On sustainability: Sustainability, revisited

The term sustainability is relatively new in the infrastructure industry likely being used initially around 1980 and referring primarily to human sustainability on Earth. The real driver in today's global economy is human consumption. It is easy to say that both China and India have current levels of consumption that are unsustainable, but those 2+ billion people are already here, and they seek a life somewhat like that enjoyed in Western countries. Everyone is a player in this critical drama, including all citizens, all private entities, and all public entities. It is not intuitively obvious how this is going to be accomplished globally any time soon. In fact, a hard look at the reality of the situation produces responses varying from pessimism to outright despair. AM can be concisely defined as a risk-based, business-case approach to optimizing the total life-cycle cost of an asset. The total life-cycle cost combines capital cost and all O&M costs for the expected life of the asset with provisions for its replacement at the appropriate time.