Envision Framework

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ISIcatalyzes systemic change in the world of civil infrastructure, with the Envision framework as the vehicle. Understand the benefits of ISI membership and find links to Envision credentialing and project verification below.

The Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure and the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI) have launched Envision, a framework for evaluating infrastructure projects.

The system takes what ISI calls a holistic view, touching on quality of life, resource allocation, impacts on ecosystems and climate, and issues of risk and leadership. Project owners and design teams can use a self-assessment tool or can submit the project for third-party verification, which includes evaluation of the project during three phases: pre-construction, construction, and operations and maintenance.

Future versions of the rating system will also incorporate additional tools for complex or multi-stage projects. Learn more about the Zofnass methodology.

The Envision Sustainable Infrastructure Framework (Envision), published by the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI) is quickly becoming globally recognized as a highly credible approach to plan, design, and deliver more sustainable, resilient, and equitable infrastructure.

The use of Envision helps enhance social, environmental, and economic project outcomes (the "triple bottom line"). This increases the total return on investment from building new public infrastructure projects. ISI trains people to become Envision Sustainability Professionals (ENV SPs) and verifies projects. This workshop will provide a detailed review of the Envision framework (see course outline below).

Attendees will be granted access to the online, self-administered, ENV SP test on the ISI website after completion of the workshop. Attendees who pass the test will immediately receive their ENV SP certificate. Your workshop registration fee includes the cost for the Envision Sustainability Professional (ENV SP) exam. You will be provided instructions on how to do this during the course.

VHB is a Charter Member of ISI, who developed the Envision Rating System as a tool to measure and facilitate the achievement of social, economic, and environmental sustainability goals through capital improvement projects.

A number of VHB projects are currently undergoing Envision Framework verification for a project award. In New York, its framework is being applied to the Port Authority of New York-New Jersey infrastructure projects, and Penn Station Access project for the MTA , and Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency Battery Project. In Florida, the Envision Framework is being applied to the West Central Streetscape project in St. Petersburg. And three airports are utilizing Envision Framework to prepare for future climate events and air travel growth: BOS Runway 9/27 and 15/33, Worcester Regional Runway 11/29, and T.F. Green Airport Runway 5-23 Extension.

The purpose of this partnership between Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) and Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI) is to advance sustainable infrastructure practices in Canada by accelerating the use of the Envision sustainable infrastructure framework.

Envision Canada comes at a time when communities across the country are looking for ways to build a cleaner and greener future. Envision is a useful and practical tool to support the long-term planning toward a climate resilient future. It takes complex topics and breaks them down into actions that can be implemented on any type of infrastructure project.

Green Line is being developed to achieve the Gold level award under the Envision Framework for Sustainable Infrastructure that evaluates the social, environmental and economic benefits of major infrastructure projects.

The impacts of climate change and population growth have accelerated the need to develop sustainable infrastructure and the Envision Framework helps to guide the planning, design, and delivery of projects that are sustainable, resilient and equitable.

Developing sustainable infrastructure is one way for communities to protect the environment, enhance human health and well-being and bolster economic prosperity. The Envision Framework provides decision makers and project teams a system of criteria, performance objectives and third-party verification to meet those objectives.

The Envision Framework is being applied to the planning design, construction, and future operation of Green Line. The initiative is overseen by a team that includes Green Line leadership collaborating with key staff from The City of Calgary and major contractors on the project.

The Framework helps to ensure Green Line has a coordinated approach to maximize the social and environmental benefits of a project of this size that includes construction in developed urban areas and crossing of two waterways (the Bow and Elbow rivers).

The Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure is an education and research nonprofit established in 2010 in Washington DC in response to the need for a comprehensive sustainability framework and rating system suitable for use in civil infrastructure development.

The Envision Framework for Sustainable Infrastructure is a certification-based initiative from the Institute similar to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) process used for buildings and is used to develop infrastructure projects worldwide.

The Envision Framework comprises 64 sustainability indicators which cover the full lifecycle of the project. To achieve a Gold level award, Green Line will have to earn points by providing evidence that the project's planning, design, construction and operational stages follow the Envision sustainability guidelines.

The Willamette River Basin (WRB) is a complex coupled system, one that includes both a natural system (the biophysical components) and a human system (the socio-economic components). The interactions, feedbacks, and evolving characteristics of these different components will control when and where water is abundant or scarce. Given the complexity of the system, and the detailed spatial and temporal scales at which these different components interact and influence each other, an explicit and quantitative representation of this system requires a computer model to incorporate the many processes and relationships in time and space between and among the natural and human system components. This allows us to predict how those processes are likely to change over time. As a result, we developed Willamette Envision. The model enables us to explore the interactions between land and water use, law and policy, and public management of land and water resources.

Willamette Envision includes modeling components that represent water supply, water allocation, and water demand (Fig. 2). We model water supply in the basin using a hydrologic model that translates daily values of meteorological conditions into a spatially distributed estimate of snow, soil moisture, and streamflow conditions. We model water allocation by incorporating the operating rules for the 13 federal Willamette Project reservoirs, and a model of water use constraints imposed by Oregon water law. We model water demand for four sectors: urban areas, agriculture, upland forests, and instream ecosystems (fish). We estimate water demand for urban areas as a function of factors such as water price and population, and simulate urban growth by relating land use changes to land characteristics and economic returns. We model water demand for agricultural and forested lands by estimating evaporative water loss from different crop and forest cover types. Connected modeling components determine farmer planting and irrigation decisions, and forest succession and disturbance by wildfire and harvest. We represent instream ecological water needs by modeling instream water rights and also federally required ESA-related minimum flows that are integrated into reservoir management rules.

The IDU layer was developed by intersecting the catchment shapefile with a composite dataset representing landuse and landcover in the WRB. This catchment shapefile provides information needed by the hydrology model to connect the landscape to individual stream reaches. The land use/land cover dataset was developed by combining information from two sources: (1) a US Forest Service dataset (GNN) representing the forested portions of the basin and (2) as US Department of Agriculture datasets (NASS CDL) representing all other portions of the basin. The NASS data is derived from LANDSAT imagery and is designed to closely capture the crops grown as part of the agricultural system.

Willamette Envision is based on Envision, a modeling framework developed at Oregon State University by John Bolte and colleagues ( ). The following individuals contributed to the design and coding of modeling components within Willamette Envision -

Envision is a best practices framework that helps agencies like Central San plan, design, build, and operate more sustainable, resilient, and equitable infrastructure. The framework includes 64 criteria organized around five categories: Quality of Life, Leadership, Resource Allocation, Natural World, and Climate and Resilience.

ESCR is a $1.45 billion climate resiliency project that will provide flood protection and improve open spaces for more than 110,000 New Yorkers, including 28,000 residents in NYCHA housing. This is especially significant for neighborhoods in the ESCR project area that were severely impacted by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Managed by DDC, the project involves significant upgrades to public open spaces and five parks, including improved waterfront access through reconstructed bridges and entry points. It will also upgrade existing sewer systems to capture and manage precipitation during storms.

Construction of ESCR began near Stuyvesant Cove Park in November 2020. Last month, the City announced the reopening of Asser Levy Playground along with a new 45-ton sliding floodgate. The entire project, which is being done in phases to keep park areas open for use by area residents during construction, will be completed in 2026.

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