About this Research Topic
The infrastructure space is very large with an annual global budget worth
trillions of dollars. Sustainable infrastructure is the main underpinning
to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Thus,
infrastructure is the nexus for the successful implementation of the respective
SDGs. Sustainability assessment and reporting is a major global paradigm
shift in engineering practice, education, research, and development. There
are challenges in assessing and reporting infrastructure delivery at local,
regional, national, continental, and global levels. These include different
methods, frameworks, standards and tools that compete with each other
resulting in current silos-based solutions to the problem. In early October
2023, Members of the European Parliament (MEP) deepened their commitment to
align Corporate Social Responsibility Directives (CSRD) and European
Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRD), which is widely seen as a
game-changer. Some of the issues and challenges to address in
sustainability assessment and reporting include; alignment of processes,
moving from generalizations to industry- and sector-specific
indicators/metrics, understanding materiality and relevance of items under
discourse to employees, end-users, stakeholders and shareholders, risk
management including climate change vulnerabilities induced by operations
in complex supply chains, integrating disparate systems for use in
decision-making, and technological innovations that ensure interoperability
at appropriate interfaces. As a baseline, assessment and reporting should
holistically balance Brundtland's foundational triple-bottom line (i.e.
economy, society, and environment), governance, health and safety amongst
others.
The themes of interest in the research topic include:
- Sustainable development
- Sustainability engineering
- Key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Frameworks, methods, models, and tools for sustainability assessment and reporting
- Risks and risk management
- 3D Concrete printing
- Energy efficiency
- Resource management
- Ontologies
- Interoperability
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Machine Learning (ML)
- Natural Language Processing (NLP)
- Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)
trillions of dollars. Sustainable infrastructure is the main underpinning
to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Thus,
infrastructure is the nexus for the successful implementation of the respective
SDGs. Sustainability assessment and reporting is a major global paradigm
shift in engineering practice, education, research, and development. There
are challenges in assessing and reporting infrastructure delivery at local,
regional, national, continental, and global levels. These include different
methods, frameworks, standards and tools that compete with each other
resulting in current silos-based solutions to the problem. In early October
2023, Members of the European Parliament (MEP) deepened their commitment to
align Corporate Social Responsibility Directives (CSRD) and European
Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRD), which is widely seen as a
game-changer. Some of the issues and challenges to address in
sustainability assessment and reporting include; alignment of processes,
moving from generalizations to industry- and sector-specific
indicators/metrics, understanding materiality and relevance of items under
discourse to employees, end-users, stakeholders and shareholders, risk
management including climate change vulnerabilities induced by operations
in complex supply chains, integrating disparate systems for use in
decision-making, and technological innovations that ensure interoperability
at appropriate interfaces. As a baseline, assessment and reporting should
holistically balance Brundtland's foundational triple-bottom line (i.e.
economy, society, and environment), governance, health and safety amongst
others.
The themes of interest in the research topic include:
- Sustainable development
- Sustainability engineering
- Key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Frameworks, methods, models, and tools for sustainability assessment and reporting
- Risks and risk management
- 3D Concrete printing
- Energy efficiency
- Resource management
- Ontologies
- Interoperability
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Machine Learning (ML)
- Natural Language Processing (NLP)
- Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)
Keywords: Infrastructure sustainability, Integrated reporting, Key performance indicators (KPIs), Sustainable development goals (SDGs), Artificial intelligence (AI)
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