ABSTRACT
The social pillar of sustainability is the least quantified pillar in Civil Engineering compared to economic and environmental. Metrics, to be effective indicators of a system, have four characteristics: relevancy, understandability, reliability, and accessibility. Relevance is key because the metric must provide information about the system one needs to know. Understandability is important so even nonexperts can grasp the meaning of the metric. The metric must be reliable, or the metric is of no use. Additionally, the data or information for the metric must be obtainable in a time frame suitable for decision-making. In general, many of the existing social metrics fall under four emerging areas: human well-being, access to resources, self-government, and civil society. These four emerging areas provide much of the foundation for agencies and frameworks discussed in this chapter to present existing and developing tools for capturing the social pillar of sustainability. First, a survey of research examining different perspectives on measuring the social considerations within civil engineering is presented to begin identifying potential social impacts of infrastructure projects as well as tools for measuring those impacts, such as leveraging information available on social media for public benefit. Next, work done with the United Nations (UN), Oxfam Doughnut, Human Development Index (HDI), and Social Impact Assessment (SIA) is discussed to develop a stronger foundation for defining and exploring social impacts. Finally, there has been significant movement in corporations recognizing and addressing the social pillar of sustainability through the concept of social purpose of corporations.
