Urban infrastructure is under unprecedented pressure from population growth, climate change and rising sustainability targets. As national and local policies around the world drive carbon reduction and circularity, cities must reassess every aspect of their infrastructure, including elements hidden below ground like sewer systems.
These systems are critical to daily operations, long-term resilience and the performance of the modern, future-ready city. In particular, the manholes and inspection chambers within them are now central to creating an urban infrastructure that supports sustainability goals, enables digital integration and delivers lifecycle efficiency.
In the drive to embed sustainability into every layer of the city, we’ve been working on the latest generation of inspection chamber technology, the Wavin Tegra 600 LC. This newly launched solution is designed to perform for decades while helping municipal planners, engineers and contractors to meet ambitious circularity targets, and it highlights how below-ground systems can lower carbon emissions.
Take a look at our blog post “Wavin Tegra 600 LC: A breakthrough in sustainable sewer infrastructure” to find out more here.
Why underground assets matter in sustainable cities
The push for lower-carbon, more circular infrastructure often centers on the features we can see—solar arrays, green roofs, landscaped parks. Yet a substantial share of a city’s environmental performance is dictated by what happens out of sight.
Inspection chambers are a prime example. They’re the quiet enablers of sewer network health, providing essential access for cleaning, inspection and upgrades. Without them, faults could go undetected until they cause environmental damage, disrupt essential services or require expensive repairs. The design, material components and integration of inspection chambers into data networks all directly impact the system’s carbon footprint, resilience and capacity to adapt over time.
Real-time monitoring: From reactive to proactive management
This capacity to adapt comes from a fundamental shift in urban water management from reacting to failures to anticipating and preventing them. Real-time monitoring is at the heart of this change, and inspection chambers are ideal for housing sensor technologies. This allows utilities to track flow rates, detect early signs of blockages and monitor structural health. The data is then transmitted to central systems and analyzed to identify trends or pinpoint anomalies before they become serious.
This proactivity has a significant impact. Predictive maintenance strategies informed by real-time data reduce the need for emergency interventions, cut operational costs and minimize disruption to the public. They also protect the asset base, ensuring that minor issues are addressed before they compromise network integrity and cause prolonged, costly disruptions.
The rise of IoT-enabled sustainable water infrastructure solutions
Integrating Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, such as digital monitoring devices, into water infrastructure is reshaping how cities manage their networks. IoT-enabled inspection chambers are no longer passive entry points—they’re hubs of operational intelligence for smart water management systems.
By gathering and transmitting information on flow patterns and asset condition, these chambers give utilities a fuller, real-time picture of network performance. This supports investment planning, optimizes maintenance schedules and improves future system planning. But to achieve this, chambers must be designed with the space, connectivity and flexibility to house sensors.
Flexibility, adaptability and circularity by design
To create truly future-ready cities, digital readiness and forward planning for drainage infrastructure must be matched by physical resilience and sustainable manufacturing.
Features such as flexible connectors help absorb decades of movement from vibration, ground settlement and minor misalignments, preserving the integrity of seals and joints and boosting longevity. Modular designs make linking with different pipe sizes and materials easier, simplifying installation. What’s more, designs that reduce the complexity of fitting can shorten project timelines and reduce the risk of costly mistakes.
The carbon footprint of drainage is also essential to ensuring municipalities meet strict sustainability targets. This means prioritizing recycled and recyclable materials to create products that can be disassembled for reuse wherever possible. Lighter components also reduce transport emissions and improve on-site handling, while robust construction extends replacement intervals and lowers the product’s embodied carbon. Ensuring compatibility with other system components further reduces waste, encouraging reuse or repurposing.
Bringing it together: An applied example
The Wavin Tegra 600 LC embodies these principles by design and in practice. Built from up to 70% recycled material and manufactured through a process that minimizes energy use and waste, it’s been independently tested for a 100-year service life. Its structural flexibility means it handles ground movement without compromising performance. It’s also a digital access platform, with capacity for flow meters, environmental sensors and condition-monitoring devices.
A modular design means the Wavin Tegra 600 LC can be tailored to applications ranging from major municipal systems to smaller residential networks. Its lightweight base improves handling and reduces installation demands, and its compatibility with trenchless techniques minimizes disruption during upgrades or repairs.
The future of connected, sustainable infrastructure
Innovative inspection chamber designs like the Wavin Tegra 600 LC demonstrate how underground assets can underpin broader sustainability strategies by uniting low-carbon construction, long service life, modular adaptability and digital capability. By transforming static utility features into active, data-generating assets, they are ready to underpin smarter, more efficient utility management.
For city authorities and utilities, choosing environmentally responsible and digitally capable infrastructure is no longer a purely technical matter—it’s a strategic decision. These systems are the foundation of water networks that can meet tomorrow’s challenges, delivering resilience, efficiency and actionable intelligence in equal measure.
To learn more about how future-proofing water infrastructure is a must, read our other blogs:
1. How material innovation is redefining urban infrastructure
2. The NEW Wavin Tegra 600 LC: A breakthrough in sustainable sewer infrastructure
