LCT-Based Framework for the Assessment of Sustainability: From the Perspective of Literature Review

Khan, Kamran; Henschel, Thomas Article — Published Version LCT-Based Framework for the Assessment of Sustainability: From the Perspective of Literature Review Social Indicators Research Provided in Cooperation with: Springer Nature Suggested Citation: Khan, Kamran; Henschel, Thomas (2024) : LCT-Based Framework for the Assessment of Sustainability: From the Perspective of Literature Review, Social Indicators Research, ISSN 1573-0921, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, Vol. 175, Iss. 3, pp. 1-20, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-024-03333-8 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/315621 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Vol.:(0123456789) Social Indicators Research (2024) 175:1173–1192 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-024-03333-8 ORIGINAL RESEARCH LCT‑Based Framework fortheAssessment ofSustainability: From thePerspective ofLiterature Review KamranKhan1,3 · ThomasHenschel2 Accepted: 11 March 2024 / Published online: 3 May 2024 © The Author(s) 2024 Abstract In the context of sustainable development, urban transformation should encourage the use of life cycle thinking tools for infrastructure development. By adopting sustainable economic, social, and environmental criteria, this study presents a review of sustainability assessment tools to build a framework for urban infrastructure. It incorporates a variety of methods that economists and industrial ecologists use for evaluating their projects, in addition to the LCT approach. To recognize the strategic sustainability indicators and criteria, the framework uses LCC, LCA, and SLCA in conjunction with stakeholder evaluation and multi-criteria decision analysis, which recognizes the foremost three pillars of sustainability, i.e., economy, environment, and society. Additionally, system dynamics and agentbased modelling are used to optimise the framework. The prominence of the framework is to understand the route an urban infrastructure development should follow to achieve key sustainability interests involving the interconnected environmental and socio-economic aspects. This sustainability assessment framework can be utilised by consultants or supporting agencies to help organisations carry out and monitor such projects. Keywords Life cycle thinking tools· Sustainability assessment· MCDA· Sustainability indicators 1 Introduction The urban structure is made of critical utility systems such as means of transportation, water supply and waste management, green infrastructure, housing, energy, communication, etc. (Neirotti etal., 2014). Multiple urban development projects are undertaken to serve the rising population of the cities (Li etal., 2017). However, they need a symmetry * Kamran Khan [email protected] Thomas Henschel [email protected] 1 University ofPadova, Padova, PD, Italy 2 Business School, Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin, Berlin, Germany 3 University ofTeramo, Via Renato Balzarini, 1, 64100Teramo, TE, Italy 1174 K.Khan, T.Henschel among economic, social, and environmental factors. Thus, a standard shift in perspective is necessary to address infrastructure concerns and their potential interconnectedness in conjunction with public health, public debt, and limited environmental resources (Larsson & Larsson, 2020). Though sustainable assessment of urban structures is one of the more complex sorts of assessment approaches, it involves an effective way to assess the functionality of these projects in terms of socioeconomic and environmental aspects before their implementation. Management plans for infrastructure practices should increase the benefits and reduce the asserted risks and additional stressors that will occur in the future. “Sustainable Development (SD) is defined by (Brundtland, 1987) as ‘the development that fulfils the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs,’.” It can be described as an attempt that supports policymakers and decision-makers in determining which measures should be carried out and what not to be carried out in struggling to build a sustainable society (Emas, 2015; Tomislav, 2018). In the context of sustainable construction (SC) projects, sustainable development is assessing proposed plans, policies, or legislation from a sustainability perspective before implementation (Devuyst, 1999). Environmental pollution, carbon dioxide emissions, climate crisis, natural resource depletion, waste generation, land use changes, and pollution are all factors that impact the environment due to infrastructure construction (Alwan etal., 2017; Chen etal., 2010; Polo-Mendoza etal., 2023). In infrastructure projects, the construction industry utilises 50% of the entire natural resources extracted and generates massive amounts of demolition and construction waste (Darko & Chan, 2017; Hu etal., 2010) states that roughly 40% of the world’s natural resources, 40% of its energy, and 25% of its water are used for construction, and more than 45% of overall waste is produced by construction (Sbci, 2009). Another report determined that the construction sector consumes a considerable amount of material in developed countries (Wrap, 2009). One study found that just the building sector consumes 42 percent the energy in the European Union, earth-mined resources 50 percent, greenhouse gas emissions 35 percent, and 30 percent of water consumption and waste generation (Europea, 2007; European Commission, 2011; Kylili & Fokaides, 2017). In another study, the construction sector’s CO2 emissions were analysed in 40 countries, considering 26 kinds of energy use and non-energy use. Nearly 60% of all CO2 emissions from the total construction sector come from developing economies. A large part of the contribution comes from China. In addition, the intensity of direct and indirect CO2 emanations in developing nations is higher than that in developed nations (Huang etal., 2018). It has become increasingly apparent from the scholarly literature that the construction industry impacts the environment (Chan etal., 2009; Wieser etal., 2021; Zhang etal., 2021) as well as social and economic life (Stanitsas etal., 2021), and this issue is becoming increasingly significant. It has been argued that construction sustainability is fundamental to the achievement of sustainable development (Adebowale & Agumba, 2023; Sharaf, 2023; Shen etal., 2007). Sustainable Assessment became a valuable practice in institutional policy and project assessments; its goals must adhere to “plans and actions that produce an optimal impact on sustainability development” (Hugé etal., 2013). Similarly, urban infrastructure projects represent long-lasting assets, and their assessment will have enormous socioeconomic and environmental repercussions (Adshead etal., 2019; Montiel etal., 2021; Ramaswami, 2020), which can reduce the utilisation of natural resources, minimise threats, and maximise economic return (Thacker etal., 2019; Wang etal., 2020). Considering its spillover impacts, such as alleviating poverty, increasing universal competitiveness, and improving productivity, governments have placed a great deal of emphasis on infrastructure development. Though low-quality or limited-access infrastructure 1175 LCT‑Based Framework fortheAssessment ofSustainability:… negatively impacts the poor more than the rich, these spillover effects contribute to the accomplishment of sustainable development goals (Agarchand & Laishram, 2017). Thus, assessing the sustainability of infrastructure projects and understanding sustainability goals is crucial for policymakers and planners. Nevertheless, the practical implementation of this concept in the process of decision-making remains unclear. This shows that construction management specialists are facing serious challenges in understanding and transforming sustainable initiatives into real actions in their projects (Munyasya & Chileshe, 2018). In infrastructure projects, impacts can be associated with the construction, operation, maintenance, and recycling/reuse phases. “Thus, sustainability assessment reinforces the use of a ‘long-term approach,’.” It is important to consider other factors when assessing sustainability (Lal etal., 2021). First and foremost, sustainability varies greatly depending on the economic, social, and environmental context of the project site. Second, good definitions of “sustainable infrastructure” must cover the whole life cycle, including conception, construction, operation, maintenance, and recycling and reuse (Bueno etal., 2015). Therefore, it is necessary to build up tools that let socioeconomic and environmental goals be fulfilled (Hendricks etal., 2018; Maqbool etal., 2023; Sharifi, 2021). These goals can be acquired for infrastructure by guaranteeing a life cycle thinking-based framework following Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC), and Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) tools (Kalbar & Das, 2020; Toniolo etal., 2020; Yang etal., 2023). However, LCA, LCC, and SLCA have limitations in assessing the complementarity of infrastructure systems in sustainable assessment (Mirabella etal., 2019). At the same time, there are complications in weighing the sustainability objectives, and it is not easy for the stakeholders to appraise a certain project by uniting its strengths with diverse sustainability indicators. Furthermore, computational tools, i.e., system dynamics and agent-based modelling, can be employed to calculate probable challenges in advance and create a quick and effective construction process. These tools aim to improve work performance by chasing construction systems’ dynamic behaviours (Alvanchi etal., 2011). Several scholars believe that diverse approaches can lead to diverse outcomes. Thus, multiple methods and practices ought to be employed in a structure for a unified, wide-ranging solution (Cohen, 2017; Moldavska & Welo, 2019; Yang etal., 2023). As of now, there are no standard frameworks that can be used to achieve these goals; however, the tools that are used in the literature studies can lay the foundation for the development of such a framework (Adebowale & Agumba, 2023). This study is a review of the prevailing sustainability assessment tools and methods associated with infrastructure projects. The primary goal is to identify and gauge the pertinence of existing tools according to the principles of sustainability and to integrate these tools into a framework. To contribute to the solution of various sustainability issues explored in the current literature, the main idea that motivates this research to be conducted is anchored in the below question: “How to establish for the construction specialists a life cycle-based tool within a unified structure for the assessment of the sustainability of urban infrastructure?” To follow the question, the aim of this article is to build an LCT-based incorporated framework for the evaluation of economic, environmental, and social aspects of infrastructure projects. The principal intent of this proposed assessment framework is to support construction consultants and supporting agencies with decision-making recommendations in a step-by-step course towards sustainable development. This paper is structured as follows: Part 2 describes the background of the study, followed by Part 3 the materials and methods as a research methodology. Part 4 describes 1176 K.Khan, T.Henschel in detail the proposed framework, and finally, Section5 includes a set of conclusions and describes future research recommendations. 2 Background oftheStudy A sustainable development concept is the combination of concepts such as development (socioeconomic development), needs (ensuring a high quality of living for each), and future generations (using resources to guarantee a high value of life for future generations). Sustainable development was introduced in 1972 at the UN Convention on Human Environment in Stockholm, the first global convention devoted exclusively to environmental concerns (World Health Organization, 1972). A number of additional high-ranking events were held in conjunction with the UN following these events. Throughout these conferences, “there has been a shift from a stress on environmental problems to a combined attention on environmental and socio-economic development” (Paul, 2008; Tomislav, 2018). The essence of the SD notion comes from the triple bottom line approach, which entails the offset among the three pillars of sustainability. Although there have been more than a hundred definitions of sustainability, the consensus among most scholars is that it emphasises the importance of balancing social, environmental, and economic objectives. These three objectives are also known as the pillars of sustainable development (Azapagic & Perdan, 2000; Labuschagne & Brent, 2005; Manioudis & Meramveliotakis, 2022). To achieve complete sustainability, all pillars must be balanced, yet achieving the desired state is not easy because each pillar must not upset the interests of the other pillars to achieve its targets (Tomislav, 2018). The concept of sustainability in construction was introduced during the first international conference on sustainable construction (SC) in 1994 (Kibert, 1994). A definition of SC was introduced at that conference by (Hill & Bowen, 1997): SC is the creation and operation of a healthy built environment using resource efficiency and environmental design. Dickie & Howard, 2000, defines SC as the contribution of construction to SD, and Kibert, 2016, suggests that SC is a subset of SD. Certainly, “construction sustainability is crucial for the achievement of sustainable development” (Shen etal., 2007). The implications of construction on the environment, society, and economy have drawn the interest of policymakers, administrative authorities, politicians, construction specialists, as well as consumer and scientific communities throughout the world (Kylili & Fokaides, 2017; Maqbool etal., 2023). Increasingly, infrastructure projects must be evaluated in terms of sustainable development in the context of socioeconomic, environmental, and social factors. Governments have shown that companies’ execution projects are required to build approaches, action plans, and indicators of performance that will contribute to sustainable development (Yanarella & Bartilow, 2000). According to (Bossink, 2002), the Dutch government’s policy for SC created modern sustainable and design approaches within the Dutch construction industry. Similarly, it is becoming more and more of a priority for the government, at least at the local level, in many countries (Ross etal., 2010). Additionally, international policies and regulations are pushing the infrastructure sector towards sustainability. In the construction sector, for instance, the EU Energy Performance of Building Directive (European Commission, 2010) to have zero-energy buildings is causing confusion and leading to radical changes in current practices (Albino & Berardi, 2012; Dalla Mora etal., 2017; European Commission, 2010). Interestingly, customers are also increasingly demanding sustainable policies in construction processes. A growing number of consumers are looking for suppliers and contractors that are more environmentally friendly, and 1177 LCT‑Based Framework fortheAssessment ofSustainability:… government agencies and big corporations are setting targets for implementing sustainable methods and management to increase the sustainability of their projects (Häkkinen & Belloni, 2011; Tan etal., 2011). Thus, according to (Kwatra etal., 2020; Yahya etal., 2016), sustainable infrastructure practices have been a strategic focus for the construction industry for several years now. Kwatra etal., 2020, explained that SD can be applied to construction in a variety of ways and with distinct approaches: “from the extraction of raw materials to the construction planning and design of buildings and infrastructure, and finally to the demolition and disposal of their waste.” A number of different studies have been conducted to develop tools that diagnose environmental and socio-economic impacts stemming from the activities of construction at different life cycle phases: from innovation, consumption, and reprocessing of resources to procurement, plan, construction, operation, and maintenance, devastation and waste management, rules, and environmental management plans (Alwan etal., 2017; Hendricks etal., 2018; Munyasya & Chileshe, 2018; Pietrosemoli & Monroy, 2013; Pitt etal., 2009; Shen etal., 2010). Several tools or methodological frameworks are used in practice to evaluate infrastructure projects, which include the concept of sustainability to varying degrees. A variety of current sustainability tools are included in these methods and tools, including traditional methodologies. In this context, studies have primarily focused on developing indicators for assessing the sustainability of infrastructure projects (Stanitsas etal., 2021; Verma & Raghubanshi, 2018). Besides studies on the development of indicators, there have also been studies undertaken on themes such as developing methodology for identifying sustainability assessment indicators (Devuyst, 1999; Fernández-Sánchez & Rodríguez-López, 2010), and integrating sustainability in decision-making at all stages of a project’s life cycle (Adebowale & Agumba, 2023; Rosasco & Sdino, 2023). They are designed, however, to evaluate whether the projects contribute to sustainability at a certain stage of the project life cycle (Kalbar & Das, 2020; Mirabella etal., 2019; Rosasco & Sdino, 2023; Toniolo etal., 2020). Infrastructure projects can be assessed from a socio-economic and environmental perspective in a variety of ways, but there is no uniform or commonly agreed-upon approach that provides a consistent measure of sustainability in the appraisal and evaluation of infrastructure projects (Kwatra etal., 2020; Petit-Boix etal., 2017). According to the literature on sustainable infrastructure, policymakers require practical techniques to evaluate sustainability throughout the lifecycle of infrastructure projects. Methods of assessment that are comprehensive and reliable are necessary for decision-making processes. Currently, there are several approaches to project appraisal; the first involves conventional decision-making techniques, including multi-criteria decision analyses (MCDAs), cost-benefit analyses (CBAs), life-cycle assessments (LCAs), and social life-cycle assessments (SLCAs), among others (Kalbar & Das, 2020; Osman, 2012; Rivai etal., 2023; Toniolo etal., 2020; Yang etal., 2023). Second, infrastructure projects are graded and scored based on their sustainability performance, and third, guidelines, frameworks, and standards are applied to evaluate infrastructure assets and assess sustainability. These tools can be highly helpful to decision-makers when it comes to meeting some of their specific objectives. There is, however, still room for advancement in existing assessment tools. It is their primary weakness that they tend to favour environmental or economic assessments, fail to adequately address sustainability, and focus too much on certain phases of the project lifecycle. 1178 K.Khan, T.Henschel 3 Materials andMethods Based on the objectives of our research, this paper carried out a qualitative literature review to identify, evaluate, and deduce the current state of knowledge about the topic. A literature review of a subject matter reports the need for criticism and the prospective reconceptualization of the growing and more expanded knowledge base of the subject as it remains to develop (Ramdhani etal., 2014). The SLR approach we follow in this study is based on (Tranfield etal., 2003), which is one of the most recognised, validated, and tested by the research community. The methodological approach (Fig.1) clearly presented a systematic assemblage and analysis of the existing body of scientific knowledge, highlighting key results and directions for future research. During the preliminary interview with some experts in the field of sustainable development and infrastructure, we defined the key themes for designing our review process. We carried out a few meetings to better understand the research process and identify the keywords best suited for the literature review of our topic. The intention of carrying out the review of literature is to capture the prevailing knowledge around the subject, pinpoint knowledge gaps for additional investigation (Kitchenham, 2004), and draw out the theoretical content of the subject matter that might contribute to the establishment of the framework. The key findings from the literature are used as inputs to structure the proposed framework (Fig.2). To pick the most pertinent materials, a step-by-step method was applied in order not to ignore significant research papers. Relevant materials were selected from Scopus and Web of Science (WoS), as they are the prominent sources for journals in a range of areas. A time Fig. 1 The methodological approach 1179 LCT‑Based Framework fortheAssessment ofSustainability:… span from 2011 to 2023 was chosen to collect all the pertinent studies published in these years. The time span taken is enough time to critically analyse the work done on the topic during this period and develop our conclusions. A preliminary, unrestricted exploration with the keywords “urban infrastructure and sustainability” showed thousands of papers that were tough to contemplate for this study. Several refiners were applied to limit the search results due to the preliminary analysis of the studies being identified in very diverse areas of research, many of which were not relevant to the present study. In the collection of pertinent material, the following keywords were used: infrastructure management, sustainable assessment, urban infrastructure, sustainability indicators, sustainability framework, triple bottom line approach, life cycle thinking tools, life cycle assessment, sustainability tools, life cycle costing, SLCA, and system dynamics. We considered the most relevant articles following the research criteria shown in Table1. Fig. 2 Life cycle thinking based sustainability assessment framework 1180 K.Khan, T.Henschel Domain areas applied are environmental studies, ecology, urban studies, management, economics, business, construction building technology, energy fuel, social science and other topics, engineering, and architecture. Moreover, in the assortment of literature materials, prominence has been given to methodologies instead of applications. Titles, abstracts, and keywords were read to make sure the paper was relevant to meet the objectives. If it appears relevant, then the complete article is read to decide if it must be considered or not. This method aided in further limiting the number of inappropriate articles accessible. The complete selection process took a prolonged time to pick the very appropriate articles related to the topic (Table. 2). Articles satisfying the assessment standards were additionally assessed for the different tools and frameworks described in them. After thoroughly studying and evaluating a great number of documents, 65 articles were chosen for the analysis (Table. 2). All these articles are mentioned in the reference list. The critical evaluations of the chosen studies are reviewed, and the tools described in these materials are used as input in the development of our proposed framework. Table 1 Research criteria Dataset Web of science and Elsevier’s scopus Time 2011 to Oct 2023 Document type Articles and review Source type Journal articles and international conference proceedings Keywords “Infrastructure management”, “Sustainable assessment”, “Urban infrastructure”, “Sustainability indicators”, “Sustainability framework”, “Triple bottom line approach”, “Life cycle thinking tools”, “Life cycle assessment”, “Sustainability Tools”, “Life cycle costing”, “SLCA”, and “System dynamics” Table 2 Articles selection process Selection process No. of documents Initial search from the web of science and Scopus for the keywords Web of science Scopus “Infrastructure management”, “Sustainable assessment”, “Urban infrastructure”, “Sustainability indicators”, “Sustainability framework”, “Triple bottom line approach”, “Life cycle thinking tools”, “Life cycle assessment”, "Sustainability Tools", “Life cycle costing”, “SLCA”, and “System dynamics”. (With "OR" and "AND" parameters) 3056 4028 After applying multiple refineries (document type, Domain/Area) 1050 1270 After removing duplicates (1050 + 714) 1764 Articles screened after the exclusion and inclusion Criteria 660 Selection based on Title and abstract reading 105 Selection based on full reading of the papers 75 Following a rigorous screening process to achieve high-quality Articles 65 1187 LCT‑Based Framework fortheAssessment ofSustainability:… Albino, V., & Berardi, U. (2012). Green buildings and organizational changes in Italian case studies. Business Strategy and the Environment, 21(6), 387–400. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1002/ bse. 1728 Alvanchi, A., Lee, S., & AbouRizk, S. (2011). Modeling framework and architecture of hybrid system dynamics and discrete event simulation for construction. Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, 26(2), 77–91. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1111/j. 14678667. 2010. 00650.x Alwan, Z., Jones, P., & Holgate, P. (2017). 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