A social ontology for appraising sustainability of construction projects and developments

The social dimension of sustainability has been growing in importance as a criterion for evaluating the viability of projects in the construction sector. The authors present an ontology that can be employed to provide a systematic articulation to the issues that impinge on the social dimension of sustainability appraisals. The development of the social ontology was a consequence of a research project that explored the tools, metrics and models (SUE-MoT) employed in the evaluation of sustainability within the urban built environment. The development was achieved by the method of focus group interaction. The proposed ontology can be combined with the environmental and economic requirements of projects to assist developers and others stakeholders gain a more comprehensive and holistic view of the sustainable issues that attend construction and urban developments.