Sustainable development sustainability metrics

Professional engineering organisations are developing ideas in this held - for example see the publication from the Institution of Chemical Engineers The Sustainability Metrics (Sustainable Development Progress Metrics - recommended for use in the process industries) May 2002. 

Efforts to develop sustainability indicators and metrics have been made at various scales, ranging from global down to local community, business unit, and technology levels. In general, indicators and metrics are designed to capture the ideas inherent in sustainability and transform them into a manageable set of quantitative measures and indices that are useful for communication and decision-making. In this section, we provide an overview of sustainability indicators and metrics, especially as they relate to the chemical industry. This section will be followed by two specific case studies on the uses of sustainability metrics and indicators in product/process development in chemical companies. 

Evolution Towards Sustainability Metrics. The development and use of environmental indicators and metrics in the manufacturing industry followed a learning curve summarized in the five evolutionary levels described by Veleva and Ellenbecker (2001) ... 

Defining the Metrics Eco-efficiency. As described earlier, the development of sustainability metrics requires one to first identify the key aspects that need to be managed and included in the metrics. Equally important, however, one must define how the metric is calculated. For example, when expressed as a... 

Several issues, however, need further exploration. While considerable efforts have been made in developing performance metrics, leading metrics such as management metrics still require additional development. Such metrics, however, may differ considerably from one company or organization to another due to the varying cause-and-effect relationship within each company or organization. Moreover, while anecdotal evidence exists that links various impacts to a company s financial performance, further studies are needed to more explicitly link sustainability metrics to a company s exposure to risks and opportunities. 

Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), The Sustainability Metrics Sustainable Development Progress Metrics Recommended for Use in the Process Industries, IChemE, Rugby, UK, 2002. 

Focus Group Perspective 6 Need for Standardized Sustainability Metrics. The absence of standard metrics, especially social and economic, is hindering the development and reporting of sustainability initiatives. Significant difficulties exist in translating sustainability to meaningful, measurable performance metrics and standards. 

An example of a recent CWRT project is the use of their previously developed Sustainability Metrics to establish a methodology for determining practical minimum energy requirements for chemical processes. 

Sikdar S. K. 2003. Sustainable development and sustainability metrics. AIChE Journal 49 1928-1932. 

IChemE. 2006. Sustainable development progress metrics Recoitunended for use in the process industries, pp. 1-28. Rugby, U.K. Institution of Chemical Engineers. http //www. icheme.oig/sustainabihty/metrics.pdf... 

The authors highlighted the importance of metrics in the subject of green chemistry by pointing out that (a) a set of metrics should be developed to address all 12 green chemistry principles, (b) such a set of metrics should be easy to apply, (c) the metrics should measure progress as well as point chemists in the green direction, (d) the metrics should inform and provide momentum for both chemists and corporate managers, and (e) sustainability metrics are valuable since they focus on life cycle assessment and are thus better able to capture a broad evaluation of sustainability. 

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