*2.3.7 Establishing the difference between sustainability and environmental protection*

Although environmental protection is a critical goal of sustainable development, it is essential to understand that sustainability goes beyond environmental protection and involves social and economic goals. The establishment of this understanding is the responsibility of the managers. This can be challenging because understanding the potential threats to communities can be more complicated than figuring out the environmental threats. Some maintenance decisions may not have negative environmental impacts, but they may be detrimental to the society or economy.

Here is an example of the necessity of paying attention to the social aspects of sustainability besides the environmental aspects. Consider a coal plant with a private access road that is far enough from a residential neighborhood. While

**Figure 7.** *Extending infrastructure service life through maintenance and rehabilitation/renewal.*

developing the maintenance plan, the plant's manager suggests relocating the access road to the neighborhood nearby that has a low population can save the travel time for the trucks that supply the materials for the plant. The decision seems to make sense from the environmental aspect as it saves a few minutes of travel time and can potentially lead to a reduction in the pollution caused by the trucks in the long run. However, it will impact the people living in the small neighborhood on a daily basis. Therefore, if environmental protection is the sole criteria for making a sustainable decision the social and economic aspects of sustainability can be compromised, and this defeats the purpose of sustainable development.

It is essential to establish equity in pursuing sustainability [23] Equality in sustainability can be defined as being impartial to the communities while making decisions that can impact the triple-bottom-line of sustainability in neighboring areas. Lopsided progress in sustainability programs by putting one community prior to another is in contrast with sustainability goals. Bearing in mind that tradeoffs are inherited in many decisions tied to development, the community facing the consequences of a decision may be different from the community that benefits from it. Keeping the balance between neighboring communities in benefiting from the opportunities promotes sustainable development.
