Infrastructure and Finance Attributes - Modifications and Mitigants for Scaling Sustainable Infrastructure in Cities

A seminar led by Bruce Schlein of the Citi's Community Reinvestment Act Business Strategy Group on urban sustainable infrastructure. Sustainability drivers, such as the imperative to reduce emissions or better manage extreme weather events, and technological developments, such as advances in photovoltaics, are both turning the traditional construct of infrastructure - centralized, fixed-point service facilities and delivery networks - on its head. Buildings no longer need to be passive end-users of infrastructure; they can be the very infrastructure itself as energy producers or stormwater managers. The potential for sustainable infrastructure to serve as a more economic and environmentally friendly substitute for select modes of traditional infrastructure is predicated on achieving scale; efficiently aggregating decentralized activity across the urban landscape. Aggregation and scale depend on market functions, including finance, modifying approaches that have largely formed around traditional infrastructure. This session explores infrastructure and finance attributes that need to be modified or mitigated to realize the full potential of sustainable infrastructure.