The imperfect environmentalist mind-set

Going green and resilience – well, not a paradox. As he shows the blueprint of green construction and infrastructure, Rodrigo Fernandes, Director, ES(D)G (Empowering Sustainable Development Goals), Bentley Systems argues that building supposed “green” infrastructure solutions without being resilient is not genuinely green. He also shows how stacking various briquettes like capacity shortages, complex supply chains, long-living assets, data formats, carbon calculators, simulators matter for infrastructure professionals as they cement sustainability in a deeper way into what they do. Let’s demolish some myths and restructure some assumptions here.

Bentley Systems has roles designated as ES(D)G – not ESG – Can you throw some light on how it influences the overall strategy?

Our conviction is that our users – the engineers, builders, owners, and operators of infrastructure – when aided by the power and insights provided by our software, can future-proof the infrastructure needed to accomplish the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, we often speak of Bentley’s SDG handprint as our corporate goal to empower users to achieve SDGs globally.
When we say ES (D) G, our purpose is to empower SDGs through infrastructure digital twin solutions, helping our users realize more sustainable, predictable, and resilient outcomes. We combined the two acronyms ESG and SDG to form ES (D) G – Empowering Sustainable Development Goals – to reflect our purpose and to bring attention to the environmental handprint of our software and services.
Indeed, empowering SDGs is one of our strategic priorities for the next decade.

How seriously are sustainability and resilience taken in the current construction landscape?

We are halfway between the Paris Agreement and 2030. We need to reduce emissions by 43% by 2030 (compared to 2019 levels) and course correct on adaptation. Infrastructure is responsible for 79% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, consumes 60% of the world’s materials, and represents 88% of all adaptation costs. Therefore, the sector is essential to achieving the Paris Agreement and the SDGs.
Regulations for carbon reporting and decarbonization are also increasing, and insurance companies are also positively influencing the market, mainly by promoting more resilient infrastructure.
This situation presents a dire and complex scenario where infrastructure professionals are being asked to lead a monumental effort to decarbonize and climate-proof our infrastructure on a scale and pace never seen before.

Use not just an environment foot-print but a hand-print approach. Build clever!

Is there a paradox between going green and becoming resilient?

There is no paradox between going green and becoming more resilient. Typically, the most resilient solutions are also the greenest. Nature-based solutions are a good example. Building supposed “green” infrastructure solutions without being resilient is not genuinely green, because they are potentially generating infrastructure with shorter lifetimes, which is certainly not the most sustainable approach from a circular and whole lifecycle approach.

Can carbon calculation be done in a holistic way – from design to demolition?

That is part of what is defined as whole-life carbon assessment. Having a good estimation of the carbon footprint in all lifecycle stages allows infrastructure engineers and sustainability experts to optimize infrastructure design, minimizing the total carbon footprint, both embodied and operational. This holistic approach can clarify in the design stage the carbon benefits or consequences of investing upfront (e.g., insulation) versus investing downstream (e.g., heat pumps or solar PV panels).

What is the impact of regulations and standards like RICS in the U.K. and BRR in India for companies investing in carbon assessment?

Overall, regulations and standards like RICS and BRR can have a positive impact. They help companies reduce the risk of errors and omissions, improve the credibility and reliability of their carbon assessments, and facilitate compliance with other regulations and standards. For instance, RICS can support compliance with other regulations and standards, such as the U.K. Green Building Council’s BREEAM rating system.
BRR guidelines require certain companies to report on various non-financial performance indicators, including environmental performance. As a result, for companies investing in carbon assessment, BRR guidelines can help improve the transparency and accountability of their environmental performance and benchmark their performance against other companies.
In addition, regulations and standards can help to raise awareness of carbon assessment and encourage more companies to invest in this area.

What role can solutions like iTwin play in helping infrastructure turn green in a proactive way?

While being asked to decarbonize and climate-proof infrastructure on an unprecedented scale and pace, infrastructure professionals today face multiple obstacles, including capacity shortages, complex supply chains, long-living assets, and diverse teams, solutions, and data formats.
Now is the time we must redefine the essence of infrastructure and embrace a new paradigm – infrastructure intelligence – to reimagine what is possible and how to harness the transformative power of technology for sustainable development.
With infrastructure digital twins, we can now achieve quick wins by prioritizing sustainability principles, as well as emission-abatement levers like circularity, efficiency, and diversifying renewables. We advocate that infrastructure digital twins are one of the most effective approaches for holistically implementing those principles and levers.

What gains do MicroStation and simulation tools bring here?

MicroStation is just an example of a piece of the puzzle that supports more efficient infrastructure design. The design stage is critical in terms of carbon reduction potential – the opportunity to significantly reduce embodied carbon will be influenced by our choices during the initial design stages, where designers can “build clever” by optimizing material usage and designing with low-carbon materials.

How?

At Bentley, we advocate that digital twin solutions are crucial for accelerating SDGs and driving climate action. We must also truly understand that ecosystem collaboration is critical for accelerating low-carbon, climate-resilient pathways for infrastructure. No one company or entity can address these challenges alone. We must collaborate to make this a reality.

The only way to efficiently address the pressing challenges enumerated above is to embrace an open, interoperable, collaborative, and vendor-neutral platform for infrastructure digital twins. That’s why we consider Bentley’s iTwin Platform as strategic for driving and scaling up partnerships and ecosystem collaboration. This ecosystem truly aligns with SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals), and we think it will create a world where infrastructure digital twins can improve the quality of life for everyone on the planet.

Are AI and IoT the new stars on this stage?

AI and IoT are not new at Bentley. We have been using both technologies in various infrastructure digital twins for years. Just a few examples include detecting water loss and pipe bursts in water supply systems with OpenFlows WaterSight, detecting cracks and 3D deformation in critical infrastructure such as dams with our dam monitoring solution, and object feature extraction from city-scale 3D reality models, such as trees, for managing green infrastructure.
The recent democratization of generative AI will bring exciting opportunities for accelerating infrastructure intelligence, enabling new capabilities and features to support project delivery and asset performance, which is essential to successfully moving toward more sustainable and resilient infrastructure.

What does the post-AI future look like?

Our vision is that AI will assist but not replace infrastructure engineers. It will take on mundane and time-consuming tasks during the design process so that engineers can focus on higher-value activities, such as optimizing carbon when designing infrastructure.
From a sustainable perspective, rather than focusing on an AI-centric or IoT-centric strategy, we should start with the problem statement. What problem are we trying to solve? What is the current approach?

Can AI or IoT significantly improve the solution, productivity, or work experience? If so, we should leverage it, always considering the necessary data security and privacy. Our users will retain all access and control over their data, and only they will direct to what extent, if any, it will be used for AI training.

What are you most proud of in terms of helping the planet? What are you working on next, such as future solutions and segments?

Infrastructure is a crucial driver for growth, employment, and improving quality of life. Moreover, there cannot be significant progress on climate action without infrastructure. Low-emission, climate-resilient development pathways depend on how, when, and at what scale we future-proof our infrastructure and make it sustainable.
Generally speaking, I am genuinely honored to work for a company that provides the right capabilities for supporting engineers and infrastructure professionals in the complex task of saving the planet from climate change and its effects. Our shared purpose is to empower our users to advance infrastructure responsibly.
As an example, I was given the opportunity of initiating and driving Bentley’s strategy for integrated carbon assessment in iTwin, and that is definitely one of the initiatives I am most proud of – mainly because of the positive feedback we received from users or early adopters working in large, complex infrastructure projects, such as rail or linear infrastructure in general. We can testify that sustainability engineers dramatically improve their productivity on embodied carbon reporting and optimization, allowing them to do much more in better ways. However, we are conscious there is still a lot of hard work to be done. We want to ensure carbon is an intrinsic element and variable of every infrastructure digital twin.

Achieving net-zero emissions today is virtually impossible.

What should companies, governments, and people be improving upon? What is your advice to make the world safer, greener, and better?

My general advice would be to start right now, pragmatically adopting a strategy of quick wins and prioritizing the most impactful emission reduction levers such as efficiency, circularity, recycling, and renewables. Digital solutions can undoubtedly support this strategy. Companies, governments, and people should embrace the imperfect environmentalist mindset. Being an imperfect environmentalist means we care about the planet. We are conscious of how our actions impact the earth and do our best to reduce that impact. “Our best” will look different for everyone.
Achieving net-zero emissions today is virtually impossible. However, each of us can and should find our own purpose and roadmap. While continuously making all viable efforts and actions to reduce our environmental footprint, we should also adopt a handprint approach and move toward a true net positive where we can give more than take.

By Pratima H