Prioritizing Social Sustainability Indicators of Public Projects: A Chinese Context

Despite increased prosperity of public project provision in China, their social sustainability level is relatively low. To this end, this paper compiles a list of social sustainability indicators based on a comprehensive literature review. A series of interviews are then organized and experts invited to rate and prioritize these factors. The findings reveal that four participation-related indicators (i.e., F1 encouraging stakeholder participation, F2 well-established stakeholder participatory channels, F3 timely feedback to the participants, and F4 practical mechanisms coping with stakeholder conflicts), together with the safety issues, are the top concerns of the overall interviewees. Effective and efficient stakeholder participation helps to ensure the required public projects are properly planned, designed, built, operated, and demolished to serve the well-being of various parties in a complex society. Its development in the Chinese construction industry is however rudimentary and a comprehensive participatory framework is needed to improve project sustainability.