“There’s no point building sustainable infrastructure if we know it lacks resilience.”

The Resilience Shift has captured the journey of how the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA) worked with industry to develop a third party, independent Infrastructure Sustainability (IS) rating scheme to measure sustainability performance on new infrastructure projects.

The contribution of engineers to resilience has traditionally been limited to their technical expertise. To achieve better outcomes the broader community needs to listen more closely to engineers and the profession also need to communicate in a more approachable language.

Over the last 10-15 years, society has become used to urban systems and services being provided to us, to support us in everything we do. From garbage collection to sewage, to water, to energy. 

These are just some components of our urban systems that we take for granted. But in times of crisis – storms, bushfires, flood, terrorist or cyber-attack – many of these systems can easily break down.

SCA Farewells Longstanding Chair and Welcomes Energy Sector Leader, Alison Rowe, as Chair of the Board. Alison will be replacing long-serving Chair, David Singleton AM, who is stepping down as Chair at the Annual General Meeting on November 14 and retiring as an Independent member director from the ISCA Board when his tenure is up in April 2019.

It’s undeniable that there is a lot of activity in the smart cities space, and it’s occurring at breakneck speed. What I like about Hong Kong’s approach is it’s a more pragmatic one, and it’s a reminder in the global smart cities race that pragmatism can actually be a good thing. Being pragmatic doesn’t mean not having a vision, or any imagination – it simply means we – as Hong Kong is doing – need to temper possibility with practicality.

Nine winners of inaugural Smart Cities Awards announced. A serial disruptor, a government visionary, an emerging leader and a world-leading council are among the winners of the inaugural Australian Smart Cities Awards. 

Recognising and rewarding leadership plays an important role in celebrating best practice and stimulating discussion and action.   

As Chair of the inaugural Australian Smart Cities Awards - the nation’s first and only national dedicated smart cities award program -  it’s been an honour and a terrific opportunity to gain insight into some of Australia’s best work in the smart cities arena. 

Civil engineering is a broad church, and that was abundantly clear at the recent ICE 200 Australasia Conference. While it was a more ‘traditional’ engineering conference, the topics and discussions were extraordinarily rich, and the audience quite diverse. One thing that struck me is that we aren’t all just a bunch of cardigan wearing civil engineers anymore and the increasing number of female delegates present is an excellent sign for the future.

How a workshop led to the creation of a new guide released by the Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC) which looks specifically at emerging climate risk tools that can help investors manage physical climate risk – at portfolio and asset levels.

When it comes to climate change and resilience to extreme weather events, Australians don’t need to look very far to understand our challenges – as the poem goes, we have ample droughts and flooding plains … and heatwaves and blackouts. But the challenges do not come from mother nature alone, they lie in leadership, particularly in Australia’s approach to business sustainability. Lessons should be learned from UK businesses in terms of understanding the imperatives and structuring business strategy around climate change.

Our infrastructure investment decisions matter enormously if infrastructure is to be long lived, so how can we select infrastructure investments that are optimum? How do we determine what would be the best investments to make?

Over the next five years, the Australian Volunteers program will place around 5000 Australians in a wide range of volunteer assignments across 26 nations in the Indo-Pacific. T

It’s been quite an exciting and action-packed start to 2018 for me, so much so I’d like to share this with my network.

Swinburne University of Technology has announced the re-appointment of David Singleton to the University's Council. David has served as a Swinburne Council member since 2014 and his re-appointment will ...

The theme for the 2017 Sustainable Integrated Cities International Conference – held in Perth on 4th and 5th December 2018 – was ‘Integrated Thinking for Sustainable Cities and Communities.’

I joined a strong speaker line up which included Michael Nolan, Chair UN Global Compact – Cities Programme, Brad Pettitt, Mayor at Fremantle City Council, Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University, Larry Quick, CEO of Resilient Futures, and John Thwaites, Professor & Chairman, Monash Sustainable Development Institute & Climate Works Australia.

Resilience is a hot topic when it comes to the major issues facing our communities now and into the future. I asked 11 leading industry contributors the following question: We continue to read and hear that our communities, our infrastructure, our systems must be more resilient. Do we understand what this means? Do we understand the behaviour changes that are required for us to be more resilient? And can Smart Cities assist? Read on for their thoughts ...

Leading advisor on resilient leadership, David Singleton has been appointed as a non-executive Director to the Board of AVI.  

Australian Bulk Handling Review have published a feature on Consulting Engineering. Read my piece on 'Whose interests are served by M&A in consulting'. 

Following my recent appointment as Chair of Australia’s first national Smart Cities Awards program (for Smart Cities Council Australian and New Zealand SCCANZ), I was interviewed about the role of a smart city council and awards programs and how they are / will impact the smart cities conversation. Here is the interview. 

Now, more than ever, we are more educated and aware of what climate change is and the myriad of ways it impacts us. We know it has devastating impacts globally in cities and regional areas… because our world is one huge system.  And infrastructure is no different.

David Singleton is amongst a high profile list of keynote speakers confirmed for the Sustainable Integrated Cities conference to be held in Perth on December 4th and 5th, 2017.