“It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you don’t care who gets the credit!”

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Leaders agree how the global infrastructure sector can collaborate more effectively to win the fight against climate change.

Agreeing the actions needed to enable the global infrastructure sector to collaborate to exert greater influence to contribute to the achievement of climate action was high on the agenda at a panel session at FIDIC’s Global Leadership Forum Summit in Geneva.

Industry experts on the panel included Fuat Savas, managing director at JP Morgan in the infrastructure finance and advisory team and GLF Advisory Board Member, Diane Holdorf, executive vice president at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Estelle Monod, senior vice president, building segments at Schneider Electric, Claire Rutkowski, senior vice president and CIO Champion at Bentley Systems and Chris Lewis, partner and global infrastructure leader at EY, a strategic partner to the GLF and member of the Advisory Board

Addressing some of the finance issues panelists highlighted that there were three broad options in responding to the climate challenges. One was to wait for governments to mandate change, which was in reality a ‘head in the sand approach’ which wasn’t going to work. A second ‘muddle through’ approach where organisations still waited for other stakeholders to dictate change was similarly discarded as not being appropriate in today’s current and changing industry and business landscape.

Defining where you stand and making things happen

Instead, a much more proactive approach was needed – one which “defined where you stand as a business and making things happen”. Attendees heard that there was both challenge and reward in green business and its financing, including in industries that were not being looked at previously due to the tendency to look at those challenges in the same way as ever.

On the question of decarbonisation, the key question posed was “What do we do together to go faster? Working together to define whole-life carbon so that capital markets can recognise what is being delivered – has to be done in collaboration; no one firm can dictate that. Treating carbon like any other cost – progress made but more needs to be done. Creating collective demand signals, updating and refreshing existing facilities and infrastructure. Raise the profile of the examples of collective work so that stakeholders can see the benefit and from that to build a meaningful action agenda.

Focusing on the challenges around energy, attendees heard a clear plea for technology specialists to have a seat at the table much earlier in the construction lifecycle. The right technical expertise and knowledge needed to brought to bear in projects as early as possible to allow technology the opportunity to work as a partner. Where tech firms were working in genuine partnership with construction and infrastructure companies then this was already leading to collaborative outputs that were changing the way the industry works for the better.

Good data drives good decisions

Effective use of technology and data was seen as crucial to achieving climate targets. There was also a recognition that tech could be a challenge, but how it was used could also remove some of the friction that arises. Effective application of technology included using open platforms – so whatever tech is used works with other systems and platforms. This was real collaboration in action. There has much discussion around interoperability and big data – the need to be able to marry up systems and work together. A key maxim, that good data drives good decisions, needed to be applied in all cases.

Against a background of still rising emissions, resources had to be made available to achieve workable pathways to net zero. Panellists strongly believed that they would be, but infrastructure and technical experts had a key role to play in ensuring that politicians and other influencers had the most up-to-date and accurate information on which to make the decisions that would make a decisive difference when it comes to addressing the challenge of climate change and changing the world for the better.

A key quote from the session, quoting former US president Harry Truman, summed up the spirit of collaboration in the room. “It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you don’t care who gets the credit!” – wise words which highlight that industry, businesses, politicians and communities all needed to work together to make the world a better place.