This week’s IJGlobal webinar – The Critical Infrastructure Resilience Discussion – attracted an impressive international audience with the 2 key speakers delving into the a sector that will become increasingly core to subscribers of this service.

The webinar was hosted by 3 presenters: 

• Mathew Garver, president and managing partner of M&E Global, who moderated
• Gerald Buckwalter – former Presidential National Infrastructure Advisory Council, chair of infrastructure resiliency study – and now COO of the American Society of Civil Engineers
• Euromoney’s very own Kelly Morgan – who kept the show on the air

To watch a recording of the webinar – which aired on Thursday (11 June) – CLICK HERE…

You will be first asked to input your details, followed immediately an email with a link to the webinar recording.

This Webinar is designed to give attendees key insights into factoring resilience into investment decision-making and outline the fundamentals for crafting a strategy that increases the durability of infrastructure assets.

After the webinar, Buckwalter said: “Infrastructure will become smarter and more efficient with the deployment of new telecommunication technologies such as 5G and the utilisation of Internet of Things.

“New technologies open the door to new vulnerabilities with governments and public authorities emphasising durability as a key tenet for future investment.

“Risks to infrastructure take a variety of forms – from climate change to cyber security – will challenge ensuring value for money across the life-cycle of projects.”

He adds: “Both finance and engineering need to have a seat at the table, which we did in this webinar. Now I look forward to mutually tackling the infrastructure finance and design benefits we both desire.

“Environmental threats are remediated by resilient infrastructure and digital connectivity enables and requires resilient infrastructure. To get that resilience, financiers can take a life-cycle cost perspective to fund it and civil engineers can design interconnected systems to create it.

“Finance and engineering can be change agents to advance resilient infrastructures, or if we don’t, we will probably join the crowd and become victims in a changing world. Our choice.”

Through the course of the webinar, viewers were asked to give vote on 3 questions. The questions and their responses follow.

What percentage of your current projects have a Lifecycle Resilience plan?

• 0% – 34% of respondents
• 25% – 43%
• 50% – 19%
• 75% plus – 4%

In addition to Smart Healthcare, what Digital Infrastructure application will progress the fastest in the near next 3 years?

• Smart Cities – 24% of respondents
• Smart Transportation and Shipping – 30%
• Smart Energy – 46%

What is more important: Infrastructure resilience for Cyber-security or climate change?

• Climate change is more important – 23% of respondents
• Both are equally important – 53%
• Cyber risk is more important – 14%
• Not sure – 10%