movements, or charismatic political leaders to change the world. It is looking to bridges, buildings, communications, electric and gas utilities, factories, metals and mining, oil and gas, power generation, rail and transit, roads, and water and wastewater.
CEO Greg Bentley’s prefaced his keynote at BE Conference 2008 in Baltimore, Md., with a video that featured a montage of people and infrastructure projects that almost spiritualized the physical underpinnings of civilization. “Bentley’s definition of infrastructure — the interface between people and our planet — embraces everyone, and sustaining it requires all of our respective efforts in AEC and operations of infrastructure assets.”
The premise of exploring evolving business needs and Bentley’s business alignment with these changes, he said, is that collective opportunities in sustaining infrastructure depend upon realizing more and better performing infrastructure assets, rather than merely expending our comparatively limited hours just executing the same tasks and workflows that were previously manual.
Bentley believes that current civilization is unsustainable and is approaching the problem from an engineering perspective by providing tools that will redesign the way we live on earth. “As the leader dedicated to information technology’s role, we accept considerable responsibility for more vocal and determined advocacy for this purpose, and we’re undertaking to raise our game in communicating the challenges and benefits of our work together,” stated Mr. Bentley.
More information
Sustaining Infrastructure – A Bentley White Paper
Connecting East Asia: A New Framework for Infrastructure
