The concept of value in sustainable infrastructure systems: a literature review

Infrastructure choices and decisions widely employ the language of value, whether to articulate what is worthwhile or to debate which principles or approaches are most appropriate to specific contexts. As the world strives to achieve long-term sustainability goals, incorporating sustainability values into infrastructure decision-making becomes progressively more important. Yet, the term ‘value’ has been used under different meanings and implications throughout the infrastructure sustainability literature, obstructing the debate on which values are important and what is valuable to infrastructure decision-making processes. This paper reviews how the concept of value has been used to position different sustainability dimensions of large infrastructure systems. Specifically, a conceptual framework proposed by Tadaki et al is used to highlight different notions of infrastructure value under four general headings: value as a magnitude of preference, as a contribution to specified goals, as a means of communicating key priorities, and as a representation of historical relations. This review shows that the discussion of infrastructure value has often focussed on monetary measures to the exclusion of other relevant measures of value. However, if long-term sustainability goals are to be met, a transformation of the ways that value is understood and measured in the context of infrastructure systems is required. This review discusses key similarities, interdependencies, and disparities between published notions of infrastructure value in order to provide a conceptual reference guide that highlights the variety of perspectives that are both implicit and explicit among practitioners and academics.