Factors Affecting Social Sustainability in Highway Projects in Missouri

Abstract Sustainability focuses on the interaction between a given project and the social, environmental, and the economic dimensions of the system enclosing it. The majority of the studies conducted focused mostly on the environmental aspects of sustainability rather than the economic ones, while very few studies discussed the social dimension. Social sustainability promotes the concepts of respect, awareness, diversity, vitality, and responsibility toward the workforce and the society by keeping them healthy and safe from harm during the different phases of a project. Highway projects are one of the most critical infrastructure projects in the construction industry. This is due to their high budgets, frequent occurrences, and the inevitable disturbance they cause to the existing communities and environment. As such, a comprehensive study was conducted to analyze the performance of highway projects with respect to the social dimension of sustainability. Due to limitation of space, the paper presents only some aspects of this study. In this study, ten major core factors were identified as principle contributors to social sustainability, and recommended for implementation at different stages of highway projects. This paper discusses these factors in details.

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