A systematic approach to major project sustainability assessment

Abstract

This paper describes a multicriteria decision making approach to lifecycle sustainability assessment (LiSA) in major project development. It aims at an alternative quantitative method for effectively supporting the justification of major project development plans and related design at various work stages specified by RIBA Plan of Work 2013, so as to satisfy the need for and to demonstrate the advantage of multicriteria underpinned assessment on the lifecycle value of development options and technical designs with regard to the whole range of requirements on sustainability in relation to social, technical, economic, ecological, and political (STEEP) issues within an imaginable lifespan of individual projects. The described research consists of three main parts, including the identification of sustainability assessment criteria, the development of a multicriteria evaluation model, and a case study on plan or design evaluation in major project development. The LiSA methodology presented here has been developed for and applied in one experimental case study on the new Royal Hospital project in Liverpool; and it has yielded a promising result which showed an exact match to the development plan actually adopted. It is expected that the LiSA methodology described could be useful for well-informed sustainability assessment in major project practice.