Use Envision - Envision Canada

Use Envision

Envision was designed to help infrastructure stakeholders implement more sustainable projects. It offers benefits for each category of stakeholder: from owners and design teams, to community and environmental groups, to constructors, regulators, and policymakers.

Envision can and should be used throughout the entire life cycle of a project. However, the earlier Envision is applied the greater the value it can deliver.

Using Envision early on in the project timeline provides the greatest opportunity to make decisions that will improve the sustainability of the project and yield positive outcomes for communities.

The use of Envision can benefit projects in numerous ways including:

Long-term viability through increased resiliency and preparedness.
Lower costs through management and stakeholder collaboration.
Reduced negative impacts on the community and the environment.
Potential to save owners money over time through efficiency.
Credibility of a third-party rating system.
Increased public confidence and involvement in decision-making.

Envision includes 64 sustainability and resilience indicators, called ‘credits’, organized around five categories:

Quality of Life Leadership Resource Allocation Natural World Climate and Resilience

Quality of Life addresses a project’s impact on host and affected communities, from the health and wellbeing of individuals to the wellbeing of larger social fabric as a whole. Quality of Life focuses on assessing whether infrastructure projects align with community goals, are incorporated into existing community networks, and will benefit the community in the long term. Community members affected by the project are considered important stakeholders in the decision-making process.

Successful sustainable projects require a new way of thinking about how projects are developed and delivered. Project teams are most successful if they communicate and collaborate early on, involve a wide variety of people in creating ideas for the project, and understand the long-term, holistic view of the project and its life cycle.

Resources are the assets that are needed to build infrastructure and keep it running. It concerns itself with the quantity, source, and characteristics of these resources and their impacts on the overall sustainability of the project.

Infrastructure projects have an impact on the natural world around them, including habitats, species, and nonliving natural systems. The natural systems around us perform critical functions called ecosystem services that provide us with clean air, clean water, healthy food, and hazard mitigation. The way a project is located within theses systems and the new elements they may introduce to a system and create unwanted impacts on these ecosystem services.

The scope of Climate and Resilience is two-fold: minimizing emissions that may contribute to climate change and other short-and-long-term risks, and ensuring that infrastructure projects are resilient. In order to be resilient, infrastructure must be informed, resourceful, robust, redundant flexible, integrated, and inclusive.

These indicators collectively address areas of human wellbeing, mobility, community development, collaboration, planning, economy, materials, energy, water, siting, conservation, ecology, emissions, and resilience. The Envision credits are the foundation of what constitutes sustainability in infrastructure.

Through its Envision Sustainability Professional (ENV SP) credential, Envision recognizes and brings attention to individuals trained in and dedicated to developing more sustainable infrastructure. When used as a self-assessment tool, Envision helps practitioners better understand and recognize their project’s contribution to sustainability.

Envision can also be used to receive third-party verification of a project assessment which gives credible, public recognition to infrastructure projects that make exemplary progress toward sustainability.

The commitments of public agencies, municipalities, private-sector companies, and academic institutions to use Envision draws needed attention to the value and importance of developing infrastructure more sustainably.

Perhaps most importantly, Envision is a shared platform for effectively collaborating and communicating around the complex concepts and challenges of sustainability. Successful use of the framework in either self-assessments or third-party verifications necessitates collaboration, teamwork, and learning. Envision’s easy-to-understand approach to sustainable infrastructure becomes a tool for facilitating project team collaboration, inter-organizational cooperation, and public engagement and communication.

Components of the Envision framework

Envision Guidance Manual – The written framework.
Envision Pre-Assessment Checklist – An early-phase high-level pre-assessment.
Envision Online Scoresheet – The detailed online assessment tool and calculator.
Envision Sustainability Professional Credential – Professional training in Envision use.
Envision Verification – Independent third-party project review process.
Envision Awards – Recognition for qualifying verified projects (i.e., projects that meet minimum requirements after proceeding through third-party verification).

Get started with Envision

Create an account to access the Envision Guidance Manual, Envision Checklist and other resources.
Pursue your ENV SP (Envision Sustainability Professional) credential.
Self-assess your project for sustainability using the Envision Pre-Assessment Checklist (you’ll need to create a free account first).
Create a project online and begin assessing it for sustainability, or to proceed through third-party verification.
Request an intro to Envision presentation for your organization.

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