SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE OF INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS: THE CASE FOR LIFE CYCLE SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT METHODOLOGY

Abstract

The contribution of the construction and infrastructure (C&I) industry to society’s unsustainable consumption patterns remains legendary. The potential of sustainability assessment and rating systems to make significant contributions towards reversing this trend has been elucidated. Several variants of such systems have become prevalent in the C&I industry for deployment to projects and assets. Yet, it appears that they have focused mainly on developed countries, certain sustainability dimensions, and certain phases of the infrastructure asset’s lifecycle. This observation makes this study a necessity considering the quest of countries within the developing country context such as South Africa to bridge the attendant infrastructure deficit therein. Adopting a desktop research design, an extensive review of literature was conducted to unravel the current situation concerning these systems. Relevant keywords were used to source literature from established databases such as Scopus. Accordingly, articles and conference papers pertaining to the subject matter were culled from these databases and analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Findings from the emergent data lend credence to the initial propositions concerning the paucity of sustainability rating and assessment systems for civil infrastructure projects in developing countries. Furthermore, other postulations concerning the inability of the extant systems to cater adequately for the three sustainability dimensions in an integrated manner as well as the overt concentration on certain phases of the infrastructure asset lifecycle were affirmed. Based on these findings, the study proposed the adoption of an all-encompassing methodology – the life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) methodology – in the development of sustainability assessment and rating systems for developing countries like South Africa.