What are the best infrastructure investments to make? Is it based on economics, or resilience, or both?

Our infrastructure investment decisions matter enormously if infrastructure is to be long lived, so how can we select infrastructure investments that are optimum? How do we determine what would be the best investments to make? Projects are generally selected on economic grounds, but they should also be meeting “other criteria” including the ability of the infrastructure to restore, regenerate and increase social, cultural, natural and economic capital. This “other criteria” is the focus of work being undertaken by the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA), who in 2018 will launch version 2.0 of the IS Rating Scheme (ISv2.0), which provides a basis for planning of infrastructure–not only how it rates from a sustainability point of view, but also provides input into how we should best plan, design and operate this piece of infrastructure.