Sustainability Assessment Methodologies: Implications and Challenges for SIDS

Over the past years, an increasing number of initiatives was considered to address emerging global sustainability issues. Sustainability assessment tools were the most commonly applied methodologies towards measuring sustainability performance. There are a number of assessment tools and techniques for sustainable development. This article aims at identifying the various sustainability assessment tools at country level taking into consideration the integration of environmental, economic, and social dimensions. The target of this paper is to compare the various sustainability measurement techniques and their characteristics using evaluation criteria. The outcome of this analysis is used to direct and clarify researchers and practitioners on sustainability assessment at country level, more specifically in developing countries. The focus of the paper rests on the Brundtland Report definition of sustainable development. The work was carried out using a bibliometric analysis approach based on Web of Science platform from the period 2000 to 2020. There was tremendous works which were conducted on sustainability assessment during the last two decades. The comparative analyses show the research gap among the various tools with respect to the criteria they satisfied. The research discussion suggests that a sustainability assessment framework for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) is identified as a future research direction.

Investigating the Critical Issues for Enhancing Sustainability in Higher Education Institutes in Thailand

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), by and large, have increasingly committed to integrate sustainable development (SD) into their policies, practices, and programs. Recently, there have been several sustainability assessment tools specifically developed for HEIs. Many HEIs, especially small-to-middle sized HEIs in Thailand, are planning to enhance SD but are reluctant due to resource requirements. This study was conducted to investigate important sustainability implementation issues, including the effect of HEI sizes and UI GreenMetric participation. A weighting approach on sustainability dimensions and issues was utilized, and HEI’s sustainability reports and official websites were reviewed to evaluate their sustainability performance of large-, middle-, and small-sized HEIs as well as UI GreenMetric participants and non-participants in Thailand. The findings reveal that the issues of the sustainability-integrated vision and strategy, safety and well-being, waste, and the SD-enhancing educational system were fundamentally critical for HEI sustainability. Moreover, most of the large-sized HEIs in Thailand that participated in UI GreenMetric were evaluated to have higher sustainability performance than others, apparently in administration, environment, and education/research dimensions. This study supports the necessity for a sustainability assessment tool for HEIs.

Evaluation of sustainability assessment tools for road construction projects applied on an asphalt road rehabilitation project in Germany

The increasing awareness of the need for sustainable development in road construction and the growing number of different assessment tools worldwide has led to a general demand for a tool specific to the German market with its current environment and regulations. This thesis briefly reviews the overall development of the sustainability concept and then applies different tools for the evaluation of road constructions using the example of a small rehabilitation project in Germany. Further, a brief overview of the existing international and European standards and guidelines will be given, followed by a more detailed description of the Swiss method NISTRA, the application of the British asPECT, the Canadian Athena Pavement LCA and the French SEVE. Partly limited access to the tools and the small amount of available data due to the project size has led to rather limited results and it remains to be seen if a bigger project and a better access would result in a more sophisticated outcome. It can therefore be concluded that the sustainability evaluation tool for small rehabilitation projects specific to Germany would need a more simplified handling and structure then what is currently available.

Evaluation of sustainability assessment tools for road construction projects applied on an asphalt road rehabilitation project in Germany

The increasing awareness of the need for sustainable development in road construction and the growing number of different assessment tools worldwide has led to a general demand for a tool specific to the German market with its current environment and regulations. This thesis briefly reviews the overall development of the sustainability concept and then applies different tools for the evaluation of road constructions using the example of a small rehabilitation project in Germany. Further, a brief overview of the existing international and European standards and guidelines will be given, followed by a more detailed description of the Swiss method NISTRA, the application of the British asPECT, the Canadian Athena Pavement LCA and the French SEVE. Partly limited access to the tools and the small amount of available data due to the project size has led to rather limited results and it remains to be seen if a bigger project and a better access would result in a more sophisticated outcome. It can therefore be concluded that the sustainability evaluation tool for small rehabilitation projects specific to Germany would need a more simplified handling and structure then what is currently available.

The Aspect of Mobility and Connectivity While Assessing the Neighbourhood Sustainability

The rapid evolution of information and communications technologies has brought the potential held by urban analytics up to a higher level and thus promises more well-informed decisions, including advances in the assessment methodologies and monitoring based on existing data and its reuse. The paper provides an insight into an ongoing national research project examining the assessment methodologies and data integration for the purpose of monitoring the progress as regards sustainability and quality in urban environments. Specifically, we focus on the level of the neighbourhoods; by measuring the extent to which the built environment comprehends the required characteristics and configuration for efficiency, or contribute to quality living and sustainability. Current study covers the aspect of efficient mobility and connectivity, revealing the potential of the location-based data provided by mobile devices and associated infrastructures. While such data are widely recognised as a beneficial source of information in various fields and solid advances have been made in both analytics and modelling, little progresses has been seen in exploiting that potential as regards sustainability assessment tools. This study examines the viability of indicators addressing travel time reliability throughout the empirical testbed, exemplified by six strategic routes associated with three neighbourhoods in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The paper summarizes current progress of the study. Received: 21 January 2021 / Accepted: 22 March 2021 / Published: 10 May 2021