Relational values, or values that people hold on the basis of their relationships and responsibilities to society and the broader environment, are increasingly recognized as deeply important to human understanding of what is acceptable. This review argues that given that environmental impacts are mediated by relational values, in the sense that such values have a major effect on how impacts are experienced, environmental assessment processes designed to support infrastructure decisions should consider relational values explicitly. Currently, formal environmental assessment tools generally do not explicitly include societal values other than instrumental financial valuations, though the assessment community increasingly recognizes their significance. The environmental social sciences and humanities have produced substantial scholarship on relational values in communities experiencing environmental change, which can inform integration with environmental assessment.

关系价值或人们基于对社会和更广泛环境的关系和责任而持有的价值，已被越来越认为对人类理解可接受的事物具有深远的重要性。这篇评论认为，考虑到环境影响是由关系价值来介导的，从某种意义上说，这些价值对影响的体验方式有重大影响，因此旨在支持基础设施决策的环境评估过程应明确考虑关系价值。当前，正式的环境评估工具通常不明确包含工具性金融评估以外的社会价值，尽管评估界越来越认识到它们的重要性。