Kane_OK

Here we are at the Envision conference in Milan. We are with Mr. Anthony Kane, CEO of ISI. Can you tell us something about ISI? Absolutely. So, the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure was created originally by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American counsel of engineering companies and the American Public Works Association. And we were created as an independent organization but we partner with Harvard University Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure to develop the Envision rating system. And then now we've partnered with ICMQ here in Italy to apply Envision in Italy. Oh, great. During your speech, you talked about the importance of having like a common language, what's your vision about that? Absolutely. So, sustainability is a very complex issue, covering social, environmental and economic benefits and impacts. And infrastructure is also very complex, so when we began to communicate around what does sustainable infrastructures mean, having a common language is a very important concept because you'll have different professionals with different technical expertise, you'll have the general public, you'll have investors, government officials. When they speak they may be saying the same words but they may have different meanings. And when they talk about different environmentally and social issues, they may be coming from a different perspective. So, having a consistent framework, that gives them a reference point, that they can understand when someone says what do we mean when we talk about community values, what do we mean when we talk about stakeholder engagement, they have a common place they can go to understand. Yeah, absolutely. And, at least here in Italy there is the perception that sustainability costs more. Is that true? No, I don't think it's true at all and I think where that belief has come from is... infrastructures, there's a lot of inertia behind how we do things and we like to do it in a traditional way, how we have done it before and where this perception has come from is that when we design conventional projects all the way to the end and then we decide we want to make that sustainable. So, we add on solar panels and sustainability features and yes, that would add costs but if we started from the beginning, with the determination of what is the most sustainable project and how we do incorporate sustainability from the beginning, you can often find cost savings or at least cost neutral solutions that would improve the sustainability of the project and it does not cost more. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.