As infrastructure spending ramps up across the globe, one of the greatest barriers to building in a sustainable and resilient way is a lack of capacity among local government officials, engineers, developers, and financiers. To address this need, the founding partners of the Infrastructure Sustainability Learning (ISLe) Initiative are creating virtual communities of practice for sustainable infrastructure practitioners to learn from experts and from one another.
The Challenge Ahead
Infrastructure projects built over the next ten years – including energy, transportation, digital and telecommunications, water and sanitation, and social infrastructure – will largely determine whether the world advances along a path toward sustainable development, decarbonisation, and climate adaptation or continues along its business-as-usual trajectory.
The expertise, tools, and best practices to realize these changes already exist. However, individuals who actively plan, design, and construct infrastructure often are unaware of these resources or how to leverage them. Given the impending wave of new infrastructure spending, there is an urgent need to build practitioners’ capacity efficiently and at scale so they can make informed decisions.
Transforming Engineering Education
ICSI created a virtual Learning Hub to catalyse the development of recommendations for designing and enhancing the inclusion of climate resilience and sustainability topics in engineering higher education. This paper explores key insights from the hub and presents a pathway for transformation in engineering education.
Transforming Engineering Education for the 21st Century: Learning from Practitioners
This report explores the role of academia in preparing future engineers with the knowledge, skills and mindsets required for addressing today’s pressing climate and sustainability challenges.
The ISLe Model
The ISLe Initiative engages stakeholders from across multiple disciplines in learning networks, using the case-based and problem-solving learning approaches developed by Project ECHO. Within an ISLe network, participants explore issues related to their own infrastructure projects in collaboration with other practitioners and sustainable infrastructure experts.
The ISLe founding partners—the Nicholas Institute for Policy and Energy at Duke University, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure (ICSI)—led a yearlong pilot ISLe network focused on applications of UNEP’s Good Practice Principles for Sustainable Infrastructure. The pilot demonstrated successful adaptation of the Project ECHO model to the sustainable infrastructure field; it was attended live by 641 participants representing 71 countries, it had 2,500 views of webinar recordings, and 97% of the participants surveyed said they were likely to apply learnings in their work. Recordings and case study briefs from these sessions are available.
Objectives of the ISLe Initiative
- Facilitate knowledge sharing and collaborative problem solving among a diverse group of infrastructure stakeholders utilizing the Project ECHO case-based learning model.
- Create dedicated learning networks that focus on addressing critical sustainable infrastructure issues related to particular topics and/or geographies.
- Develop communities of practice that enable a global discourse on sustainable infrastructure.
Get in touch
If you have questions or comments about the ISLe Initiative, please reach out to sustainable-infrastructure@duke.edu.
