This presentation was delivered during the 6th Meeting of the OECD Southeast Asia Regional Programme’s Regional Policy Network on Sustainable Infrastructure, which took place on 25-26 April 2022 in Manila, the Philippines. The OECD’s Public Governance Directorate and Environment Directorate teamed up with the OECD Korea Policy Centre to organise the event. The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) of the Philippines co-chaired the event alongside the United States, and the Public Private Partnership Centre of the Philippines graciously provided the venue. For more details about the meeting, including the agenda and a short summary record, please visit: https://www.oecd.org/site/sipa/events/sipa-searp-philippines-2022.htm.

1. INTEGRATION OF THE GREEN
INFRASTRUCTURE
APPROACH INTO THE
PLANNING OF
INFRASTRUCTURE IN ITALY
EC DG REFORM PROJECT
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
RAFFAELE DELLA CROCE – SENIOR ECONOMIST OECD
CONTACT: RAFFAELE.DELLACROCE@OECD.ORG

2. Content
• About the project
• Green Infrastructure – State of Play
• Integration of Green Infrastructure in decision making: a new governance model
• Annex

3. Green & Resilient Infrastructure – OECD work for
G20
Maintenance & Resilience:
 Operationalising lifecycle approach
 Infratech & innovative solutions
 Infrastructure as a service
 Financial incentives fro asset
maintenance
Nature-based solutions:
 Reducing costs & yielding benefits
 Sustainability: adaptation & mitigation
 Coordination across owners &
jurisdictions
 Public-private funding models
Adapting and Decarbonising
Transport:
 Decarbonising Transport (DT)
 Effective mitigation measures
 Targeted analytical assistance
 Best practices
 Global policy dialogues

4. ABOUT THE PROJECT

5. Policy support & context
 G20 Principles on Quality Infrastructure, 2030 Agenda and SDGs
 Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Management 2015-2030
 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including
related decisions, technical papers and the Paris Agreement
 EU Strategy on Green Infrastructure (2013)
 Recovery plans and EU Green Deal (increase absorption of CO2; make the
environment more resilient to CC; increase natural carbon sink from 268 MT to 310
MT) ; EU Taxonomy
 2020/2030 EU Biodiversity Strategy to protect nature and reverse degradation of
ecosystems (Target 2: GI to restore 15% of degraded ecosystems)
 EC Guidance on Climate Proofing of Infrastructure for the period 2021-2027
Key
International
References

6. • Action is needed in Italy for Resilient Infrastructure not only to mitigate climate change, but also to adapt to its
impacts on infrastructure
• Make infrastructure resilient and sustainable by integrating adaptation policies such as:
– GI as a Cost effective alternative to traditional gray, either as substitute or complement for traditional
infrastructure structural and technical options (Hybrid solutions)
– Climate Proofing infrastructure: plan and design taking into account climate risk and vulnerabilities
• OECD technical support to Italy is focused on infrastructure governance, with the purpose of developing an integrated
approach to strengthen the consideration of Green Infrastructure (GI) in the Italian infrastructure planning and
decision-making process over the lifecycle of infrastructure investments
• GI being employed as a planning concept and/or tool for sustainable development , including at regional and
local levels, opportunity to use a systemic wide approach and leverage new tech (infratech)
• New model: From traditional model, to new model combining green and gray (i.e. clean water provision). Conceptual
shift, limiting conflicts btw infra and nature
GI & Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructure: a New Model for
Infrastructure development

7. Outputs & Timeline
Result
The month of the implementation period
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Output 1: Kick-off meeting and related
summary note
Activity 1.1 Collect and review of existing
documents relevant for this project
Activity 1.2 Organize and hold a kick-off
meeting
Activity 1.3 Draft a kick-off meeting
summary note
Output 2: Stakeholder workshop and
fact finding mission
Activity 2.1 Carry a fact-finding mission
and a multisector stakeholder consultation
workshop to understand current policies
and infrastructure planning challenges
Output 3: Report on implementing the
GI integrated approach in Italy
Activity 3.1 Conduct a questionnaire on
infrastructure planning and decision
making in Italy
Activity 3.2 Drafting of the report
Output 4: Training and capacity
building for ministerial staff and other
key technical stakeholders
Activity 4.1 Prepare capacity building
material/background
Activity 4.2 Conduct a training and
capacity-building workshop
Output 5: Final workshop with MIMS
and relevant stakeholders to
disseminate overall findings
Activity 5.1 Final workshop
1. Kick-off meeting and related
summary note [14 October
2021]
2. Stakeholder workshop and
fact finding mission
3. Report on implementing the GI
integrated approach in Italy
4. Training and capacity
building for ministerial staff and
other key technical
stakeholders
5. Final workshop with MIMS and
relevant stakeholders to
disseminate overall findings
[March 2023]

8. GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE – STATE
OF PLAY

9. What is Green Infrastructure?
Green Infrastructure - a broad
definition:
 Building with nature
 Maintain, enhance or restore
ecosystem services to
address societal challenges
Green roofs &
green walls
Bioswales
Green corridors
Urban forest Permeable surface
Green bridges &
eco-tunnels

10. Projects
Location
Type of
NbS
Financing
Level of
gov’t
Sector
Status
Building a project Database…
Transport: such as ecological corridors (to preserver wildlife habitat),
green bridges, permeable pavement and rain gardens (for storm water
management).
Urban regeneration and Road Infrastructure Planning: such as
green roofs and green urban spaces to address water scarcity and the heat
island effects & greening the urban roads (i.e., road-side vegetation)
Water management: such as riverbed restoration for flood protection,
and sand dune restoration to prevent coastal erosion
In Italy,
 The Green Node in
Bari
 GAIA Project in
Bologna
 Water Park in Gorla
Maggiore
 Bosco Verticale
High Speed Two (HS2) - UK
 Two high speed rail lines:
London – Manchester &
London – Leeds
 Environmental corridor,
including carbon neutral
stations, green bridges, and the
creation of new wildlife

11. Benefits of Green Infrastructure (GI)
Interreg, Green Infrastructure Handbook
 Mitigation of climate change and its
adverse effects on human society and activity
 Strengthen infrastructure resilience to
climate-related disasters (i.e., protection
against floods and erosion, heatwave
prevention and mitigation)
 Enable the restoration of biodiversity and
conservation of functional ecosystems
(i.e., soil functions, clean water supply, air
purification, climate regulation, nutrient
recycling, noise pollution reduction, etc.)
 Application of Circular Economy Principles
to infrastructure

12. INTEGRATING GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE
IN THE DECISION MAKING: A NEW
GOVERNANCE MODEL FOR
INFRASTRUCTURE

13. Urgency
• Resilience is a key part of sustainable and quality infrastructure
• Infrastructure cannot be resilient if it is poorly maintained
Barriers
• Lack of Information, valuation and Capacity
• Poor Governance and scale of NbS projects
• Insufficient Funding
Optimisation
• Government leadership in setting resilience expectations
• Asset management life-cycle and portfolio approach
• Making explicit resilience costs and trade-offs
Governance
• Micro and macro actions across the infrastructure lifecycle
• Linking resilience with low-carbon transition
• Infrastructure as a service to communities
• Aligning policy levers, actors and funding
Covid-19 calls for a new resilient infrastructure approach

14. Greening Governance and Role of Natural Capital
1. Strategic Planning: Linking Infrastructure plans to
the green agenda
• National, Sectorial
• Spatial /Landscape Planning (i.e. Urban Heating
island effect)
• Mainstreaming GI/Nbs Across sectors
• Korea, UK, California
2. Project prioritization appraisal & selection
• Economic appraisals
• Environment impact assessments
• Climate Proofing
• Ireland, France
4. Monitoring impact over
the asset lifecycle
• Using monitoring tools and
ex-post evaluation to oversee
environmental impacts and
costs
• Promoting the use of big data
for monitoring project
delivery and asset resilience
• Singapore, Switzerland
3. Delivery: Building capacity for
innovative infrastructure
delivery
• Capacity building & training
• Regulatory requirements
(codes/standards)
• Green Procur.
• Instruments for Sustainable
Finance and NbS
• ESG & Disclosure
• Insurance products
1. Strategic
planning
2. Project
appraisal,
risk
assessmen
t & design
3. Procurement
& delivery
4.
Monitoring
and
evaluation

15. Accounting for the effect of climate change - Thames Estuary 2100
Plan for tidal flood risk management – UK Best practices
• UK Green Book climate resilient appraisal
• 4 Steps : Assessing climate risks, Designing Adaptation
options, Options to address risks, Options under other
scenarios
• Thames Estuary 2100 Plan for tidal flood risk management
Source: UK Accounting for the effect of climate change (Nov 2020)]

16. ANNEX

17. • Big data analytics (earth observation, remote sensing, Internet of things (IoT), cloud tech and machine learning) is
transforming the availability and use of information
• A number of alternative decision-making approaches have been developed, using big data and scenario planning as
their basis, that offer greater flexibility (e.g. real options analysis, robust-decision making, and adaptive planning)
• Availability of Copernicus data opening new application for resilient infrastructure also at city level
• Water height and flood management modelling builds on sensors (GPS, water level, radar for thermal images) to
collect data on the water level, resources, quality and water-related hazards, for a set geographical area. For example (GIH,
2020):
– Maeslant Storm Surge Barrier, the Netherlands. The operation of the barrier is fully automatic via a connection to a computer system
that links to weather and sea level data.
– WaterNSW Water Monitoring Network, Australia. Over 5 000 monitoring stations measure the quality and quantity of New South Wales
(NSW)’s rivers, streams, groundwater bores and dams. Over 1 300 of these stations deliver real-time data through NSW’s telemetry and
remote data capture networks.
– Oxford Flood Network. A project built in partnership with Nominet UK and ThingInnovations, comprising of 30 wireless water level
sensors to detect levels of water around the city to visualise flooding and river conditions.
• The use of big data analytics raise however a series of challenges that should be properly addressed
Source: (OECD, 2019) and GIH (2020) Case Study WATER HEIGHT AND FLOOD MANAGEMENT MODELLING
Scenario Analysis and Big Data

18. Climate Proofing and Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) Group, Italian best
practices
Management of Current Climate Management of Future Climate
Source: Ferrovie dello Stato 23 November 2021: Adattamento al cambiamento climatico: dalla resilienza alle infrastrutture climateproof, presentazione https://cittaclima.it/wp-
content/uploads/2021/11/20111123_CittaClima_FS.pdf
• Traditional Infrastructure interventions to
reduce vulnerability
• Emergency interventions to react to
hazards
Invest. to mitigate hydrogerological instability 2011 -2020 Climate resilience and Adaptation Plan to align with EC