Social Sustainability in Construction Projects—A Systematic Review of Assessment Indicators and Taxonomy

Abstract

Despite its importance and appeal, the social dimension of sustainability in construction projects is less explored and lacks a comprehensive and standardized framework. This diminishes the holistic view of sustainability. The existing customized frameworks make the selection of factors challenging across different contexts. Eventually, the practitioners have to pick and choose the factors. This reduces the reliability of social sustainability assessments and makes them a procedural challenge. To fill this gap, the current review synthesizes a framework of social sustainability for construction projects. For this purpose, a systematic review of the literature published until 2021 is performed. The indicators are extracted from the selected 22 papers and their content is analyzed to check for similarities. The final set of 76 factors is synthesized into an assessment framework through a thematic analysis based on a bottom-up approach. The framework is organized into 7 enablers or themes, 27 indicators, and 76 sub-indicators. The enablers of social sustainability are stakeholder, safety and health, human resource development, project, industry, community, and government. The framework provides a comprehensive and precise view of social sustainability which can be leveraged to ensure better planning and sustainable development of construction projects.