The Power of Economic Analysis in Building Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructure

13-May-2025

By ISI Guest Author:
Eric Bill, Autocase, President & Chief Economist

In the face of intensifying climate risks, rising infrastructure costs, and now — significant pullbacks in federal support under the current U.S. administration — cities, agencies, and public asset owners are being asked to do more with less. Meanwhile, macroeconomic shifts in jurisdictions like Germany and the EU are driving massive infrastructure investment as fiscal stimulus. In both cases, a powerful but underutilized tool is emerging as essential: economic analysis.

From life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) to benefit-cost analysis (BCA) and triple bottom line (TBL) assessments, economic evaluation is becoming indispensable for planning, justifying, and optimizing resilient and sustainable infrastructure. This article explores why economic analysis matters more than ever, how the federal policy landscape is shifting, how the Envision Rating System promotes best practices in valuation (notably through credit LD3.3), and how firms like ours at Autocase Economic Advisory are helping infrastructure stakeholders raise the bar.

Why Economic Analysis Matters for Infrastructure in 2025

Historically, infrastructure planning has prioritized lowest first cost. But with today’s aging assets, climate vulnerabilities, and tightening budgets, short-term thinking can result in long-term costs or missed opportunities.

Economic analysis offers a more complete view, accounting for:

    • Full life cycle costs (CAPEX + OPEX + end-of-life),
    • Risks from climate hazards and operational disruptions,
    • Co-benefits such as public health, equity, and emissions reduction,
    • Avoided costs from resilience dividends (e.g., flood damage mitigation or avoided service outages).

This broader lens enables better decisions. Cities and agencies can compare options, prioritize limited funding, and communicate long-term value to stakeholders ranging from engineers to elected officials and communities.

 

Federal Headwinds: Reduced Support for Resilience and Sustainability

Recent federal proposals — particularly the 2025 budget from the Trump administration — signal cuts to cornerstone sustainability programs, including:

    • EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which supported local decarbonization efforts,
    • HUD’s Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR),
    • FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program,
    • DOT’s RAISE and INFRA grants for multimodal transportation.

While these cuts are framed as cost-saving, the message to state and local governments is clear: federal funding will be harder to secure.

This makes economic justification critical. Project teams will need to clearly demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of resilience and sustainability measures. That’s where economic analysis plays a vital role.

 

Envision’s LD3.3 Credit: Elevating Lifecycle Economics

The Envision Rating System — developed by the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI)—is a leading framework for evaluating sustainable infrastructure. Among its most impactful, yet underutilized, tools is LD3.3: Conduct a Life-Cycle Economic Evaluation.

This credit encourages project teams to:

    • Move beyond first-cost thinking,
    • Apply LCCA and BCA to assess whole-of-life performance,
    • Incorporate non-market benefits (e.g., avoided emissions, health outcomes, and equity),
    • Integrate resilience dividends into infrastructure valuation.

LD3.3 recognizes that sustainability and resilience are not just environmental or social imperatives—they’re economic imperatives. Projects that cost more upfront may deliver significantly higher value over time. Think: elevating substations to reduce flood risk, integrating green infrastructure to cut stormwater costs, or specifying low-energy systems to reduce operational expenses.

Miami-Dade County Dolphin Station Park-and-Ride Transit Terminal Facility (Envision Verified, 2021)

For example, the Miami-Dade County Dolphin Station Park-and-Ride Transit Terminal Facility earned Envision Verified recognition for its innovative approach to multimodal access, lifecycle planning, and user benefit quantification—including health and emissions outcomes.

We are also supporting the ongoing West Field Utility project at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), where our team is applying LD3.3 to evaluate long-term trade-offs across design alternatives, including resilience dividends, operational cost savings, and decarbonization potential.

Especially as funding tightens, LD3.3 is more than a checkbox — it’s a strategic tool for maximizing value, accessing grants, and future-proofing infrastructure design.

 

Empowering Smarter Infrastructure Decisions

Our firm operates at the intersection of infrastructure and real estate planning — supporting architects, engineers, and planners in designing and delivering more resilient, sustainable, and cost-effective capital projects.

Through both software and advisory services, we help clients:

    • Quantify value at risk from hazards like sea-level rise or extreme heat,
    • Estimate co-benefits like air quality, health improvements, and social equity,
    • Compare alternatives using defensible cost-benefit methods,
    • Align with federal evaluation criteria (e.g., FEMA, DOT, HUD).

To date, we’ve supported more than $150 billion in capital planning across airports, utilities, cities, universities, and the private sector — helping stakeholders answer questions like:

    • Which design delivers the greatest resilience return?
    • How can we prioritize green infrastructure features?
    • What data builds a stronger business case to decision-makers and funders?

 

The Long View: Making Every Dollar Count

Infrastructure assets often last 30 to 100 years, yet the financial decisions that shape them are frequently made on a much shorter time horizon — typically 3 to 5 years.

By applying tools such as:

    • Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) to evaluate the total cost of ownership over the asset’s lifespan,
    • Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) to quantify and compare the net economic, social, and environmental value of project alternatives,
    • Triple Bottom Line (TBL) analysis to integrate equity, health, and environmental co-benefits into economic decision-making,

…project teams can avoid “penny wise, pound foolish” decisions and deliver infrastructure that is durable, efficient, and aligned with long-term public goals. These methods also support:

    • Clearer “value-for-money” metrics for funding agencies,
    • Public-private partnership (P3) decisions by attributing outcomes to stakeholders,
    • Integrated planning across energy, water, mobility, and land use systems.

To help planners, designers, and decision-makers apply these methods with confidence, we’ve developed continuing education programs on economic and business case analysis for leading industry platforms, including:

Thousands of professionals have completed these courses — gaining practical skills to assess sustainable alternatives, justify resilient strategies, and drive better project outcomes.

 

Turning Constraints into Opportunity

While current policy headwinds may feel like a setback, they also present an opportunity: to strengthen the case for sustainability with better data and better tools.

Economic analysis isn’t just about spreadsheets — it’s about strategy. It enables agencies and developers to:

    • Win in competitive grant environments,
    • Build defensible business cases for resilient investments,
    • Prioritize the solutions that maximize long-term public value,
    • Design infrastructure that is smart, equitable, and future-ready.

In an era where every dollar counts, economic analysis bridges the gap between bold engineering vision and fiscal reality. With the right frameworks — like Envision’s LD3.3 credit — we can build infrastructure that lasts and maximizes value to cities and stakeholders.

 

Eric Bill is the President and Chief Economist of Autocase and leads the infrastructure and real estate research and economics advisory team and SaaS business. Eric has extensive experience leveraging economic concepts to incorporate climate adaptation, sustainability, and resilience into capital project decision making and policy development and has worked on over $100B of projects globally for corporations, utilities, investors, developers, non-profits, and all levels of government.  He has written economics and business case credits for LEED, Envision, and RELi resilience rating systems and has developed continuing education economics and business case credit training programs for the US Green Building Council (USGBC), the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI).