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Demonstrating the Power and Value of Women in Infrastructure

The Philadelphia Department of Aviation (DOA) Envision verification for the design and construction of its Taxiway J Rehabilitation is one of only 12 United States airports to receive Envision verification for infrastructure projects and the first in the state. Demonstrating the power and value of women in infrastructure, 100% percent of DOA staff leading the project and 40% of the total team were women.

The road to this accomplishment has been a learning process, beginning in 2023 when DOA submitted three separate taxiway projects to the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI)for certification. Though the initial submissions did not make the grade, we were undeterred. Using ISI’s feedback, DOA improved our second submission and achieved “Verified” status for Taxiway J. We are now building on that effort to develop an Envision program focused on continual improvement.

To enable centralized management, DOA created the Envision Program Manager role. We established a Sharepoint site facilitating information-sharing, interdisciplinary and intra-organizational collaboration. To promote quality control, we established a process and tool for collaboration between the team members and the DOA Envision Project manager.  In the future, we will improve the integration of Envision efforts with project schedules and enhance sustainability requirements in project specifications.

Since the inception of the Envision framework, DOA has improved sustainable project delivery and data collection. Teams are more aware of the need to document decision-making, integrate current and future projects, and collaborate internally and externally. As a result, DOA is reducing our environmental impact and increasing our social and economic value to the community.