Ghanashyam Danam: Can we predict whether an infrastructure project quantifies its energy sustainability benefits?

A benefit that is not valued in the same terms as cost cannot be weighed against it, so it drops out of the decision. This study asks whether a project's own characteristics determine which of its benefits get quantified. <br><br>One hundred public private partnership feasibility study reports, spanning nine asset types between 2008 and 2021, were coded for 83 energy related design, construction and operational features, grouped into 16 themes.

Each report was separately recorded as having quantified an energy benefit or not: 48 had, 52 had not. A random forest was trained to predict the second from the first. <br><br>The model tells the two apart 84 times out of 100, well above chance under a permutation test. Which sustainability benefits get counted is therefore patterned, and predictable from the project itself.</p>