Indicators and framework for assessing sustainable infrastructure

Abstract

Much of the focus on sustainable infrastructure has concentrated on buildings and construction processes. To advance this thinking for other civil infrastructure systems (CIS), this paper outlines a framework that uses a set of proposed indicators to measure the sustainability of chosen infrastructure options and help select the preferred alternative in a multiobjective decision approach. Physically implementing "sustainable infrastructure" involves three life stages for any project: preproject planning, project implementation, and ongoing operations. It is critical to evaluate the sustainability of chosen options in each of these life stages. This research develops two categories of indicators, mandatory screening indicators (MSI) and judgment indicators (JI), and a multilayer approach for incorporating these indicators. A normalization procedure has been adapted to work within the framework to help compare alternatives across a range of indicators and different orders of data magnitude. A hypothetical example using a transmission line corridor is presented to illustrate how the framework can be applied.Key words: indicators, infrastructure, sustainable, environment, decision making, alternatives.

Sustainability Assessment of Transport Infrastructure Projects: A Review of Existing Tools and Methods

“…Despite sustainability should be necessarily part of a primarily an ex ante assessment, it can also be used for other purposes. Figure 1 explores the means whereby sustainability can be used in assessment and clarifies how its role fits with the decision-making and the implementation processes of an infrastructure project (Anderson & Muench, 2013;Cundrič, Kern, & Rajkovič, 2008;Dasgupta & Tam, 2005;Gambatese & Rajendran, 2005;Gü hnemann, Laird & Pearman, 2012;Lee, Edil, Benson & Tinjum, 2011;Ugwu, Kumaraswamy, Wong, & Ng, 2006 Transport infrastructure projects are appraised in practice through a number of tools or methodological frameworks that include the concept of sustainability to a greater or lesser extent. These methods and tools encompass the traditional methodologies as well as a number of current sustainability tools.…”

“…The available literature on sustainable infrastructure -see Dasgupta and Tam (2005), Gilmour, Blackwood, Banks and Wilson (2011), Tsai and Chang (2012) -signals that policy-makers are in need of practical tools and techniques to assess sustainability in all the life stages of infrastructure projects. Decision-making processes require comprehensive and reliable appraisal methods.…”

Improving Sustainability Performance for Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) Projects

“…There are many sub-indicators under each of the TBL indicators for measuring sustainability performance of PPP projects. The significance of individual indicators varies widely from project to project [17,20,21,26]. The framework proposed by Gan et al for appraising sustainability performance of PPP projects in China is adopted for illustration [26].…”

El balance (trade-off) entre los impactos sociales, económicos y ambientales en la evaluación ex–ante de los proyectos de transporte

“…La literatura señala que los políticos requieren herramientas y técnicas prácticas para evaluar la sostenibilidad en todas las etapas de vida de los proyectos de infraestructura (Dasgupta, 2005;Gilmour et al, 2011;Tsai y Chang, 2012).…”