In the article, “Developing Sustainable Infrastructure
in New Cities”, Cho (2014) states that sustainability needs to be ranked first
for cities to adapt to the extreme urban context in the 21st century. The author mentions that “Envision
Sustainability Rating System” is a pioneering rating system designed to monitor
the performance of an infrastructure through the ability, flexibility and the
usefulness to last from a present project. The writer states that both Mexico
and Peru are using sustainable techniques to construct their highways
developments that have been evaluated by the Envision Rating System, which has
served the community well by overcoming these challenges such as “rising energy
prices, water shortages, traffic congestion and etc. At the same time, the
writer plans to implement the sustainable techniques and using Envision Rating
System for the upcoming Impact King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) Fellowship in
order to achieve a holistic vision for sustainable infrastructural development
in the new city.
There are both pros
and cons for using the Envision Sustainability Rating System. However, in the
article, Cho fails to adequately explain in depth on to how the Envision Rating
System is being implemented and the cons that it will bring to the cities
during development. Cho only concentrates on pros of the rating guideline, she
lacks out on the challenges that people will be facing during the process of
developing on infrastructure.
In order to get
awarded for the Envision, the project have to meet 60 sustainability criteria
which is divided into five sections, namely Quality of life, Leadership,
Resource Allocation, Natural world and Climate and Risk.
Envision
Sustainability consists of two phases. Before starting on a project, there will
be an Envision Checklist for the users, helping users to get familiar with the
sustainability aspect of the infrastructure project and design. The checklist
consists of five categories and fourteen subcategories of a series of Yes/No
question based on how the award is being awarded. Later on, the project will be
further review by the ISI verifiers. The verifier is an independent, third
party that works with the ENV SP to validate their assessment of a project.
At the same
time, during the development of infrastructures, I believe that cities will
also face negative impacts such as natural habitats, agriculture and logging is
being destroyed. Neighboring country such as Cambodia rely heavily on their
agriculture for living. According to Perowne (2003), Agriculture accounted for 50%
of GDP for Cambodia economy and employed approximately 85% of the work force.
Hence, with the increase in developments, agriculture will be destroyed. At the
same time, citizens in the countries will eventually lose their job with no
source of income.
In conclusion, Envision
Sustainability Rating System can be a good approach in the developments of
project and also enhancing the quality of life of communities and serve the
citizen better. However, I also believed that Envision Sustainability Rating
System could be further elaborate in Cho’s article to give readers a better
understanding of the Envision Sustainability Rating System.
Reference
Institute For
Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI): Rating System. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16,
2015.
Cho, H. (2014,
December 17). Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities. Retrieved
October 16, 2015.
Perowne, C.
(2003, March). Country profile – Cambodia. Retrieved October 16, 2015.
