State of the Practice: Sustainability Standards for Infrastructure Investors

The report analyzes the proliferation of sustainability metrics in the infrastructure asset class, distinguishing between project screening tools and accounting tools. It identifies key challenges in standardization, such as the high degree of project idiosyncrasy (materiality), the trade-off between measuring management practices versus performance indicators, and the influence of varying regional regulatory regimes. The authors conclude that while there is a desire for a single industry standard, the complexity of infrastructure will likely lead to a continued diversification of tools, with pioneering investors often using multiple systems simultaneously to balance project-level relevance with portfolio-level aggregation.

• Sustainability measurement in infrastructure is categorized into two primary types: project screening systems, which focus on the review and scoring of individual projects (e.g., Envision, CEEQUAL, SuRe), and accounting tools, which provide broad standards for reporting performance against specific indicators or goals (e.g., SASB, TCFD, GHG Protocol).
• Infrastructure sustainability reporting lags behind other asset classes like real estate due to the idiosyncratic nature of projects, where no two assets are the same regardless of sector or geography. This necessitates the use of 'materiality' assessments to weight or remove criteria based on the specific context of a project, which in turn complicates the standardization of reporting across portfolios.
• There is a significant trade-off between using environmental performance indicators (quantitative metrics like carbon emissions) and management practices (verifiable actions like appointing a sustainability officer). Many project rating tools favor management practices because they are more objective and easier to verify, whereas portfolio-oriented accounting tools prioritize performance indicators.
• Most existing sustainability tools are tied to specific regulatory regimes or the standards of international financial institutions like the World Bank or IFC, limiting their global applicability. While some tools like SuRe were designed as international standards, they often have limited traction outside their primary target areas, such as developing economies with weak regulations.
• The report suggests that a single, unifying industry standard for infrastructure sustainability is unlikely to emerge soon due to the asset class's complexity. Instead, the industry is seeing a trend where active investors use multiple different tools for the same projects to achieve both project-level relevance and portfolio-level utility.

APA

Bennon, M., & Sharma, R. (2018). State of the Practice: Sustainability Standards for Infrastructure Investors. WWF International. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/213/2vi7yu3mtm_SGPC_Sustainable_Infra_State_of_the_Practice_Executive_Summary_vF.pdf

Chicago

Bennon, Michael, and Rajiv Sharma. State of the Practice: Sustainability Standards for Infrastructure Investors. WWF International, 2018. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/213/2vi7yu3mtm_SGPC_Sustainable_Infra_State_of_the_Practice_Executive_Summary_vF.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Bennon |first1=Michael |last2=Sharma |first2=Rajiv |title=State of the Practice: Sustainability Standards for Infrastructure Investors |publisher=WWF International |date=October 2018 |url=https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/213/2vi7yu3mtm_SGPC_Sustainable_Infra_State_of_the_Practice_Executive_Summary_vF.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{bennon2018state, author = {Bennon, Michael and Sharma, Rajiv}, title = {{State of the Practice: Sustainability Standards for Infrastructure Investors}}, institution = {WWF International}, year = {2018}, month = oct, url = {https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/213/2vi7yu3mtm_SGPC_Sustainable_Infra_State_of_the_Practice_Executive_Summary_vF.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }