IS Rating System

What is an IS rating and what does it cover?

The IS Rating Scheme (IS) is managed across Australia and New Zealand by the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA) and is a comprehensive rating system for evaluating sustainability across the planning, design, construction and operational phases of infrastructure programs, projects, networks and assets. It evaluates sustainability performance of infrastructure development against four categories: governance, economic, environmental and social.

The scheme aims to:

• establish a common national language on infrastructure sustainability
• provide a framework for evaluating sustainability in tendering
• help scope whole-of-life sustainability risks and enable smarter solutions
• foster efficiency, waste reduction and cost reduction
• foster innovation and continuous improvement in infrastructure sustainability outcomes
• build an organisations credentials and reputation in reaching sustainable outcomes

The process of obtaining an IS Rating

In order to seek an IS rating, an applicant must first register their interest via an ROI form and sign a rating agreement with ISCA. Following this, the applicant will work with a case manager to enable ISCA to assess the proposal. After the assessment phase, a third party verifier will undertake its own verification which can take up to 3 months.

Once these categories are satisfied, projects will be awarded an IS Rating based on an overall score.

How are ratings calculated?

Ratings are determined based on an overall score in the four key categories. For the current version of IS:

• 20 to 39 equates to a Bronze rating
• 40 to 59 equates to a Silver rating
• 60 to 79 equates to a Gold rating
• 80 to 94 equates to a Platinum rating
• 95 or above equates to a Diamond rating

A list of all past ratings is catalogued in the IS Ratings Directory, available here.