Front matter for Integrating Resilience and Sustainability into Civil Engineering Projects

This document is coauthored by members of the ASCE Infrastructure Resilience Division Committee on Social Science, Policy, Economics, Education, and Decision Committee (SPEED) and ASCE Committee on Sustainability (CoS). The purpose of this document is to guide ASCE’s membership and the construction community on the role of resilience and sustainability in civil engineering projects. This includes definitions, attributes, practical guidance, and case studies.

The Infrastructure Resilience Division (IRD) within ASCE was established in 2014. It had become apparent to the membership of ASCE that an overarching effort to work across subdisciplines within civil engineering was needed to better articulate and facilitate common goals and objectives that consider the broader context of the resilience of connected infrastructure systems. To address this effort, the Infrastructure Resilience Division and several technical committees were formed. These include the Civil Infrastructure and Lifeline Systems Committee, Disaster Response and Recovery Committee, Emerging Technologies Committee, Risk and Resilience Measurements Committee, and Social Science, Policy, Economics, Education, and Decision Committee (SPEED). The SPEED committee focuses on integrating social science, policy, and economics into the planning, design, and management decisions surrounding physical infrastructure projects. The committee works across disciplines and consists of not only engineers, but also sociologists and economists.

The ASCE Committee on Sustainability advances ASCE’s commitment to ensuring a sustainable future in which human society has the capacity and opportunity to maintain and improve its quality of life indefinitely, without degrading the quantity, quality, or the availability of natural, economic, and social resources. ASCE’s Committee on Sustainability proposed charge (2022) is to direct, oversee, and coordinate ASCE’s actions in making sustainability the foundation of the built environment globally and to implement ASCE’s Sustainability Strategic Plan.

Caroline Field, P.E., C.Eng., PA Consulting

Chris Zawislak, P.E., M.ASCE, Murray City, Utah

Cliff Ian Davidson, F.ASCE, Syracuse University

Fran Eide, P.E., M.ASCE, City of Olympia (retired)

Ben Harper, CCE, Stonepeak

Jennifer Helgeson, Ph.D., Associate ASCE, NIST

Sue McNeil, Ph.D., Dist.ASCE, University of Delaware

Heather Rosenberg, MESM, Arup

The ASCE Code of Ethics states that engineers govern their professional careers on the fundamental principles to “create safe, resilient and sustainable infrastructure … and utilize their knowledge and skills to enhance the quality of life for humanity” (ASCE 2020).

With more than 7 billion people striving for an improved standard of living, the strain on the world’s resources has never been greater. The engineering community is therefore challenged to change the way infrastructure is designed, constructed, used, and disposed of to reduce the impact that humans have on this planet and to ensure sustainable development.

In addition, the need for resilience has never been more pressing in the face of the worsening climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, as well as continued political and economic instability. These recent challenges have highlighted the need for engineers to effectively adapt to the Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) (Mackey 1992) world that humans now inhabit.

This document seeks to inform and engage the engineering community in the concepts of resilience and sustainability, how they compare, and how engineers, owners, and contractors have adopted, and can adopt, these concepts into practice. There are many fields of practice where resilience and sustainability are used interchangeably or have different meanings to different professions. The sections that follow explain the history of these concepts and further explain how they apply to civil engineering practice.