I recently attended the “Sustainable Infrastructure and Asset Management” Conference hosted by the Australian Water Association, and would like to congratulate the organisers for an enjoyable and excellent networking event.

Sustainability was defined in many ways by the presenters and participants. So what is sustainability, and how does it interrelate with asset management?

Achieving sustainability will enable the Earth to continue supporting human life as we know it. "Blue Marble" NASA composite images: 2001 (left), 2002 (right). (Wikipedia)

The Institute of Public Works Engineering have, in their position paper on “SUSTAINABILITY IN SERVICE PROVISION” (http://www.ipwea.org.au/nams/upload/PP2.pdf), suggested that this view of sustainability be adopted, and therefore considered part of the triple bottom line, but that people operating in different parts of a business or organisation – such as physical asset management, financial management, customers – will have different and narrower definitions of sustainability.

The emerging ISO standard on asset management has a draft definition of asset management as “systematic and coordinated activities and practices through which an organization optimally and sustainably manages its assets and asset systems, their associated performance, risks and expenditures over their life cycles for the purpose of achieving its organizational strategic plan”

Picture this scenario. A company wishes to build an asset, and operate to failure. This choice will provide the best return to shareholders. The community may not regard this as sustainable.

So, should asset management ensure sustainability?

And, as Peter Kohler asked in his article in Climate Control News in January 2010 “Should Asset Managers now be required to include a global context when considering the release of energy, not only from asset failures, but also as part of design?”. Read Peter's full article here.