Sustainable municipal infrastructure
The term sustainable municipal infrastructure is used by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Infrastructure Canada, National Research Council of Canada and Canadian Public Works Association to describe the goal of their FCM InfraGuide project.
To achieve sustainability in municipal infrastructure especially large scale urban infrastructure, they advocate environmental protocols and inclusion of ecological and social indicators and factors in decision making at the earliest possible stage. There is little focus yet on sustainable rural infrastructure though this is a stated goal of the project, as is spreading it to achieve rural development in developing nations.
In their view, sustainability concerns apply to all of "maintaining, repairing and upgrading the infrastructure that sustains our quality of life" including at least:
- municipal decision making and investment planning
- potable water supply
- stormwater and waste water especially minimizing the distance that such water travels to be treated and reused
- roads and sidewalks and their integration withtransit systems to achieve smoother flow of people
- environmental protocols and multi-discipline practices to ensure they are respected, e.g. green procurement.
These and other Canadian official entities including the Auditor General of Canada and Service Canada are focused on related efforts such as municipal performance audits, information technology and communications technology, moral purchasing and sharing of "data, information, common infrastructure, technology" and the need to "integrate their business processes" to further reduce duplication and waste, especially e-waste and greenhous gas emissions a concern under Kyoto Protocol targets that Canada has committed to achieve.
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