ABSTRACT
The site selection and thereof the impact assessment on inhabitants, environment, ecology, and natural habitat is critical to ensure sustainability. A study based on the review of six infrastructure projects in UK identifies that not enough attention by decision makers at early stages as one of the reasons for projects turning into white elephants. The research is focused largely on assessing the environmental impact. The most common and well-established ones have been the life cycle approaches such as Environmental Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing, and Social Life Cycle Assessment that have been addressing individually the three sustainability pillars. Developing economies face greater challenge as the financial support from governments for promoting low carbon infrastructure and relevant research is able to keep pace with the scale at which the infrastructure development is taking place. While sustainable outcomes include social, economic and environmental sustainability, we focus on environmentally sustainable outcomes.
