Sustainable Urban Infrastructure - Federation of Canadian Municipalities

Federation of Canadian Municipalities

Several organizations in Canada related to the FCM InfraGuide project, including the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Infrastructure Canada, National Research Council of Canada, and Canadian Public Works Association, seek 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 with transit 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 greenhouse gas emissions a concern under Kyoto Protocol targets that Canada has committed to achieve.

Communities of Tomorrow is a non-profit enterprise in Saskatchewan, Canada that fosters the development and commercialization of innovative sustainable infrastructure solutions for the global marketplace. Sustainable infrastructure is the development of water, sewer, roads, and other infrastructure systems that meet the needs of current and future generations in a socially, economically and environmentally sustainable manner. Communities of Tomorrow brings industry firms together with researchers to collaboratively develop new infrastructure solutions to existing or future problems with the ultimate goal to commercialize them. It’s about building greener and longer lasting infrastructure, such as roads and water systems, to offer the global marketplace.