Ecological Indicators 53 (2015) 137143

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind

Sustainable design indicators: Roadway project as an example

Andrew S. Chang 1 , Calista Y. Tsai
Department of Civil Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1 University Rd., Tainan 701, Taiwan

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 1 April 2013
Received in revised form 20 March 2014
Accepted 27 January 2015
Keywords:
Sustainable design
Performance indicators
Roadway projects
Environmental impact

a b s t r a c t
Environmental sustainability has been more examined in the construction industry in recent years. But
it is still difcult for engineering designers to incorporate sustainability into their work without practical
methods. The design stage is key in the life cycle to integrating sustainability into construction projects.
Assessment of sustainable design performance can be an initiative to pursue sustainability.
This paper proposes the ratio of items considered/adopted and man-hour spending to measure project
sustainable design performance. The two indicators were tested on six roadway projects to validate their
applicability on engineering design.
The results show that the ratios of items considered and adopted are from 34% to 87%, meaning the many
suggested sustainability items can be incorporated into design. The man-hours spent on sustainability
are from 2% to 12%, meaning sustainable design initially takes more time than conventional design.
The engineering design itself does not cause environmental impact. But the proposed indicators can
examine the effort devoted into sustainability in the design stage. This early step helps predict the future
environmental performance of designed products.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Sustainability has been incorporated into products by many
industries and companies nowadays. The construction industry
has also been requested to consider sustainability, but actual
implementation by companies is still low (Myers, 2005; Chong
et al., 2009). Construction projects need the methods of applying
sustainability and assessment tools (Tsai and Chang, 2012). Assessment indicators are key to incorporating sustainability into construction projects successfully (Emison, 2001; Wang et al., 2013).
Early efforts in sustainable construction assessment have been
placed on green buildings. For example, the LEED (Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Design) provides a checklist of
prerequisites and credits to evaluate environmental performance
of buildings (USGBC, 2009). Sustainability evaluation is then
gradually introduced to other types of construction projects
(Fernndez-Snchez and Rodrguez-Lpez, 2010). For example,
Greenroads is like LEED to reward roadway projects that are
designed and constructed to a certication level of sustainability
(Muench et al., 2011).

Design is the most comprehensively addressed stage in the life

cycle in most green building guidelines and evaluation methods
(Bunz et al., 2006). Design is in the early stage of the infrastructure life cycle. The designed energy and materials needed for, and
waste produced by, infrastructure in the sequential construction
and operation stages have a great impact on the environment.
The impact can be reduced if sustainability is evaluated early in
the planning and design stages (McLellan et al., 2009; Yuan, 2013;
Douven and Buurman, 2013).
Since design is key to adding sustainable concepts to construction projects (NRC, 1991), assessment of the effort spent on design
or sustainable design performance can help evaluate indirectly the
environmental performance of its designed products.
2. Literature review
Sustainable performance indicators are reviewed below. Compared to conventional design, sustainable design needs additional
criteria and items (Azapagic et al., 2006). Sustainability items for
roadway design are also reviewed.
2.1. Sustainable performance indicators

Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 6 2677575.

E-mail addresses: anschang@mail.ncku.edu.tw (A.S. Chang),
calista0523@yahoo.com.tw (C.Y. Tsai).
1
Tel.: +886 6 2757575x63153.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.01.036
1470-160X/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sustainable performance indicators are different from traditional business ones and still under development in many
industries. Different sectors develop additional, sector-specic

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A.S. Chang, C.Y. Tsai / Ecological Indicators 53 (2015) 137143

indicators that reect individual characteristics of industrial activities (Welford et al., 2007; Gallego, 2006). For example, Azapagic
(2004) proposed 129 indicators including 60 environmental, 24
economic, and 25 social ones for the mining and minerals industry.
Oswald and McNeil (2010) developed a sustainable corridor rating
system made up of 37 indicators in land use, infrastructure, construction, as well as innovation and design. Yuan (2013) identied
30 key indicators affecting the overall effectiveness of construction
and demolition waste management.
It is found from the literature review that a large number of indicators are developed for sustainability issues in individual sectors.
But the effectiveness indicators and actual impact on environment
are less studied (Urbonas, 2000). It is probably that sustainable
performance is not easy to measure (Tan et al., 1999; Korhonen,
2003).
Environmental performance indicators (EPIs) help decision
makers to evaluate environmental performance and reduce the
vast amount of environmental data from a rm (Hourneaux et al.,
2014). Environmental performance can be assessed at the management and operational levels and two types of EPIs are proposed
in ISO 14031 (Tam et al., 2006; ISO, 1999). Management performance indicators (MPIs) provide information about management
efforts to inuence the environmental performance of an organizations operations; operational performance indicators (OPIs)
provide information about the environmental performance of the
organizations operations.
The EPIs developed by most studies are more in the operational
stage to measure environmental performance such as material and
energy consumption (Veleva and Ellenbecker, 2001; Singh et al.,
2007; Lundberg et al., 2009; McBride et al., 2011; Shen et al., 2011).
Leading indicators such as sustainable design indicators can be provided in the design stage to measure sustainable considerations and
incorporations. They can be the surrogate indicators for environmental performance in the operation stage, or provide the direction
to the environmental performance of designed products (Urbonas,
2000).
2.2. Sustainability items for roadway design
To implement sustainability on real projects, it needs to understand sustainable practices and then choose appropriate measures
to facilitate sustainability realization (Hartmuth et al., 2008). Tsai
and Chang (2012) established a checklist of 60 roadway sustainability items as shown in Table 1. There are 45 technique and 15
material (marked m) items categorized into 14 disciplines including Geometrics & Alignments, Earthworks, Pavement, etc. Each
discipline consists of various numbers of items.
Table 1 is considered a complete list of sustainability items
for roadways. These items were derived from literature review,
real construction projects and practitioner interviews. They are
actually sustainable practices or measures that can be adopted to
reduce environmental impact of construction projects (TRB, 2004;
Anderson and Muench, 2013).
3. Research objectives
The objective of the research was to propose the two indicators:
(1) ratio of items considered or adopted, and (2) man-hour spending
to measure sustainable design performance by using roadway as an
example. The proposed indicators were tested to show their applicability in incorporating sustainability into design for construction
projects. Sustainability has three facets: economic, environmental,
and social. This study addresses environmental sustainability.
The ratio of items and man-hour spending belong to MPIs. They
examine what kind of sustainability has been worked on and the

Sustainable items
incorporated for points by
sustainable guidelines
(LEED, Greenroads, etc.)

Design performance
measurement

Ratio of items
considered or adopted

Man-hour spending

Sustainable design indicators

Prediction
Environmental performance
of designed products
Fig. 1. Derivation of sustainable design indicators.

time spent in the design stage of a project. They are the evidence
of sustainable management that helps predict the environmental
performance of designed projects in the subsequent construction
and operation stages.

4. Research methodology
Incorporating more credit items represents higher level of sustainability in many green guidelines such as LEED, and design
performance is usually measured in man-hours for construction
projects. Based on the above concept and practice, two sustainable
design indicators were proposed: (1) the ratio of items considered
or adopted, and (2) man-hour spending for sustainability. The proposed indicators were then tested on six case projects to show their
applicability.
The process of deriving sustainable design indicators is shown
in Fig. 1. First, sustainable guidelines such as the LEED and Greenroads were reviewed to understand their concept. That is, the
guidelines provide the checklists of sustainable items of credit
points; incorporating more items to earn more points represents
higher level of sustainability for a project. Following this measurement principle, this study proposed the ratio of items to calculate
the numbers of items considered or incorporated into a design
project.
On the other hand, design performance is usually measured
in man-hours in design management practice (Halpin and Senior,
2012). Therefore, the man-hour is used as input to assess the effort
for meeting sustainable requirements.
The two indicators were applied on six ongoing roadway design
projects for 4 months. Based on the checklist of Table 1, the project
designers were requested to record the items considered/adopted
and man-hours spent in the design process monthly. Finally, the
result data were calculated to quantify sustainable design performance. Through project case study, the two proposed indicators
were shown suitable for use on design.
Case study is recognized as an appropriate method for
exploratory research such as this one in describing and analyzing the context of sustainable items (Yin, 2009). This method has
been adopted in many sustainability studies (Palme and Tillman,
2008; Holton et al., 2010; Borchardt et al., 2011). Six cases would
be enough since the case analysis and comparison among cases
generated meaningful results in this study (Eisenhardt, 1989).

A.S. Chang, C.Y. Tsai / Ecological Indicators 53 (2015) 137143

139

Table 1
Sustainable items for roadway design.
1. Geometrics & Alignments
1) Reduction in volume or weight
2) Mild curves
3) Mild slopes

4) Inltration trenches or catch basins

5) Sediment ponds
6) Regional materials (m)
5. Retaining Walls

2. Earthworks
1) Earthwork balance
2) Minimum excavation and lls
3) Topsoil recycling
4) Waste reuse (m)
3. Pavement
1) Reduction in volume or weight
2) Permeable materials (m)
3) Recycled materials (m)

1) Reduction in volume or weight

2) Vegetation
3) Grinding stones or soft reinforcing
6. Slope Protection
1) Vegetation
2) Reinforced slopes
3) Waste reuse (m)
7. Landscape & Ecology
1) Avoidance of natural preservation sites

4) Noise reduction materials (m)

5) Fiber materials (m)

2) Embankments or cuttings replaced by

bridges or tunnels
3) Native trees

4. Drainage
1) Runoff reduction
2) Vegetated or gravel ditches
3) Rainwater catchments

4) (Treasure) Tree transplanting

5) Vegetation
6) Topsoil recycling
7) Culverts for wildlife crossings

5. Proposing sustainable design indicators

5.1. The ratio of items considered or adopted
In the LEED or Greenroads rating systems, there are certain credits under several categories. These credits are assigned different
weight points based on the impact the credits would cause. Earning
more points means a higher level of sustainability (USGBC, 2009).
Following this concept, the ratio of considered or adopted is
dened as follows:
Ratio of considered or adopted (%)
=

the number of items considered or adopted

the number of total items

For simplicity, only the number of items is calculated. Credit

weight is not assigned to the items because their environmental
impacts are not known well from existing studies. It is also assumed
that all 60 items are obtainable by all projects. But some projects
may encounter barriers in design such as precondition limitation.
In this case, the project would obtain lower ratios. This is the same
situation as in the LEED and Greenroads systems.
The ratio of items adopted is to examine actual incorporation
of sustainability issues into design. This measurement pushes the
designed projects to reduce environment impact in the future. If
not adopted, the ratio of items considered can be used to examine the sustainability items considered during design. The higher
ratio of items adopted or considered represents higher design
sustainability. The ratios of items are measured in relative percentage due to the lack of baseline numbers of sustainable design
performance.
5.2. Man-hour spending
Design work is an iteration process with complicated thinking
to meet the requirements from clients and users (Dym and Little,
2004). According to measurement theory, design performance is
best measured at the input stage of a process (Simons, 2000). Manhour is a common input indicator used to measure design cost and

8) Ecological ponds
9) Habitat connectivity
10) Biological porous environment
11) Reduction in landscaping
facilities
12) High bridges
8. Transportation Facilities
1) Reduction in volume or weight
2) Multi-function poles
9. Transportation Maintenance
1) Reduction in path changes
10. Bridges
1) Reduction in volume or weight
2) Long-span bridges
3) Pre-casting techniques
4) Temporary bridges for
construction
5) Hollow railings
6) Reinforced materials (m)
7) High strength concrete (m)
8) Self-compacting concrete (m)

9) Lightweight concrete (m)

10) Steel (m)
11. Sound Insulation
1) Reduction in volume or weight
2) Landscaping
12. Tunnels
1) Reduction in volume or weight
2) Vegetation
3) Reduction in ventilation facilities
4) Waste reuse (m)
5) Fiber materials (m)
13. Electrical & Mechanical Work
1) Reduction in transportation
controlling facilities
14. Lighting
1) Reduction in lighting equipment
2) Renewable energy
3) Shading board (m)

time performance, such as man-hours spent per design drawing

(Stevens, 1996).
The man-hours that designers have spent can represent their
effort in pursuing sustainability. In the design process, designers
estimate the man-hours they spend on considering or adopting
certain sustainable items. These extra man-hours represent the
increased cost for sustainable design.
6. Project case study
The two proposed indicators were applied on six roadway
projects to check their applicability and calculate sustainable
design performance by using the 60 roadway sustainability items
in total as shown in Table 1.
6.1. Project data and checklist
The data of the six roadway projects are shown in Table 2. They
were an elevated bridge road in a city, an at-grade road in a city, an
expressway in a rural area, a freeway ramp, a freeway connecting
a rural area and a city, and reconstructed roads in a mountainous area in the stages of preliminary design and detail design.
They began design in 2009 and 2010 with contract amounts from
US$285,667 to US$6,000,000. The estimated total man-hours during the case study of four months were from 2196 to 12,600, and
the actual man-hours spent on sustainability were from 63 to 1515.
The numbers of designers participating in the case study were from
1 to 9.
Transformed from Table 1, a checklist was developed for the
case study and part of it is shown in Table 3. The checklist discloses
the information of sustainable items considered or adopted and
man-hours used on them. In the design process, designers examined which items they had considered and adopted into design by
marking the items, and recorded the hours of consideration and
designing. Man-hours in the checklist means design time spent on
sustainability in addition to conventional design. They could be better estimated by engineers who have experiences in conventional
design and understand sustainable items.
For example, if a designer considered volume reduction in Geometrics & Alignments and vegetated ditches in Drainage, she had

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A.S. Chang, C.Y. Tsai / Ecological Indicators 53 (2015) 137143

Table 2
Case project data.
Aspects

Design stage
Design schedule (mm/yy)
Contract amount (US$)
Estimated total man-hours during project test
Actual man-hours spent on sustainability
No. of designers in project test

Projects
A

Preliminary
7/0911/09
2,500,000
3240
206
5

Detail
4/0906/10
880,667
3697
63
1

Detail
6/0912/10
6,000,000
2444
191
4

Detail
4/0901/10
285,667
4400
238
3

Preliminary
5/1012/11
992,667
12,600
1515
9

Detail
12/0912/12
349,667
2196
251
6

to check the two items in Table 3, and record 20 and 15 h spent,

respectively. If regional materials in Drainage were adopted into
design, the item was checked and 5 h recorded. Finally, the subtotal
and total numbers were added.

6.2. Items and man-hours collected

After four monthly collections of six sets of project data, the
numbers of items considered and adopted for sustainability are
aggregated to the discipline level and summarized in Table 4.
Projects A, B, C, and D recorded considered items only but Projects
E and F further recorded adopted items.
Not every project would include all the 14 roadway disciplines.
Before project testing, the designers had to choose related disciplines and items from Table 1 based on their project characteristics.
The 60 items within the 14 disciplines that could be considered in
each project are listed in the rst row in Table 4. For example, the
total number of available items is 55 for Projects D and E, while 5
items of Tunnels (as seen in Table 1) were not related to these two
projects.
Disciplines not in the project scope are left blank in Table 4, such
as the Tunnels for Projects D and E. In addition, the zeros in Table 4
indicate that the disciplines were relevant but their items were not
considered or adopted. For example, the ve items of Pavement in
Table 1 were not referenced in the design in Project F.
Sustainable items are usually considered before adoption. If an
item is considered in the process but not incorporated into design,
it will be recorded as considered. If an item is considered and nally
adopted into design, it is considered and adopted. As shown in
Table 4, the designers of the six projects considered 49, 24, 45, 43,
39 and 5 items, respectively; and Projects E and F further adopted 9
and 13 items, respectively. Sometimes, an item is adopted directly
without going through consideration because its feasibility is certain to the designers already such as in Project F. In this case, the
number of items adopted (13) is larger than that of consideration
(9). To summarize considered and adopted items, Project A considered the most items (49) and Project E was the second (48) among

the six projects. Generally speaking, the more items are available
for consideration, the more items are considered or adopted by a
project.
The man-hours spent on sustainable design are also summarized at the discipline level in Table 5. Among the six projects,
Project E spent the greatest 1515 man-hours because it had more
designers of 9 persons and more budget of 12,600 h as shown
in Table 2. This implies that more budgets available would allow
more time spending on sustainability. This result is consistent with
that larger projects with more budget generally have more opportunities to pursue sustainability (Anderson and Muench, 2013;
Hourneaux et al., 2014).
The percentages of man-hours are calculated and shown in
Table 5. Project E also has the highest 12% (1515 spent hours divided
by the 12,600 budget hours as listed in the rst row in Table 5)
among the six projects. The average percentage of man-hour spending on sustainability is about 7.3% in addition to conventional
design hours. These numbers indicate that incorporating sustainability into design in the beginning needs to pay certain learning
cost. Projects E and F spent higher percentages of man-hours than
the other four projects. It is because public construction in Taiwan
from 2010 was required to include green content. So the owners
requested the designers to think of and incorporate sustainable
materials and techniques into their projects.
6.3. Sustainable design performance analysis
The ratios of items of the six projects were calculated from the
data in Table 4 and the results are shown in Table 6. Projects A, B,
C, and D recorded only considered items so the adopted items and
their ratios were not derived. For Project E as shown in Table 6, 50 of
the 60 items were related. Among them, 39 items were considered
and 9 items were incorporated. Its ratios of items considered and
adopted are 71% and 16%, respectively. Its total number of items
considered and adopted is 48 and its corresponding ratio is 87%.
The ratios of items considered for the six projects are from 9%
to 82%. Over 70% of the related items were considered by all six
projects except B and F. The higher ratio of items considered in

Table 3
Partial checklist of sustainable items for roadways.
Sustainable items

Considered

1. Geometrics & Alignments

1) Reduction in volume or weight
...
Subtotal
4. Drainage
1) Runoff reduction
2) Vegetated or gravel ditches
6) Regional materials (m)
Subtotal

Total

Adopted

Man-hours
20

20

15
5
20

40

A.S. Chang, C.Y. Tsai / Ecological Indicators 53 (2015) 137143

141

Table 4
Items considered or adopted for sustainability.
Roadway design work

Projects
A

Cons.

Cons.

Cons.

Cons.

Cons.

Available item no.

1. Geometrics & Alignments
2. Earthworks
3. Pavement
4. Drainage
5. Retaining Walls
6. Slope Protection
7. Landscape & Ecology
8. Transportation Facilities
9. Transportation Maintenance
10. Bridges
11. Sound Insulation
12. Tunnels
13. Electrical & Mechanical Work
14. Lighting

60
3
3
5
5
3
2
12
2
1
7
1
2
1
2

60
3
1
1
4
1
0
8
2
1
2
0
1
0
2

60
3
2
4
6
2
2
9
2
1
7
1
4
0
2

55
3
3
3
5
3
2
11
2
1
6
1

55
1
3
3
0
1
3
12
2
1
7
2

2
1
0
6
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

1
2

2
2

0
0

Subtotal
Total

49
49

24
24

45
45

43
43

39
48

Adop.

Cons.

Adop.

53
2
2
0
0
0
0
0

0
2
0
2
2
0
1

0
0
1

2
0
4

5
18

13

Table 5
Man-hours spent on sustainable design.
Roadway design work

Estimated total man-hours

1. Geometrics & Alignments
2. Earthworks
3. Pavement
4. Drainage
5. Retaining Walls
6. Slope Protection
7. Landscape & Ecology
8. Transportation Facilities
9. Transportation Maintenance
10. Bridges
11. Sound Insulation
12. Tunnels
13. Electrical & Mechanical Work
14. Lighting
Total
Percentage (%)

Projects
A

3240
13
8
13
18
17
9
44
7
7
36
3
5
6
20

3697
10
2
1
9
1
0
22
6
1
3
0
4
0
4

2444
14
16
12
19
9
6
49
12
6
21
4
11
0
12

4400
25
9
14
26
33
12
57
10
6
27
3

12,600
270
160
24
105
40
40
324
5
35
164
210

2196
20
91
0
10
25
0
20

3
13

20
118

206
6

63
2

191
8

238
5

1515
12

a project means more opportunities exist in design for sustainability.

The high or low ratios could be related to the stage in design. As
shown in Table 6, Projects A and E in the preliminary design stage
(shown in Table 2) have higher ratios of 82% and 87%, respectively
than the other four detail design projects. This means that sustainability is considered broader in preliminary design. After entering
detail design, specic items have been evaluated and then incorporated. In this way, the ratio of items considered and adopted would
decrease.

12
0
73

251
11

Projects E and F recorded both considered and adopted sustainability items. Project E has higher ratio of considered items
than the ratio of adopted items, which is different from Project F
with higher ratio of adopted items than considered items. This is
because Project E in preliminary design allowed broader consideration. However, Project F in the detail design already had a more
dened picture with specic details to be developed. Once specic sustainability items were found appropriate for the project,
they would be directly incorporated into design. In this way, the
ratio of adopted items could be higher than the ratio of considered

Table 6
Ratios of items considered or adopted by projects.
No. and ratio of items

Projects
A

No. of available items

No. of items considered
Ratio of items considered
No. of items adopted
Ratio of items adopted
Total no. of items considered and adopted
Total ratio of items considered and adopted

60
49
82%

49
82%

B
60
24
40%

24
40%

C
60
45
75%

45
75%

D
55
43
78%

43
78%

F
55
39
71%
9
16%
48
87%

53
5
9%
13
25%
18
34%

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A.S. Chang, C.Y. Tsai / Ecological Indicators 53 (2015) 137143

Table 7
Input for sustainability at discipline levelProject F.
Roadway design work

Sustainable items
No.

Techniques
Considered

Materials/equipment
Considered

Adopted

Man-hours

1. Geometrics & Alignments

2. Earthworks
3. Pavement
4. Drainage
5. Retaining Walls
6. Slope Protection
7. Landscape & Ecology
10. Bridges
11. Sound Insulation
12. Tunnels

3
5
5
6
3
3
12
10
2
5

2
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1

Adopted
0
2
0
2
2
0
1
2
0
3

20
91
0
10
25
0
20
12
0
53

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
20

Total

53

12

231

20

items. The higher ratio of items adopted indicates higher sustainable design performance.
The input for sustainability is illustrated in Table 7 by using
Project F as an example. Summarizing the numbers of sustainability items and man-hours of 10 disciplines from Table 4, Table 7
presents the input in terms of technique and material (Steele, 1997).
For techniques, 5 items were considered such as 2 in Geometrics &
Alignments, 12 items were adopted such as 2 in Earthworks, and
231 h were spent. For materials, one item in Tunnels was adopted
and 20 h spent. There were 53 items relevant to Project F in which
totally 5 items were considered and 13 items were adopted. The
total 251 h spent is about 11% of its design budget as shown in
Table 5.
Table 7 is developed to summarize and examine the items, and
calculate numbers and man-hours for sustainability in the design
process. They become the records of the input to sustainability after
design is nished and show the efforts devoted to sustainability in
a project. This way of quantifying sustainability is innovative.

7. Discussions
The ratio of items includes two aspects: consideration and
adoption. The ratio of adoption examines actual incorporation of
sustainability into design. The ratio of consideration examines sustainability opportunities reviewed in design. The higher ratio of
items adopted can indicate higher sustainable design performance.
This ratio indicator with two aspects has exibility in presenting the
sustainable design.
In the project case study, some designers mentioned that sustainability consideration would be limited by barriers such as
natural precondition. In such a case, smaller ratios or man-hour
spending still means little achievement in sustainable design. For
example, Project F was to reconstruct roads in a mountainous
area but only 34% of items could be considered and adopted in
design limited by location, terrain, etc. Sustainable design will
experience trial and error in the beginning, but strategies or
methods will be developed after lessons are learned (Langdon,
2007).
The case study results show that the ratios of items considered
and adopted were in a range from 34% to 87% with an average
of 66%, and the percentages of man-hours were between 2% and
12% with an average of 7.3%. These values imply a certain level of
sustainable design implemented, and incorporating sustainability
into design initially needs additional effort and time compared
with conventional design. But like the green building design, sustainable design does not necessarily take more time after more
experience accumulates from practice (Northbridge Environmental
Management Consultants, 2003).

Man-hours

The two indicators should be used on more projects to collect

more data of items and man-hours. These data can be accumulated
to form a knowledge base for sustainability assessment. Like the
LEED system, a project which earns 40 points or more can be certied as a green building. A certain ratio of items adopted in a project
can be recognized as sustainable design.
This study evaluated sustainable design performance by using
roadway sustainability items. If the indicators are applied to other
types of construction projects, relevant sustainability items need
to be developed to form a complete list based on project characteristics before their sustainable design performance can be
evaluated.
Research has indicated requirements for indicator development.
A conceptual framework and criteria are required for selecting
sustainable indicators (Niemeijer and de Groot, 2008). Selected
indicators should be measurable, relevant, data available, integrative, universal, and linking with management (Dale and Beyeler,
2001; Tanguay et al., 2010). Qualitative indicators can be organized
in a hierarchical way or their values transformed in points, and
needed data could be available in measurement records (Staniskis
and Arbaciauskas, 2009).
The two indicators proposed in this study meet most of the
requirements mentioned above. Fig. 1 is the framework composed
from credit earning concept and design performance practice.
Management and quantitative measurement are the criteria. The
proposed indicators are quantitative and measurable, and relevant
to sustainable design performance. The data are available even during the design process in which designers examine the sustainable
items and their quantities as well as record the hours spent on them.
The indicators are simple to understand, easily collected, and applicable to all types of projects. The two indicators help management
to establish sustainability baseline and compare sustainable design
performance of construction projects.

8. Conclusions
This study proposed the ratio of items and man-hour spending for roadway construction projects to examine their sustainable
design performance. The two indicators were applied on six
projects to collect sustainable items and man-hours during the
design process. After design is nished, designers can calculate the
percentages of items and man-hours to check their efforts of sustainability on the project. The records and values of the indicators
are the evidence of sustainable design. The indicators are simple to
understand and their data are easily collected with tables as tools
provided.
The indicators are applicable to all types of construction
projects. The man-hour recording is existing practice commonly

A.S. Chang, C.Y. Tsai / Ecological Indicators 53 (2015) 137143

used in engineering design, while the ratio of items needs to have

a list of sustainability items for different types of construction
projects. After the sustainability items are developed for other types
of projects, the method and tables of recording items and manhours used in this study can be followed to assess sustainable design
performance.
Sustainable design performance is indicated by the ratios of
items and man-hours. These two design-stage indicators can be
surrogate measures for designed products to predict their operational environmental performance, as indicated by the dotted
relationship shown in Fig. 1. However, prediction of environmental
performance of designed products is another issue. Future research
may identify the relationships between sustainable performance
in the design stage and environmental performance of designed
products in the operation stage.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank CECI Engineering Consultants
Inc. for providing case projects and arranging interviews with its
designers.
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