WP083: A Methodology for Environmentally Informed Decision-Making: Towards Sustainable Projects

Recent years have brought increased concern for sustainable development. However, despite efforts by policy, scientific, and engineering communities, sustainability remains largely undefined and unachievable. The need for a precise definition of sustainability and a systematic method of making decisions respecting it is apparent. Thus, the primary objective of this paper is demonstrating how, once sustainability is defined, current CIFE VDC tools can be used to help decision makers approach it and its consequences for their research/project/policy choices.

To facilitate this demonstration, we examine a test case: the maintenance of a system of underground tunnels owned by the Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (NTT). We use a sustainability-based analysis of NTT's options to develop a methodology that can be generalized for decisions in any engineering project. In essence, analyzing the NTT case serves to demonstrate the value of applying VDC tools to sustainability-motivated decisions.