A Framework for Infrastructure Sustainability Assessment

Abstract

Sustainable infrastructure development is an inseparable part for a sustainable urban transformation. An appropriate assessment tool along with a suitable interpretation framework is necessary to achieve the sustainability goals of social, environmental and economic criteria. Available commercial sustainability rating systems are mostly focused on building systems such as LEED rating system, green star rating system etc. Current research explores the opportunity to introduce a sustainability phase model based infrastructure assessment framework. The main focus of the infrastructure sustainability phase model is to understand the pathway that an infrastructure development process should follow to attain specific sustainability issues covering the associated environmental and socio-economic aspects. Four distinct phases - Poor, Compliance, Efficiency and Sustainability - are defined herein to address the relevant environmental and socio-economic issues. Characteristics of each phase and the factors that instigate one phase to change into another phase are also identified. A sustainability change matrix is proposed as a graphical representation of the phase model and to identify the pathways to transform infrastructures in a desired fashion.