Abstract
Semi-structured interviews with 47 key actors were conducted in Swedish water utilities on why Sustainable Development Indicators (SDIs) are or are not used. Important influencing aspects identified included organizational inertia, social capital, the national water sector and authorities. Divergent views of SD and indicators appear to hinder SDI initiatives. Possible explanations are that: (a) not all actors look at decision-making as the kind of rational process the focus on indicators implies, and (b), Swedish urban water systems are widely regarded as sustainable. The water sector itself and regulation are identified as the strongest potential drivers for increased use of SDIs.
Highlights
Over the past 15–20 years, sustainable development (SD) has become a generally acknowledged, though distant and elusive, goal for all levels of society to strive towards
Initiatives at the community level include the example of the Boston Indicator Project [7], in Sustainability 2010, 2 which local individuals are involved in sustainable development indicators (SDIs) development, as well as initiatives on SDIs to be applied within public administrative bodies [8,9]
Of the drivers and barriers identified in the study and summarized above, the key features appear to be attitude to SDIs, trust and communication, the national water sector and regulation, for reasons that will be discussed below
Summary
Over the past 15–20 years, sustainable development (SD) has become a generally acknowledged, though distant and elusive, goal for all levels of society to strive towards. Water supply and sanitation are services fundamental to developed societies and indicators covering water are included in most sets of SDIs. From community to international levels, common examples of such SDIs are the percentage of the population with access to drinking water and sanitation, water extraction (sometimes in relation to available water resources), water reuse, and levels of phosphorus and nitrogen in surface waters. There are numerous recommendations regarding sets of SDIs designed for use in water utilities, i.e., for urban water systems [11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20] These sets describe the activities of water utilities (water supply and sanitation) in more detail, capturing aspects such as resource use, emissions, ecosystem impact, reliability, robustness, flexibility, cost of operations, investment in innovation, research and development, health and safety, participation, and community development. There are, few reports dealing with the practical application of SDIs in water organizations around the world
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