State of the Nation 2022: Improving infrastructure productivity

The 2022 State of the Nation report has been produced in response to the challenge set by ICE President 2021-22 Ed McCann for civil engineers to be much more productive.

The report looks, in particular, at both the effectiveness and efficiency of what we do and how it can be improved.

There is no single magic bullet for improving our productivity.

We need to look end-to-end at the process for conceiving, designing, building, operating and decommissioning infrastructure and drive out sources of waste and ineffectiveness at every stage.

This means that all civil engineers can contribute to this goal, whatever role they play in the industry.

The measure of success for this report will be if everyone reading it can take something from it that will help them to do the right thing, do it right and, in doing so, do more for people and the planet.

There are strong links between productivity and the challenges of the climate crisis, which make the recommendations in this report even more valuable.

In a post-Covid world, the simple truth is that we do not have enough money to carry on as we are while cutting carbon and delivering the services people need to flourish.

We are getting dangerously close to the total level of greenhouse gas emissions that will trigger catastrophic climate change.

Improving our industry’s productivity has never been so important.