Think systems: our latest report

Net Zero Infrastructure Industry Coalition: Think Systems report

Our built environment is a complex interdependent system of connected assets and networks. Population growth, density and urbanisation, increasingly severe and frequent climate-linked weather events and damage to our natural environment all make our decarbonisation journey more challenging. System problems are shared, and they cannot be solved in isolation.

Systems thinking helps better deliver decarbonisation while also understanding the complex systems of the built environment, the interdependencies of assets and networks and social needs and expectations of communities. It provides a framework to identify, understand and solve shared problems, co-create responses that are broader and more innovative and collaborate to deliver them.

The Net Zero Infrastructure Industry Coalition's Think Systems is a practical guide to understanding what systems thinking can deliver for your organisation and its stakeholders, how to begin thinking in systems, and implementing best practices. 

Thinking in systems doesn't need to be daunting.

Setting out a five-phase approach, NZIIC's latest report explores the professions and functions systems thinking can help, like asset managers, commercial managers, urban planners, and operational managers.

The report includes helpful real-world studies, including low-carbon travel in Copenhagen and better performing buildings in the City of London, and the impacts achieved as a result.