Rossland's former City Engineer, Mike Thomas, Earns Infrastructure Sustainability Accreditation
By Contributor
Mike Thomas is the first municipal employee in British Columbia to be qualified to rate civil engineering projects using the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure’s Envision™ rating system, providing the City of Revelstoke with an industry-recognized framework to evaluate and rate the social, environmental and economic benefits of all types of infrastructure.
[Revelstoke] has committed to “be a leader in achieving a sustainable community by balancing environmental, social and economic values within a local, regional and global context” (Revelstoke Vision Statement). Developing sustainable infrastructure solutions is identified as a goal in the Official Community Plan as well as the recently adopted Integrated Community Sustainability Plan.
Tim Palmer, CAO for the City of Revelstoke noted, “Mr. Thomas’s achievement as an accredited Sustainability Professional helps Revelstoke to continue to be the standard of excellence for other British Columbia municipalities. We are privileged to have him on our leadership team.”
Envision™ is a collaborative effort between the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure and the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Similar in nature to the LEED® rating system for buildings and facilities; Envision™ aims to educate citizens and increase public awareness, provide a means to quantify sustainability in infrastructure, and facilitate the adoption of sustainable design for infrastructure.
“The City of Revelstoke can benefit from the Envision™ rating system by providing stakeholders and decision-makers with a standardised sustainability framework that can be applied to a wide range of projects, such as roadworks, pump stations, water and sewer pipelines, bridges, and cycleways” said Mr. Thomas. “The Envision™ rating system provides a sound means of measuring the benefits of innovative, sustainable infrastructure projects.”
Mayor David Raven congratulated Mr. Thomas on his initiative to seek out this accreditation and placing Revelstoke at the forefront of sustainable infrastructure decision-making. Acknowledging this achievement the Mayor stated, “With aging infrastructure and climate risks, the City of Revelstoke is continually seeking improve the design and delivery of infrastructure projects to protect social, economic and environmental values”.
The City of Revelstoke expects to use the Envision™ rating system for internal guidance and self-assessment on most civil projects, with the potential of select projects to be assessed through the formal rating process, gaining recognition for the City’s efforts toward sustainability.
This article is a press release from the City Of Revelstoke.
