Sustainable Infrastructure

iRAP, the International Road Assessment Programme, is a charity that gives engineers and road agencies free tools to star-rate road safety and plan improvements. Its CEO, Greg Smith, started as a traffic engineer in Sydney local government and now leads a global team working in more than 130 countries. In this conversation with Nicolas Miravalls, co-founder and CEO of ORIS, he explains why road design matters more than driver blame, how far the UN road safety decade has really got, and what happens when AI helps rate roads at scale.

Buro Happold designs some of the world's most ambitious city developments. From London's dense, centuries-old core to blank-canvas megaprojects in Saudi Arabia, its infrastructure teams sit at the point where climate resilience, mobility and carbon targets stop being separate conversations and become one design brief. Rainier Valcarcel has spent twenty years in that brief. He started his career in South Africa, moved to the UK eighteen years ago, and now leads Cities Infrastructure at Buro Happold, working across projects from Kingston's Mini Holland cycle scheme to Riyadh Expo 2030 and Qiddiya. What changes between those projects, he argues, isn't the ambition, but the inherent constraints. In this episode, Rainier explains why retrofitting a historic city and designing a greenfield one call for opposite instincts, why reducing carbon on a project is usually the same exercise as reducing its cost, and why the wadis of Saudi Arabia and the drains of London are solving the same problem.

Susanna Zammataro became CEO of FIDIC, the International Federation of Consulting Engineers, a year ago, arriving from 18 years building global road safety data at the International Road Federation. In this episode, she talks with Nicolas Miravalls about FIDIC's carbon management ecosystem, the shift toward multi-criteria procurement with the multilateral development banks, and why she believes AI adoption should start with governance, not tools. The honest takeaway: none of it works until the industry values its own expertise properly.

Louis Bettini grew up on a cattle station 60 kilometres from the nearest town, studied commerce, and spent the last 15 years leading sustainability at one of the world's largest road agencies, Main Roads Western Australia. He chairs PIARC Technical Committee 4.5 on Decarbonisation of Road Construction and Maintenance. In this conversation with Renaud de Montaignac, Louis talks through Western Australia's trickle-down procurement model for decarbonisation, a data-driven approach to network vulnerability assessment, six priority circular materials from recycled asphalt to green steel, and the relationship skills that make any of it work inside a large public organisation. His closing advice: take the first step. Reach out. You don't know what response you'll get.

Davide Lo Presti started his career with a bag of crumb rubber and a PhD question: could waste tyre material be meaningfully integrated into asphalt? Twenty years later, he is leading the SMARTI Lab at the University of Palermo, chairing RoadLCA — the International Symposium on Pavement and Bridge Life Cycle Assessment — and watching the research he began in Nottingham become mandatory in Italian procurement law. This episode covers the full arc: what it takes to move sustainable materials research into industry practice, why road authorities are the real lever of change, how to train engineers who think in lifecycles from day one, and what comes after carbon accounting. One honest takeaway: the tipping point is not a moment. It is a generation.

In this episode of Sustainable Infrastructure, we sit down with Marta Bouchard, Sustainability Solutions Director at Autodesk. Marta shares her journey from sustainability consultant to technology leader, and why she made the switch: impact at scale. We explore how Autodesk built an open partner ecosystem to bring carbon measurement directly into the tools engineers already use, and why no single company can solve infrastructure decarbonization alone. Marta breaks down the real barriers to adoption, the 33% variation problem in carbon calculations across the industry, and what comes after carbon. Whether you work in design, sustainability, or strategy, this episode will change how you think about the role platforms play in driving industry-wide change.

In this episode of Sustainable Infrastructure, I sit down with Andreas Linnet, the Global Decarbonization Lead for Infrastructure at Ramboll. Andreas shares his journey into the world of decarbonization and discusses the pivotal role engineers play in optimizing design for sustainability. We delve into the importance of early carbon quantification in project planning, and how setting clear targets can lead to significant resource and cost savings. Andreas emphasizes the need for a systematic approach to carbon management, encouraging engineers to leverage available tools to make informed decisions. With insights on the evolving landscape of infrastructure sustainability, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to make a meaningful impact in the industry.

Welcome to Episode 3 of Sustainable Infrastructure, the ORIS podcast where engineers, policymakers, and construction leaders share how the world can build infrastructure fit for the environmental and social challenges of the 21st century. Our guest is Alice Yiu, Head of Advocacy and Outreach at the International Road Federation (IRF), a Geneva-based not-for-profit representing the global road community across 118+ countries. Before joining IRF in 2025, Alice spent more than a decade at the SLOCAT Partnership on Sustainable Low Carbon Transport, where she represented the transport sector at UN Climate Summits and led the development of landmark Transport and Climate Status Reports. In this conversation with Nicolas Miravalls, co-founder and CEO of ORIS, Alice maps the full chain of influence, from Paris Agreement pledges to nationally determined contributions, down to project appraisals, procurement rules, and the standards engineers work with every day. She also unpacks IRF's Roadmaps for Change commitment under the UN Decade on Sustainable Transport, which ORIS is proud to support as an endorsing entity. The episode covers the barriers to green roads (spoiler: it's less about technology, more about how projects are evaluated), how IRF builds consensus across a membership that spans road agencies managing two-lane rural roads and city authorities piloting AI-based traffic management, and why Alice believes sustainability should be framed as practical problem solving, not philosophy.

Most infrastructure companies say they care about carbon. But how many actually measure it at the design stage? And of those who measure, how many actually act on the data? David Orr has spent the last three years answering these questions at global scale. As Product Lead for Mott MacDonald's Moata Carbon Portal, he has watched the platform grow from serving a handful of transport projects to supporting infrastructure assessments across 55 countries, spanning energy transmission, water networks, airports, and linear infrastructure. This isn't just another "we built a tool" story. It's a front-row view of what actually happens when engineering firms try to embed carbon thinking into existing workflows: the enthusiasm, the hesitation, the cultural barriers in a sector that doesn't easily share information. David brings an unusual perspective to infrastructure decarbonization: a political science background (MPhil from Cambridge) that led him through fieldwork in emerging markets such as India and Kenya before moving into product leadership at a B2B SaaS platform. He's seen both the policy side and the engineering trenches. In this conversation, Renaud de Montaignac (ORIS co-founder) and David explore the messy reality of scaling carbon measurement: from the moment a spreadsheet becomes insufficient to the point where AI can suggest real-time design alternatives. They discuss why water and energy sectors move at different speeds, what separates genuine transformation from "carbon theatre," and why Moata's name (Māori for "preparedness") captures the mindset needed to start before you're ready.

In this inaugural episode of Sustainable Infrastructure, I sit down with Costanzo Graffi, Europe Contractors Partnership Lead at AECOM. We delve into the pressing need for the construction industry to embrace sustainability, exploring how early decisions can significantly reduce carbon footprints in infrastructure projects. Costanzo shares insights on AECOM's ambitious goal of halving carbon emissions across major projects and the vital role materials play in achieving these targets. We discuss the ecosystem of data and tools necessary for effective decision-making and the evolving landscape of client expectations regarding sustainability. Join us as we uncover the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for sustainable infrastructure and how collaboration can drive meaningful change in the industry.