Peggy’s House: Making a Case for Social Sustainability

Stakeholder engagement has been identified as an integral element of sustainable construction projects. While the outputs for stakeholder engagement are being defined, the inputs required to, for example, “respond quickly to community concerns and perceptions” are still very vague. Building upon a recent framework for social sustainability developed by Rodolfo Valdes-Vasquez and Leidy Klotz, this case study presents social sustainability process details of a residential education center. To inform the social sustainability framework, stakeholder interviews, organization documents, and social media posts were analyzed to collect details which determine the inputs, cost, and time required to execute social sustainability processes. This case study focuses on a project led by Sustainability Inc., a non-profit dedicated to improving their local economic, social, and natural environment. Sustainability Inc. developed the Peggy’s House project to be a model for sustainable living in environmental justice neighborhoods. Through active engagement methods, over 30 local partners collaborated on the Peggy’s House project. Preliminary data has been collected, suggesting inputs, such as staff members focused on the community, can be leveraged to deliver thousands of dollars in value to a project. This paper outlines a process for developing case studies which can provide essential details about improving stakeholder engagement in construction projects.