Sustainability or sustainable infrastructure? Using sustainability discourse to construct a motorway

ABSTRACT

WestConnex is a 33 km, A$16.8bn motorway under construction in Sydney. It is promoted by the state government as an example of excellent “sustainable infrastructure”. We explore the use of sustainability discourse to explain how a motorway corporation, established by a state government committed to building infrastructure that could later be privatised, engaged with an organisation that redefined the notion of sustainability and then presented this definition and approach to justify their motorway construction practices as sustainable.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability
• motorway
• sustainable infrastructure
• urban planning
• transport
• Sydney

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Accessed December 5 2018. https://www.westconnex.com.au/sustainability

2 Accessed December 7 2018. https://thepeopleseis.wordpress.com/