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 highway development projects that
have been evaluated with 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, as the
member of the fellowship, the writer plans to use the Envision Rating System
for the upcoming Impact King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) Project 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. In the article, Cho gives the reader a basis understanding of the
Envision Rating System is being implemented throughout the Mexico and Peru
Projects. However she could give a more complete description could have
enhanced our understanding of the value of using this rating system and also the
challenges that citizens of the country will be facing during the process of
developing the on infrastructure.
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.
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.
During the construction of infrastructure projects, I believe that new cities
might also face impacts such as natural habitats, agriculture and logging is
being destroyed. For example, 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. In spite of these, the Envision Rating Systems help to minimize the
negative impact during the planning stage where it could further persuade the
locals that the system will be beneficial to them.
In conclusion, Envision Sustainability Rating System can be a good
approach in the development of projects 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.
References
Institute For Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI). (n.d.). Envision Sustainable Infrastructure Rating
System. Retrieved from https://www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/rating/
Cho, H. (2014, December 17). Developing
Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities. Retrieved from http://www.newcitiesfoundation.org/evaluating-sustainable-infrastructure-development-new-cities/
Perowne, C. (2003, March). The New
Agriculturist, Country profile – Cambodia. Retrieved from http://www.new-ag.info/en/country/profile.php?a=860
Hello Kathleen,
ReplyDeletelooking at your first reader respond post and your 4th reader respond draft, I can see there there are alot of improvement done. The quotes from the sources were well refined. The reason were more clear cut and the logical flow of the final reader respond post has improved.
Keep up the good work!