Development of social sustainability assessment method and a comparative case study on assessing recycled construction materials

Hossain, Md. Uzzal; Poon, Chi Sun; Ya, Dong; Lo, Irene Man Chi; Cheng, Jack Chin Pang

doi:10.1007/s11367-017-1373-0

Cited by 82 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Attention has also been paid to the environmental impacts derived along the life cycle of structures, from bridges [8][9][10] to buildings [11], as well as those derived from particular construction processes, such as concrete production [12]. Social impacts related to the use of different building materials [13] for building construction [14] and for road infrastructure projects [15] have also been assessed in recent years. However, the current state of science lacks an objective and universal methodology to properly assess the sustainability of a particular infrastructure design.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Multicriteria Assessment Techniques Applied to Sustainable Infrastructure Design

Navarro

2019

Advances in Civil Engineering

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Given the great impacts associated with the construction and maintenance of infrastructures in both the environmental, the economic and the social dimensions, a sustainable approach to their design appears essential to ease the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations. Multicriteria decision-making methods are usually applied to address the complex and often conflicting criteria that characterise sustainability. The present study aims to review the current state of the art regarding the application of such techniques in the sustainability assessment of infrastructures, analysing as well the sustainability impacts and criteria included in the assessments. The Analytic Hierarchy Process is the most frequently used weighting technique. Simple Additive Weighting has turned out to be the most applied decision-making method to assess the weighted criteria. Although a life cycle assessment approach is recurrently used to evaluate sustainability, standardised concepts, such as cost discounting, or presentation of the assumed functional unit or system boundaries, as required by ISO 14040, are still only marginally used. Additionally, a need for further research in the inclusion of fuzziness in the handling of linguistic variables is identified.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Multicriteria Assessment Techniques Applied to Sustainable Infrastructure Design

Navarro

2019

Advances in Civil Engineering

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“…Hossain, MU et al [16] developed a social sustainability assessment tool based on the established standards and guidelines. The case study showed that four subcategories are crucial social concerns for construction materials.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of Life Cycle Environmental Impact of Recycled Aggregate

et al. 2019

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This study assessed the influence of matter discharged during the production (dry/wet) of recycled aggregate on global warming potential (GWP) and acidification potential (AP), eutrophication potential (EP), ozone depletion potential (ODP), biotic resource depletion potential (ADP), photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP) using the ISO 14044 (LCA) standard. The LCIA of dry recycled aggregate was 2.94 × 10−2 kg-CO2eq/kg, 2.93 × 10−5 kg-SO2eq/kg, 5.44 × 10−6 kg-PO43eq/kg, 4.70 × 10−10 kg-CFC11eq/kg, 1.25 × 10−5 kg-C2H4eq/kg, and 1.60 × 10−5 kg-Antimonyeq/kg, respectively. The environmental impact of recycled aggregate (wet) was up to 16~40% higher compared with recycled aggregate (dry); the amount of energy used by impact crushers while producing wet recycled aggregate was the main cause for this result. The environmental impact of using recycled aggregate was found to be up to twice as high as that of using natural aggregate, largely due to the greater simplicity of production of natural aggregate requiring less energy. However, ADP was approximately 20 times higher in the use of natural aggregate because doing so depletes natural resources, whereas recycled aggregate is recycled from existing construction waste. Among the life cycle impacts assessment of recycled aggregate, GWP was lower than for artificial light-weight aggregate but greater than for slag aggregate.

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“…Given the fact that CCU are mostly in lower TRLs, the first three categories (workers, local community, consumers) were found as the main stakeholders impacted along by the companies active in CCU in lower TRLs. These groups are also mostly mentioned in literature (Hossain et al 2017;Wang et al 2016) as the main stakeholders affected along the life cycle of a product/ industry from the social perspective ( Fig. 1).…”

Section: Stakeholder Groups Impact Categories and Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying Social Indicators for Sustainability Assessment of CCU Technologies: A Modified Multi-criteria Decision Making

et al. 2019

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Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies capture CO 2 waste emissions and utilize them to generate new products (such as fuels, chemicals, and materials) with various environmental, economic, and social opportunities. As most of these CCU technologies are in the R&D stage, their technical and economic viability are examined with less attention to the social aspect which is an important pillar for a holistic sustainability assessment. The lack of systematic social impact research is mainly due to the difficulty of identifying and quantifying social aspects through the entire life cycle of products. We will fill this gap for CCU technologies and identify the main social indicators. A multi-criteria decision making tool: technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) was applied to empirically determine which indicators are more relevant for assessing the social impact of a company operating CCU activities within a European context. First, seeing that social impact categories are linked to key stakeholder groups, we considered workers, consumers, and local communities as relevant stakeholders. Second, the main social impact categories and their potential performance indicators associated to each group of stakeholders were listed using the United Nations Environment Program/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (UNEP/SETAC) guidelines. In the third step, an online questionnaire was distributed to identify the main social categories and indicators for CCU, to which 33 European CCU experts responded. Finally, a modified TOPSIS was applied to rank the indicators based on their relevance. We found that the indicators related to "end of life responsibility" and "transparency" within a CCU company achieved the highest rank affecting the consumers group, whereas "fair salary" and "equal opportunities/discriminations" were determined as the most relevant impact categories for the workers. For the local community group, "secure living conditions" and "local employment" received the highest priority from the experts' point of view. Furthermore, "health and safety" considerations were identified as one of the most important criteria affecting all three groups of stakeholders. The ranking list of the main social indicators identified in our study provides the basis for the next steps in the social sustainability assessment of CCU technologies; that is, data collection and impact assessment. Our outcomes can also be used to inform the producers regarding the most and least relevant social aspects of CCU so that the potential social impacts caused by their production activities can be improved or prevented.

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Development of social sustainability assessment method and a comparative case study on assessing recycled construction materials

Cited by 82 publications

References 50 publications

A Review of Multicriteria Assessment Techniques Applied to Sustainable Infrastructure Design

A Review of Multicriteria Assessment Techniques Applied to Sustainable Infrastructure Design

Analysis of Life Cycle Environmental Impact of Recycled Aggregate

Identifying Social Indicators for Sustainability Assessment of CCU Technologies: A Modified Multi-criteria Decision Making

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