Editor's perspective—US sustainable remediation forum pushes forward with guidance on the state of the practice

Abstract

In the Summer 2009 issue of Remediation, the entire journal was dedicated to a single White Paper, “Integrating Sustainable Principles, Practices and Metrics Into Remediation Projects,” written by the US Sustainable Remediation Forum (SURF). At the time, this was a groundbreaking publication—the first of its kind—explaining in detail the overarching principles underlying the concepts of sustainable remediation. The publication has been widely cited and gained significant attention from regulators, the regulated community, and consultants. In fact, at the time of its release, Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and former US Environmental Protection Agency administrator, proclaimed the document “a watershed event in public policy deliberations about environmental remediation.” Since the publication of the groundbreaking SURF White Paper, sustainable remediation has continued to gain significant momentum and is considered by many as one of the most prominent developments currently in the remediation field. As reported in a prior Editor’s Perspective (“Green and Sustainable Remediation—Fad or Revolution?” Winter 2010), the field of green and sustainable remediation (commonly referred to as GSR) is now a topic of research and publication by many entities, including: