Social Sustainability and Important Indicators in Infrastructure

Abstract

Sustainability is commonly described as the intersection of environmental, economic, and social spheres, where the intersection represents that the three spheres are in balance in a project or activity. While the environmental and economic aspects of projects are commonly addressed by engineers and scientists when working on a project, the social aspects are less quantifiable and therefore somewhat neglected. The term "social sustainability" is used to represent the social, societal, and human engagement, impact, and vulnerablities in a project. This concept is gaining attention and is being addressed by the Integrated Network for Social Sustainability (INSS), an inter-disciplinary research network funded by the National Science Foundation. As part of the many INSS activities, a web-based repository is being developed to list and evaluate many social sustainability indicator tools that currently exist. The purpose of this paper is to describe the advantages and shortcomings of several of these tools and to call for the need for such an assessment for civil, environmental, and water resources infrastructure. Tools to be assessed include the social categories of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED system and the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure's Envision Sustainable Infrastructure Rating System. Further, social life cycle assessment and the Environmental Protection Agency's recovery potential indicators for watersheds will be evaluated.