The Upshot with Andrew Benedek and Wong Heang Fine: Building Climate-Resilient Infrastructure for Asia's Future
The Upshot is a content series by Infrastructure Asia to profile key leaders in the industry. In this special multi-part feature, we invited members from the Asia Sustainable Infrastructure Advisory (ASIA) Panel to share their experiences and observations of sustainable infrastructure development in Asia.
Asia stands at a critical juncture in its infrastructure journey. Rapid urbanisation, growing populations and intensifying climate risks are placing mounting pressure on the region to balance immediate development needs with long-term resilience. But how can we design infrastructure that serves today's needs while preparing for tomorrow's climate realities?
To explore this question, we spoke with ASIA Panel members, Dr. Andrew Benedek from Anaergia Inc, and Wong Heang Fine from Asia Infrastructure Solutions. Their perspectives highlight both the urgency of climate-resilient design and the unique opportunity for Asia to lead the way in sustainable infrastructure innovation.
Q: Asia is experiencing rapid urbanisation alongside increasing climate risks. Why is it critical to integrate climate resilience into infrastructure as cities expand?
Heang Fine: Asia holds the greatest potential for infrastructure development globally, with reports showing that most opportunities lie in this region. Asia is a greenfield area, so it is important to start planning and designing infrastructure that protects the environment. Once we destroy it, it becomes very hard for mankind to recreate these natural conditions.
Dr. Benedek: Asia has a dense population, and its infrastructure is still in a build-out mode, trying to catch up to the standards of developed countries. We also know that water is scarce, and non-sustainable practices will lead to significant shortages in the future. Similarly, sustainable or renewable energy is already often the [most cost-effective] source of power and will become an increasing requirement in the future throughout the world. For Asia, during this build-out phase, it is smart to [invest in] sustainable infrastructure now so that the infrastructure does not need to be replaced in the future.
Q: What are some strategies the region can employ to build sustainable, future-proof infrastructure at scale?
Heang Fine: Infrastructure planning requires a long-term approach, considering what will happen in the future, rather than basing decisions on current data alone.
I once worked on an industrial development overseas, where my team and I spent a long time deliberating with local authorities to determine what we call the “platform level” (i.e., the level at which we start building factories and other facilities). In that particular country, the standard at that time was to account for a 1-in-50-year flood event.¹ However, about 15 years after we first started on the development, there was huge flooding in the country, and almost every industrial facility in the area was flooded, except the one that we did.
¹ A 1-in-50-year flood event refers to an occurrence where an area is subjected to flooding from a storm of a frequency of 1 in 50 years
Dr. Benedek: There are two ways to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in the infrastructure sector.
One is to make all electricity renewable – and great strides continue to be made in this area. The more challenging issue is replacing 75% of the world’s energy that still uses fossil fuels and cannot be easily replaced with electricity. In this second area, producing renewable natural gas from organic waste or agricultural residues is the most developed and lowest cost alternative, but this is still in its early stages.
Southeast Asia is well positioned in both mitigation areas, with plenty of sunshine and lots of agricultural residues left unused in the fields. In fact, both solar energy and biofuels can compete with fossil fuel-based energy in the region – with some investment in infrastructure, supportive regulations and a build-up of scale.
Building sustainable infrastructure now would not only help mitigate climate change, it would also avoid having to rebuild that infrastructure later.
Q: Could you share an example of how this long-term thinking in infrastructure planning has created value in practice?
Heang Fine: Long-term sustainable thinking proves its value over time. In a resort development we worked on, we chose to pipe all sewage to a treatment plant rather than discharge it directly into the sea – which was the standard practice then. Despite significant cost pressures, this decision proved prescient. Years later, a similar resort had to close for three months after sewage washed back onto the beaches. When you destroy natural systems, it is nearly impossible to recreate that beauty. Taking the long-term view, despite immediate cost pressures, is essential for sustainable infrastructure development — and it is increasingly what the market rewards.
Q: What role do you see ASIA Panel playing, and how do you hope to contribute to accelerating sustainable infrastructure development across Asia?
Dr. Benedek: I believe Singapore is the perfect country to catalyse the build-up of sustainable infrastructure in the region and the ASIA panel serves as a good platform to help develop the necessary information and first steps in this direction. I hope that my global experiences can be helpful to Infrastructure Asia to achieve its goals.
Heang Fine: Through my participation in the ASIA Panel, I hope to contribute inputs based on previous project experiences as well as thought leadership in enabling sustainable infrastructure development across Asia. I believe an integrated and life cycle approach is extremely important to achieve sustainable goals.
What drives Dr. Benedek and Heang Fine's approach to sustainable infrastructure:
Dr. Benedek's approach is driven by his deep concern over increased resource consumption driven by our rapidly growing population. He focuses on waste-to-resource technologies that work in harmony with nature, believing innovation must keep pace with population growth to avoid irreversible ecological damage.
Heang Fine's approach is driven by his recognition that sustainable infrastructure success depends on aligning diverse stakeholder motivations rather than imposing uniform solutions. His multi-sector experience taught him that bridging stakeholders’ long-term vision is essential for resilient outcomes.
