Environmental footprint and its influence in the context of urban economy management

Introduction. New needs and opportunities boost demand for development of urban infrastructure in a contemporary society. The emergence of innovative technologies enables infrastructural elements to better meet the requirements of comfort, sustainability, and safety. Cities are getting “smarter”, as they constantly improve the economic, social and environmental efficiency of their utility, power supply, and transport systems. In the meantime, growing private, industrial and service demands for versatile resources set the trend for bigger environmental footprints in big cities. The mission of this research project is to substantiate the need for and to identify methods of reducing environmental footprints in the course of urban infrastructure management. Materials and methods. The subject of this research project is the correlation between management functions and stages of the life cycle of urban infrastructure. Special focus is placed on the analysis of the influence produced by urban power grids, water supply and sewage networks and urban waste treatment on environmental footprints of big cities. A combination of positivistic and phenomenological philosophies is employed for this purpose; their influence manifests itself in the substantiation of findings, arising out of the opinions expressed by Russian and foreign experts, and statistical data. Results. The findings represent sources of negative influence of infrastructural elements on the scale of environmental footprints and environmental safety levels, as well as suggestions concerning stages and actions contributing to minimization of environmental footprints of developing infrastructural systems with regard for the current stage in the lifecycle of an infrastructural facility. Conclusions. A quantity index, demonstrating the environmental footprint of infrastructural facilities in operation, can be introduced as a summarized criterion for the socio-economic assessment of operation of infrastructural systems in urban economies.