A new book has been published (in December 2013) by ICE Publishing by Dick Fenner and Charles Ainger which tries to fill the gap between an engineer's understanding of sustainability and how to practically reach these goals.
Sustainable Infrastructure: Principles into Practice is a practical and accessible handbook which addresses the key principles of sustainability for engineers and built environment professionals. It outlines the critical changes needed to deliver more sustainable solutions and offers techniques to embed these changes as best practice in order to deliver high quality, economical and sustainable infrastructure across the globe.
The book identifies key sustainability issues in engineering and a set of common principles which can be applied across all types of infrastructure at each stage of a project, from planning and development through to the implementation, in-use and end-of-life phases. The book provides readers with a set of tools to help define, test and measure sustainability, encouraging them to be champions of change and take full advantage of sustainable opportunities.
Some of the novel features the book includes are:
- A comprehensive set of fundamental principles and tools to guide engineering decision making for sustainable infrastructure delivery
- Real life case studies and practical examples from across the world, including the UK, Europe, Africa and the USA
- An understanding of the concepts and current debates around the need for sustainability
- Advice on what questions to ask and when at each stage of project delivery
Dick Fenner said the book was intended as an introductory volume showing where and how change can be made in all infrastructure projects, and further more specialist sector-specific contexts, including water, transport and buildings will follow.
Image credit: ICE publishing