Evaluation of sustainable infrastructure: Development context matters

If infrastructure is considered the basic physical and organizational structure needed for the operation of a society, how will the rapidly urbanizing centers in the developing world, many of which have large informal communities (i.e., slums), provide it? Various tools exist that assist engineers in the design and evaluation of sustainable project features, but innovation and long-term acceptance of the systems are lost if the unique cultural characteristics and resource constraints are not used as a refractive lens prior to project considerations. In this paper, a framework is presented within the context of cultural and resource constraints to assist the successful adaptation and application of existing sustainable infrastructure evaluation tools. The framework recognizes that an individual project shares space in a hierarchical spectrum of development unique to each city, characterized by multiple influences and motivations at different scales within social, natural, and built systems.