Crowdfunding for sustainable engineering: a design–governance framework with operational metrics for compliance, transparency, and impact
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Crowdfunding is increasingly used to finance sustainable engineering and social infrastructure, yet practitioners lack an audit-ready way to link funding model choice with governance, verification, and post-campaign stewardship. This viewpoint paper proposes a design–governance framework that matches reward, donation, equity, and debt crowdfunding to project attributes (technology readiness, cash-flow profile, and risk allocation) and embeds measurable controls for compliance, transparency, and engagement. We operationalize three indices for implementation and third-party assurance: Regulatory Compliance Score (RCS), a weighted checklist score (0-100) based on jurisdiction-specific obligations (e.g., KYC/AML, securities rules, tax treatment, data protection, and charity/fundraising constraints) and the presence of required evidence artifacts; Transparency and Accountability Index (TAI), a disclosure-and-assurance score capturing completeness, traceability, and independent verification readiness; and Engagement Continuity Index (ECI), computed from post-campaign participation cadence, contributor retention, response-time/service levels, and delivery of stewardship commitments. The framework provides heuristic decision rules (e.g., rewards for mid-TRL prototyping, equity for scale-up, debt for stable cash-flow retrofits) together with boundary conditions and exceptions driven by regulation, platform constraints, and verification cost. The result is a concise, decision-useful workflow for municipalities and engineering teams to deploy participatory finance without sacrificing rigor or credibility.
Source: Sustainable Futures
Language: English
Subfield: Management Information Systems
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,340
OpenAlex ID: W7149626285