Infrastructure businesses are growing at a rapid scale. There is a societal demand as well as need for cutting edge infrastructure in India. The Oxford University in its report ‘Global Infrastructure Outlook’ has estimated that global infrastructure investment needs to be $94 trillion between 2016 and 2040. India will have a major share in this as we move towards ambitious plan of achieving $5 trillion economy by 2025.
However, this is facing an uphill task in terms of enhanced global scrutiny on ESG. As the global community strives to limit global warming to well below 2 degree Celsius, preferably to 1.5 degree Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels, there is enormous pressures for businesses to reduce carbon footprint. Also, climate change has brought focus on other social-environmental risks in an unprecedented way.
It is high time that we focus on sustainable infrastructure as an important dimension of ‘being sustainable’. Thus, Inter-American Development Bank defines sustainable infrastructure as infrastructure projects that are planned, designed, constructed, operated, and decommissioned in a manner to ensure economic and financial, social, environmental (including climate resilience), and institutional sustainability over the entire life cycle of the project. It is thus pertinent that sustainability in the planning process should be given highest priority so that execution is seamless and sustainable.
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