Framing Social Sustainability in Infrastructure Theory and Practice: A Review of Two Road Projects in Mexico from a Business and Human Rights Lens

Laura Treviño-Lozano

doi:10.3390/su14042369

Abstract

While it has been more than 30 years since sustainability appeared in the development agenda, it remains a fashionable concept with an underdeveloped social dimension and no common understanding. In infrastructure, social sustainability has been neglected or limited to positive social impacts without considering negative social impacts linked to the prevention and redress of business-related human rights abuses on workers, end-users and communities. Through a literature review, this paper explores how sustainability is framed in theory, particularly its social dimension in the context of infrastructure. Across a qualitative analysis of a socially sustainable road project—Necaxa—and a socially unsustainable—Paso Expres—it further explores the elements that frame social sustainability in Mexican practice of road infrastructure, including the role that businesses and human rights play.

Highlights

Sustainability appeared in the international development agenda in 1987, when the Brundtland report framed it as the ability to meet present needs without compromising future generations’ ability to fulfil their own needs [1,2]
This paper explores how sustainability, in the context of infrastructure, is framed in theory, bringing particular attention to its social dimension
The project involved positive and negative considerations to social sustainability and won the Infrastructure 360◦ award given by the Inter-American

Summary

Introduction

Sustainability appeared in the international development agenda in 1987, when the Brundtland report framed it as the ability to meet present needs without compromising future generations’ ability to fulfil their own needs [1,2]. It was considered an environmental concern based on ‘ecological principles and resource efficiency’ [3,4,5]. Infrastructure is a core pillar of development that, since the 1980s, together with the advent of sustainability, involved an increasing participation of businesses. The financial and technical limitations of states to cover infrastructure gaps, alongside neoliberal principles embedded in the Washington Consensus, constrained the intervention and regulation by

Results

Discussion

Conclusion