Communication publicizing metrics

In the second publication (Bombardier and Blaise, 2000), laboratory toxicity data derived from two larger projects conducted on freshwater sediments were integrated in the SED-TOX index and it was field validated using four benthic community metrics (species richness, number of taxa in the orders Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera, the Shannon-Wiener diversity index, and the ICI-SL which is a version of the Invertebrate Community Index modified for the St. Lawrence River). 

Russia inherited the world s largest declared stockpile of chemical weapons, over 40,000 metric tons, from the Soviet Union. The Russian government has identified chemical weapons destruction as one of its two priority areas of concern for the G-8 Global Partnership accord against the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Although issues of economics have often dominated what has been said and written about the disposal programme, lack of local community support is also cited as a major political obstacle. Many of the same concerns detailed extensively by US citizens are also asserted by Russian citizens. Foremost is concern about the detrimental effects of chemical weapons destruction on public health and the environment . ... 

An absolute measure is one in which a simple count of events is recorded and reported. This would include the number of occurrences of a specific type of incident per year (e.g., release, loss of containment, fire) or activity (e.g., how many employees were trained, whether a mechanical integrity evaluation was conducted). Absolute metrics do not necessarily provide information on the quality of an activity or a change or trend in the activity over time. Absolute metrics also may be difficult to compare meaningfully across the organization. However, regulatory agencies and the public may be very interested in some absolute metrics. For example, the public wants to know the number of releases from a facility and the quantity of the release—particularly from a facility in their community. However, how a given release or a facility s release record compares with facilities outside the community may be of minimal, if any, interest. 

A considerable number of publications have been written about the use of metrics to drive business, government, and communities towards more sustainable practices. The reader is referred elsewhere for a discussion of what metrics have been proposed. There has also been much written about the characteristics of metrics, or what constitutes a good metric (Bennett and Jones, 1999 NRC, 1999 Corporate Environmental Performance, 1999). It is generally agreed that metrics must be clearly defined, relevant and meaningful (easily understood and accepted), easy to reproduce, few in number but sufficiently diverse, cost-effective, measurable, and objective rather than subjective. They must also yield nonperverse results, should... 

As long as the only means the public has at its disposai to measure safety success across industry are the traditionai metrics of injuries and iiinesses, i.e., lagging indexes of failure, it ll be hard to communicate persuasively that there are other... 

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