Monday, November 30, 2015

Reader Response - Final

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

1 comment:

  1. Hello Kathleen,
    looking 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!

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