MINI REVIEW article
Front. Environ. Eng.
Sec. Environmental Impact Assessment
This article is part of the Research TopicCelebrating 1 Year of Frontiers in Environmental EngineeringView all 5 articles
Sustainability Impact Assessment Tools and Frameworks
Provisionally accepted
- Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
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Global challenges are increasing for the design of sustainable infrastructure and buildings for engineers. These include resource constraints and limited availability of water. Climate change from increasing greenhouse gas emissions is changing precipitation patterns, putting further constraints on resources. Incorporating sustainable practices into infrastructure projects is becoming increasingly important. However, there are many challenges related to this. Tools and frameworks for sustainability impact assessments have been developed to assist in the decision-making process. Environmental and economic indicators are well developed but social aspects are more difficult to quantify. This paper examines selected tools and frameworks and the requirement for future developments. Sustainability in engineering design is essential for working towards the UN Sustainability Development Goals.
Keywords: Economic impacts, Environmental impact assessment, Frameworks, indicators, Social Impacts, sustainability, tools
Received: 31 Jul 2025; Accepted: 16 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mulligan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Catherine Mulligan
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.