Sustainable Infrastructure – Role of Quantity Surveyor

 

 

Development of infrastructure boosts the economy and sustainable infrastructure is the way forward for India in this direction. Sustainable infrastructure tries to add value to the facilities in the long run thereby improving the standard of living. The focus of sustainable infrastructure projects is to optimize aspects such as energy consumption, water consumption, solid waste management etc. which requires considerable cost in sustainable engineering that can reap benefits from the perspective of life cycle costs. A quantity surveyor plays a pivotal role in the construction of sustainable and energy efficient infrastructure. The balance of sustainability and affordability is a challenge for the Quantity surveyor in delivering sustainable infrastructure. In addition to traditional ways of estimating and controlling costs, the quantity surveyor has to look at the concepts of whole life costing and cost effective sustainable strategies to evaluate the green costs of projects. The Quantity surveyor has to adopt offsite construction methods to minimize the costs as well as energy consumption. There is need for the quantity surveyor to drive the mission of sustainable directives without compromising profitability. The objective of this dialogue is to discuss the competencies, future roles and strategies that a Quantity surveyor could make in delivering sustainable infrastructure

 

(Collaboration: RICS School of Built Environment, Amity University)