From Nashville to New York City Practical Applications of the Envision Rating System

The Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI) developed the Envision Sustainable Infrastructure Rating System in 2012. This rating system not only provides a framework and credits specifically geared toward all sizes and types of civil infrastructure projects, but it also assesses the projects’ overall contribution to the communities they serve. The holistic goal is to encompass the triple bottom line (environment, society, and economy), and encourage the practices to work toward the nexus of these parameters. Given the scope of Envision, municipal wastewater infrastructure now has an applicable and appropriate sustainability rating system. This paper presents methodologies for applying the Envision process as designed to assess a project in pursuit of Envision Sustainability Recognition Award and also in an innovative approach for evaluating non-monetary alternatives as part of a wastewater planning project.