Measuring Sustainable Development Goal Targets on Infrastructure Projects

Achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is of paramount importance. Infrastructure projects are critical to facilitate this change at local and global levels, but a gap exists in understanding how to measure their SDG impact. It is therefore important that research is conducted on how project management systems and processes can be further developed to enable SDG performance measurement on projects. This paper builds on a comprehensive literature review and supporting analysis in order to develop a conceptual framework to guide future research on measuring SDG impact on infrastructure projects. The findings suggest using the ‘Triple Bottom Line’ during the lifecycle of projects, which provides a golden thread linking SDGs with project success criteria. This approach thereby balances economic business success with wider benefits to society and the environment and helps improve infrastructure project investment decisions.