The concept of sustainability was developed more than 30 years ago. Yet today, what we consider sustainable has no common understanding, which is problematic when trying to operationalize it. Particularly, sustainability’s social dimension continues to be neglected through green-only approaches or considered in a limited fashion. This blog highlights key points made out in a recent study “Framing Social Sustainability in Infrastructure Theory and Practice: A review of Two Road Projects in Mexico from a Business and Human Rights Lens” published in Sustainability Journal that contributes to social sustainability’s understanding and implementation in road infrastructure projects with a business and human rights lens.
Sustainable infrastructure is a core pillar of development. It is directly or indirectly linked with delivering on more than 70% of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Economically, infrastructure contributes to one-tenth of the global GDP and creates 7% of the world’s jobs. Environmentally, sustainable infrastructure can reduce carbon emissions tackling climate change. It can also be a powerful means of efficient use of resources given its significant use of energy and water. Socially, sustainable infrastructure can enhance human living conditions, reduce poverty and facilitate human rights enjoyment. However, its capacity to create benefits is the same as that to produce harm, particularly on workers, end-users and communities’ human rights. Then what elements should contracting authorities and business contractors consider to make sure a project is socially sustainable?
Sustainable infrastructure is the one “planned, designed, constructed, operated and decommissioned in a manner that ensures economic, financial, social, environmental (including climate resilience) and institutional sustainability over the entire life cycle of the project” (IDB, 2019)
A literature review and a qualitative research approach through interviews were conducted to identify social sustainability’s elements and to analyse their application in two road projects, one sustainable and one unsustainable in Mexico. The findings are reflected in the table below.
Positive sphere of social sustainability
Relates to the elements through which infrastructure "creates benefits" for people- Improvement of working conditions
- Enhancement of living standards
- Creation of local supply/ job creation/ social inclusion
- Enhancement of health and education
Negative sphere of social sustainability
Relates to the way in which infrastructure "addresses harm" against people- Prevention of human rights abuses
- Redress of human rights abuses
Improvement of working conditions
Labour conditions of workers of business developers and subcontractors, including equal remuneration, minimum wage, trade unions, collective bargaining and working hours were considered to be part of social sustainability, however, they were not considered in any project.
“There is no investigation [during the selection of the contractors] by the contracting authority on whether the company complies with paying decent salaries to their workers. There is no interest if they pay them well or badly”
Enhancement of living conditions
This element is mostly linked to end-users benefits in terms of commuting in less time and with lower costs. Additionally, economic and physical access of neighbouring communities to infrastructure was part of improving living conditions. This element was further connected with environmental sustainability. The project brought back a lost livelihood for communities through a reforestation programme within the environmental risk management, and increased people’s resilience to environmental hazards like floods and fires through providing infrastructure, tools and food.
Creation of local supply
It involved direct employment through employing local workers for the construction site, and indirect job creation by buying food and beverages from local suppliers.
Enhancement of health and education
It was another element of social sustainability that included providing unskilled workers, locally recruited, of higher levels of education and training young local engineers. Both actions were conducted through partnership-building with public educational institutions. It also involved a vaccination programme for workers.
Prevention of human rights abuses
It includes fair trade of the acquisition of the rights of way and other economic, social and cultural impacts that buying such land would represent to landowners and their families. Besides, it included mitigating harmful impacts such as accidents for workers and end-users and noise or obstruction to local pathways to neighbouring communities. Notably, a good way to identify and mitigate social harmful impacts is through a human rights due diligence that must be based on internationally recognized human rights standards and principles, and involve stakeholder participation in conditions of non-discrimination, equality and transparency. The lack of this element can turn a project into an unsustainable one, as it happened with one of the road projects.
Redress of human rights abuse
It was essential to the healthy development of the project. It was implemented through operational-level grievance mechanisms created and managed by private developers. These mechanisms can serve not only to provide redress to affectations but also to provide relevant information to local communities or address their concerns about the project.
The social dimension of sustainability has been often misunderstood and neglected. The analysed research study contributes to a better understanding of this concept, which includes both maximising the positive impacts of infrastructure and minimising the negative impacts through prevention and redress of human rights abuses that could derive from business developers’ activities related to a project. Certainly, the elements that constitute socially sustainable road projects, and the ways in which social sustainability can reconcile with the environment should be considered by contracting authorities and business contractors to build on a sustainable future that does not leave people behind.
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