FROM STRATEGY TO SITE: ADVANCING SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY IN INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS

Paper in proceeding, 2025

This paper investigates how social sustainability is organised and advanced in infrastructure projects, by drawing on 11 interviews and document analyses of a major Scandinavian contractor. The paper applies, and to some extent revises, a social sustainability framework by Valdes-Vasquez and Klotz (2013). Findings highlight strong commitments to safety but reveal gaps in inclusive team formation, stakeholder engagement, and evaluations of social impacts. This paper contributes to the broader discourse on sustainable infrastructure development by stressing the need to tighten governance to curb subcontracting risks and labour abuses, granting project managers greater influence over team selection to boost cohesion and decision quality, engaging communities earlier and more systematically to secure lasting benefits, embedding explicit responsibility for workers and stakeholders in corporate strategy, and replacing ad-hoc practices with rigorous, methodical social-impact assessments.