Countries around the world are confronted with the challenge of satisfying their citizens’ demand for high-quality infrastructure services, while facing severe fiscal constraints. The importance of infrastructure sustainability has gained increasing room in the global discussion. Indeed, infrastructure sustainability is at the core of the global sustainable development agenda: 6 out of the 17 preliminary Sustainable Development Goals deal directly with infrastructure. While the concept of sustainable infrastructure has been traditionally associated with building environmentally sound, or “green” infrastructure, it becomes increasingly evident as each day passes that it reaches well beyond the environmental dimension.

Although there is no final consensus on what sustainable infrastructure entails – as evidenced by the multiplicity of rating and assessment schemes produced in the past few years – there is some agreement with the idea that a comprehensive approach to sustainability should seek to devise infrastructure that is tailored to local social, economic and ecological environment and caters the need for infrastructure services in the most effective and efficient way. This requires not only assessing and addressing environmental risks. Sustainability also requires assuring financial resources to maintain infrastructure over its entire lifespan, considering users’ preferences and needs in the design (for maximum effectiveness), and understanding the institutional and political dynamics in order to guarantee projects’ endurance through the political cycle.