Sustainability Assessment Framework Research Articles

Performance assessment of circular driven sustainable agri-food supply chain towards achieving sustainable consumption and production

Food organizations have seen pressure from stakeholders, consumers, governments, and other international agencies to adopt sustainable practices in their business operations. Sustainable development is the current need for the agri-food sector to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDG) established by the United Nations. Sustainable development improves social well-being, environmental well-being, and economic growth. Regular performance monitoring plays an important role in the adoption of sustainable practices. This study developed a sustainable performance assessment (SPA) framework through integrated triple bottom line (TBL) and circular economy practice. The weights of sustainable dimensions and key performance indicators (KPIs) have been determined using the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP). A fuzzy technique for order of preference by similarity to the ideal solution (F-TOPSIS) has been used to evaluate sustainable performance and rank the alternatives. A total of 16 KPIs were used to develop the framework drawn from literature and experts' opinions. Food quality, revenue growth, and resource utilization are the top three KPIs obtained from F-AHP. The economic factors have the highest weights (0.4), followed by the environment (0.34), circulation (0.16), and social dimensions (0.1). Food quality is ranked first with a weight of 0.16, and human resources are ranked 16th with a weight of 0.01. Through recycling, waste reduction, and waste management, the circular economy in AFSC acts as a support or catalyst for sustainable development and reaching goals like sustainable consumption and production and zero hunger.

Evaluating sustainability impacts of critical mineral extractions: Integration of life cycle sustainability assessment and SDGs frameworks

AbstractThe extraction of critical minerals used in clean technologies has profound impacts on sustainable development goals (SDGs). Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) is used to evaluate the sustainability impacts of products and services, but few frameworks exist to support SDGs assessment for the “green minerals” extraction. Here, we propose a mining‐specific framework identifying linkages between LCSA and SDGs, along with a process to integrate methods and data. As a proof of concept, we assess the LCSA performance and local‐community level SDG impacts of a nickel mining project in Indonesia. Integrating remote sensing, media sources, stakeholder's data, and expert opinion, we find that LCSA encompasses all 17 goals but only a subset of targets and indicators. The study highlights the need to incorporate indigenous people's perspectives in both LCSA and SDG assessments, and points to priority areas for improving life cycle sustainability and SDG outcomes: fighting corruption, protecting cultural heritage, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We suggest that this framework can inform corporate social responsibility activities, as well as consumer choices for low‐carbon technologies.

A review on the management of arsenic-laden spent adsorbent: Insights of global practices, process criticality, and sustainable solutions

Adsorption is a widely used arsenic remediation technique due to its high efficacy, economic value, ease in operation and maintenance, and other multiple factors. However, the proper management of arsenic-laden spent media is one of the major challenges, which affects the sustainability of this treatment technique in field-scale implementations. This review summarizes the various adsorbents and their regeneration/reuse for the remediation of arsenic from aqueous solution, as well as the several safe management practices, such as landfilling, incineration, stabilization in construction material, etc., for the arsenic-laden spent media. In most of the developing countries disposal of spent media is a major concern, and in many instances, the ecotoxic effects to the environment concerning its direct disposal imposed a critical hindrance on this process. Furthermore, the present study reviewed the physicochemical characteristics of spent media, generation of secondary pollution, ecotoxicological effects, and factors that affect the leaching of arsenic. A brief overview of several methods that determine the leaching from arsenic spent media exhibited that “toxicity characteristic leaching procedure” is widely practiced in spite of some limitations to simulate the landfill conditions. The sustainability assessment framework for spent adsorbent is developed and it was observed that the stabilization/solidification is more environmentally friendly but less cost-effective. The review highlighted the field practices of spent adsorbent management across the globe critically, which streamline the research need in adsorptive removal of arsenic as well as instigate proper selection of techniques for case-specific implementations. • Systematic appraisal on spent-media management is a crucial gap in arsenic research. • Regeneration and contaminant immobilization of spent media are generally practiced. • Difficulties in leachability quantification lie in simulating landfill conditions. • Sustainability of spent-media management methods was analyzed by novel framework. • Solidification/stabilization is promising method of safe handling of spent-media.

Integrated Sustainability Assessment: Exergy, Emergy, Life Cycle Assessment

Methodological tools such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Exergy Analysis (ExA), and Emergy Analysis (EmA) that account for sustainability indicators in environmental, economic, and/or social dimensions, cannot provide an assessment under these three dimensions in a robust way by themselves. This research is proposing a sustainability assessment framework to obtain a unified performance metric (Integrated Sustainability Index, ISI) to assess the Triple Bottom Line – TBL. LCA, ExA, and EmA indicators are implemented in a complementary but not interchangeable manner, providing additional information for sustainability decision-making. The systematic approach is on a conceptual definition and calculation of sustainable environmental, social, and economic disaggregated indicators. These are then systematically combined into an Integrated Sustainability Index (ISI). EmA evaluates sustainability from a “donor-side” perspective, by assigning values to the environmental efforts and investment of nature to make and support flows, materials, and services; the system boundary is the geosphere. ExA evaluates sustainability through exergy efficiency under a “user-side” evaluation process (system boundary is the technosphere). LCA evaluates it based on the quantification of environmental impact by water, soil, and air emissions, caused by the use and processing of resources to provide products or services as a “user-side” method. The proposed sustainability index presents a comprehensible hierarchic structure supported by LCA, ExA, and EmA methodologies. The integration of social, environmental, and economic components into an index that also allows for the adjustment of externalities reducing the risk of subjectivity is a new approach to assessing sustainability.

A Sustainability Assessment Framework for On-Site and Off-Site Construction Logistics

Urban areas pay increasing attention to new construction and infrastructure works, mainly due to the rapid global rise in urbanisation. In the long run, these works have a positive correlation with the economic and social attractiveness of cities. Construction strongly relies on logistics activities, which cannot be neglected in the environmental equation. An important aspect in tackling the negative effects of construction logistics (CL) lies in understanding the source and mitigation potential of the impacts incurred. However, currently, limited robust impact assessments are available for this sector. Given the lack of these rigorous assessments, it is difficult to evaluate the environmental criteria concerned, especially when comparing innovative CL solutions. In this paper, we present a holistic sustainability assessment framework designed for CL activities based on life cycle approaches, which covers four main iterative steps: (1) goal and scope definition, (2) data identification and availability, (3) scenario and setup evaluation and (4) environmental impact assessment. To measure both the off-site and on-site CL impact, two distinct and complementary methodologies are used: External Cost Calculations and Life Cycle Assessment. The framework was implemented on a pilot case in the Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium). It provides a holistic view of CL impacts for policy evaluations and implementations on the project, portfolio or city level. The results show that off-site zero-emission construction vehicles are the way forward if cities want to achieve environmental goals by 2035. However, market readiness for high-capacity vehicles must be considered. Otherwise, the positive effects on air pollution, climate change and noise are offset by a saturation of the road transport network and its associated congestion and infrastructure damage costs.

Development of an Educational Sustainability Assessment Model: Application of the Delphi Technique and Pilot Study

The objective of this research was to develop an educational sustainability assessment model using the Delphi technique. The research participants were an expert panel and stakeholders of educational projects. The research instruments consisted of an open-ended questionnaire and assessment forms. The frequencies, medians, quartile deviations, means and standard deviations of the data were analysed. The research results found that the assessment framework for educational sustainability in the first round consisted of the following indicators: pre-conduct, process conduct, post-conduct and the criteria consisted of the possible opportunities in sustainability (for pre-conduct and process conduct) and true sustainability (for post-conduct). The second round of assessment indicators and criteria were high, and in the third round they were very high. A pilot study of the feasibility of sustainability (pre-conduct) found that this project had the opportunity to achieve sustainability at the highest level and all model assessment standards were at the highest level.

Denver Water Ensures a Sustainable Future With Its Northwater Treatment Plant

Key TakeawaysDenver Water's project to upgrade part of its water system involves building a new treatment plant, installing new pipeline, and redeveloping the existing treatment plant.Good stewardship through commitment to protecting the environment, serving current and future populations, and exercising fiscal responsibility is woven into the Northwater Treatment Plant project.The Envision sustainability assessment framework, along with pursuit of the Envision Gold Award, has helped Denver Water achieve its project objectives.

SPOTTER: Assessing supply disruption impacts along the supply chain within Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

The present article introduces the SPOTTER approach, a novel way to assess supply disruption impacts along the supply chain in the short-term (i.e. the next 5 years) and the medium-term (i.e. in 5 to 15 years) within the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment framework. This approach allows finding the more important supply risks within global supply chains and over different time horizons, which leads to fine-tuned insights that can help creating resilient supply networks. To this end, the SPOTTER approach assesses overall supply disruption impacts for complete supply chains and supply disruption hotspots separately in the short- and medium-term. The overall impacts and hotspots are evaluated from global and country-specific supply disruption events and aggregated into the two categories of 'cost variability' and 'limited availability'. Scores of these impacts and hotspots are calculated by multiplying resource, material and product flows with respective characterization factors, which are case-specific and are defined by diverse indicators of supply disruption probability and vulnerability. The article provides an overview of the SPOTTER approach and its rationale by explaining the selection and use of indicators to define characterization factors and by describing the procedure to calculate the overall impact and hotspot scores. Furthermore, it presents an implementation procedure for the practical application of the approach. Finally, it highlights the data availability and methodological issues that currently affect the implementation practicability and the representativeness of the SPOTTER approach to describe global supply risks in detail and refers to the need for future research and development on this topic.

An Integrated DPSIR-SD Framework for Sustainability Assessment of Roads in Australia

The Australian Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) Summit in 2018 attracted much-needed national attention towards environmental goals and targets compared with other aspects of sustainability. Road infrastructure is the backbone of modern society and plays a crucial role in accomplishing a targeted balance between these aspects of sustainability and achieving the SDGs. This article presents an integrated sustainability performance assessment methodology that acts as a decision support tool. A series of two conceptual modelling techniques—drivers—pressure—state—impact—response (DPSIR) and system dynamics (SD)—is employed, with the cause-and-effect relationships of the sustainability indicators developed utilising the DPSIR framework, and a quantitative analysis carried out through a subsequent SD model. The end result is the generation of a Sustainability Performance Index (SPI) for road infrastructure created by analysing the SD model and DPSIR index layer relationship. The benefits and applicability of the proposed methodology are validated through case study analysis. The overall aim is to determine restricting factors and response strategies influencing road infrastructure and transport sustainability performance during the operation and maintenance phase. Thus, a significant contribution is made through the proposed methodology for assessing factors influencing the long-term achievement of the SDGs.

Challenges to Current Sustainability Assessment Frameworks

Assessing performance, risks and opportunities of companies from a sustainability perspective is a matter of growing interest to managers, investors and other stakeholders. However, it is also a challenging task, especially due to the combination between the complexity of the sustainable development agenda and the volume and diversity of information needed. Usual methods rely mainly on companies’ disclosures and environmental, social and governance (ESG) frameworks, but two recent facts are expected to re-shape the field: the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and the application of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (BDAI) on the field of corporate sustainability. Building mainly on a series of roundtables and interviews with international experts and Brazilian companies, this article presents novel insights on BDAI applied to sustainability assessment of firms. Key conclusions include the recognition that BDAI has great potential contribution, but its effectiveness is deeply affected by specific institutional, methodological and technological factors.

Multi-Dimensional Evaluation Framework for the Sustainable Development of Forest Health Bases and Site Selection for Application in China

In the context of global aging, people’s awareness of health is deepening, and the rapid economic development has drawn widespread attention to the health tourism industry. As a way of experiencing health, forest health tourism is becoming increasingly favored, and the site selection and construction of forest health bases (FHBs) have also developed accordingly. To ensure sustainability in the process of the site selection and construction of FHBs, the suitability of regional development and the relative coordination of the market, environment, and resource levels should be considered. Although there have been numerous studies on sustainable forestry management, a comprehensive sustainability assessment framework based on development suitability and coordination in three dimensions is needed to guide the site selection and the construction of FHBs. The following tasks were carried out in this study: (1) based on market sustainability goals, environmental optimization goals, and ecological resource sustainability goals, a comprehensive sustainability evaluation framework for development suitability indicators and coordination indicators in three dimensions was established; (2) via the use of this framework, the construction potential of FHBs in 41,636 towns in China was evaluated; the evaluation results show that the towns in Anhui, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang, Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou, and other provinces of China generally have superior conditions for the development of FHBs; (3) a multi-dimensional comprehensive analysis of FHB site selection sustainability based on development suitability and coordination was carried out for four batches of approved pilots. The comprehensive analysis results demonstrate the worsening evaluation results of the four batches. The proposed framework can provide a reference for FHB development policies for countries worldwide.

Sustainability assessment of water management at river basin level: Concept, methodology and application

A practical approach for understanding and monitoring the sustainability of a river basin as a complex socio-hydrological system is to co-develop an indicator-based assessment framework with the help of the major stakeholders. This study defines the concept of Sustainability Assessment (SA) in the context of water management at basin level. A step-by-step methodology is proposed and further applied for developing indicator-based SA framework in the complex and overexploited Mashhad Basin in Iran. The methodology is based on a participatory approach that includes forming an expert panel of basin stakeholders, co-creating goals and objectives, identifying and screening indicators, and shaping the final SA framework. We identify 332 potential indicators from existing literature. Using selection criteria and two-round of fuzzy Delphi method, we adapt 25 fit-for-purpose indicators relevant to sustainable water management in Mashhad Basin. Subsequently, a SA framework is developed by categorizing final indicators into four main components (Technical, Environmental, Economic and Social) and ten subcomponents to provide better links and insights of the basin water management practices between different groups of stakeholders. Finally, using a weighting scheme through the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a sustainability index is constructed by aggregating the indicators. The results indicate that Mashhad Basin is in a critical unsustainable condition with a sustainability index at 0.34 out of 1. Analysis of the relative importance of the adapted indicators shows that the top-four ranked indicators (including water productivity, access to safe drinking water, renewable groundwater dependency and water pollution) have almost 40% contribution to the basin sustainability index. Such indicator-based SA framework can support identification and analysis of major sustainability trade-offs. Additionally, it can provide an effective tool for achieving water-related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We therefore highly encourage further development of indicator-based SA frameworks in the context of water management at basin level.

Operationalising Tourism Sustainability at the Destination Level: A Systems Thinking Approach Along the SDGs

ABSTRACT The adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set the strategic vision for the next decade. Yet, their operationalisation, more so, at the tourism industry and destination level is fraught with challenges leaving destination managers and tourism officials to appeal for meaningful and effective decision support tools. This paper addresses the academic and institutional recommendations for monitoring and implementing the SDGs in the tourism sector. It introduces a systems thinking framework (the Tourism Sustainability Assessment Framework (TSAF)) for delineating the dependencies and dynamics of variables and monitoring indicators in a tourism industry versus tourism destination ecosystem of relationships. The TSAF proposes a roadmap for integrating information and data from the various nationally adopted tourism statistics frameworks to effectuate the assessment of tourism sustainability. A comparison along with the SDG indicators then accentuates the importance and necessity for industry-specific, effective units of measurement.

A sustainability assessment model for industrial parks: A Choquet integral aggregation approach

This study deals with subject sustainability assessment for industrial parks which are seen as systems of interrelated companies and infrastructures. Although sustainability was introduced into mainstream policy discourse several decades ago, it remains complex to assess, and thus to improve in an integrated way. This is particularly true for such elaborate structures as industrial parks. However, the literature has made little effort to present tools for industrial parks managers to take decisions towards sustainability. The paper develops a sustainability assessment framework aimed at industrial parks' managers. The model is based on a multi-criteria compromise aggregation principle and relies on a preliminary systemic deployment of industrial park sustainability. The presented assessment uses a double aggregation mechanism using the weighted arithmetic mean (WAM) and the Choquet integral (CI) to account for the interrelations between stakeholders involved in an industrial park. This double aggregation results in two level of assessment, offering a more comprehensive view of the examined industrial park. A first level of assessment allows managers to control and improve the performance of their industrial parks in each pillar of sustainability. The second level is the assessment of the overall sustainability, which supports the managers' analysis of their strategy to achieve sustainability. As an illustration, the model is used to assess the sustainability of a Canadian industrial park. Application of the model shows that the completion of the studied industrial park's action plan results in reaching a 54% sustainability performance considering the managers' long-term sustainability strategy and that their vision of sustainability moderately favors the simultaneous satisfaction of economic criteria with environmental or social criteria. These results illustrates the capacity of the model to guide managers in the sustainable development of their industrial parks.

Sustainable practices of selected publiclylisted higher educational institutions in ensuring good health and well-being

Sustainable practices of selected publiclylisted higher educational institutions in ensuring good health and well-being

Solution-focused sustainability assessments for the transition to the circular economy: The case of plastics in the automotive industry

To overcome barriers and make a societal transition towards a safe, healthy, and sustainable circular economy, realistic and ambitious solutions need to be identified. This study improves the Solution-focused Sustainability Assessment framework (SfSA) with a ‘chain approach’, which aims to involve stakeholders from across a product chain of interest to explore the ‘solution space’ from different perspectives. The approach allows to gain a broad insight into the scientific and practical aspects of a problem and its potential solutions. The approach is applied to a specific case: the circular economy of plastics in the automotive industry. Stakeholders across the value-chain together identified forty-one different barriers and various solutions. The stakeholders involved considered the solutions in the realms of policy and economics, such as pricing of environmental impact and norms for recyclate, as most feasible and impactful. Reflection on these results by experts underpinned and enriched these results. The emphasis on policy and economic barriers and solutions does not necessarily mean focus should solely be on solving policy and economic restraints and improving current policy measures. The results show that barriers are connected. When one barrier is overcome, another such as safety of substances may come to the forefront. The same holds for the solutions. The transition towards circular use of plastics in the automotive industry requires a network of solutions that together create systemic change, such as policy solutions as well as gathering data for assessments. This study shows the value of bringing together stakeholders from across the value-chain in a search for barriers and solutions: i) it provides new insights and data on barriers and solutions that cannot be extracted from literature; ii) it challenges stakeholders to see the system they are part of and think in terms of solutions; iii) stakeholders learn from each other and discover that there are more opportunities than they thought of beforehand. Work has to be done to make the solutions suitable for further quantification and to continue to involve stakeholders in the other SfSA steps to gather data, assess solutions, and implement those solutions together.

Beyond Profitable Shifts to Green Energies, towards Energy Sustainability

The traditional carbon-based approach towards sustainability has long caused the concepts of green and sustainable energies to be used interchangeably. Recent studies have tried to advance this archaic view by considering more aspects of sustainability. However, almost all major studies have been concerned with only the economic and environmental aspects of electricity generation, whereas the concept of sustainability is beyond these two criteria. In this paper, we seek to provide a methodology for a more comprehensive definition of electricity generation sustainability based on the lessons learned from previous studies and additional metrics suggested by them. The main characteristics of select electricity generation technologies were studied, and their environmental, economic, social, and technical criteria as well as the uncertainties associated with them were selected as the four major factors in our paper. It has also been argued that the utilization of regional resources in addition to the inherent characteristics of electricity generation technologies is vital in providing a realistic view of sustainability. Of the sustainability assessment methods previously introduced, the Relative Aggregate Footprint (RAF) method was used in conjunction with the previously selected criteria as the basis of the study due to its ability to incorporate additional criteria and regional considerations. As such, the framework for sustainability assessment presented in this research accounts for major criteria identified in the literature and takes the available regional resources that affect the feasibility of each electricity technology into account. This study paves the way for the presentation of new guidelines for the creation of more comprehensive electricity generation sustainability measures to distinguish between the concepts of green and profitable vs. sustainable energies to support the development of sustainable energy portfolios.

An Overview of Sustainability Assessment Frameworks in Agriculture

Recent research established a link between environmental alterations due to agriculture intensification, social damage and the loss of economic growth. Thus, the integration of environmental and social dimensions is key for economic development. In recent years, several frameworks have been proposed to assess the overall sustainability of farms. Nevertheless, the myriad of existing frameworks and the variety of indicators result in difficulties in selecting the most appropriate framework for study site application. This manuscript aims to: (i) understand the criteria to select appropriate frameworks and summarize the range of those being used to assess sustainability; (ii) identify the available frameworks to assess agricultural sustainability; and (iii) analyze the strengths, weaknesses and applicability of each framework. Six frameworks, namely SAFA, RISE, MASC, LADA, SMART and public goods (PG), were identified. Results show that SMART is the framework that considers, in a balanced way, the environmental, sociocultural and economic dimensions of sustainability, whereas others focused on the environmental (RISE), environmental and economic (PG) and sociocultural (SAFA) dimension. However, depending on the scale assessment, sector of application and the sustainability completeness intended, all frameworks are suitable for the assessment. We present a decision tree to help future users understand the best option for their objective.

An innovative sustainability-oriented multi-criteria decision making framework for prioritization of industrial systems with interdependent factors: Method and a case study of electricity generation

With the development of technology and manufacturing, the conflicts between environment protection, economic interest and social benefit have been awared and paid more attention to in recent years. The sustainability performance has been considered by increasing number of decision makers. In the real-life practice, it will strongly affect the prioritization results if the criteria considered in the sustainability assessment are interdependent. Therefore, a non-orthogonal coordinate system based multi-criteria decision making method which can incorporate the interactions and interdependences among the criteria for sustainability assessment is proposed in this study. An illustrative case about electricity production was used to illustrate the developed sustainability prioritization model. The results obtained by the proposed method are compared with that based on the traditional method, and sensitivity analysis is also carried out. The results reveal that it is prerequisite to incorporate the interactions and interdependences between sustainability-oriented decision-maker, and the developed non-orthogonal coordinates based sustainability assessment framework is feasible for the prioritization of industrial systems with the considerations of the interactions and interdependences among the evaluation criteria.

Development of assessment framework for environmental sustainability in higher education institutions

PurposeUnsustainable actions have resulted in the deterioration of the environment. Higher education institutions are social entities responsible for developing future leaders who have the skills and abilities to solve societal challenges. This study aims to develop a conceptual assessment model of environmental sustainability in higher education and apply the model to test the environmental sustainability level of a higher education institution.Design/methodology/approachThe fuzzy logic method is used to develop the conceptual model, and a higher education institution in India was selected for evaluating the environmental sustainability level.FindingsThe fuzzy environmental sustainability index for the higher education institution selected for the study was computed as (3.58, 4.95, 6.33). The computed value identifies the institution as “environmentally sustainable”. The calculation of the fuzzy performance importance index further helped in identifying weak attributes that need improvement.Research limitations/implicationsThe result of this study would help the management understand their current environmental sustainability level and take corrective measures to improve the weak attributes. It would also assist the institution in reworking its processes and practices.Originality/valueThis study has contributed to the literature of environmental sustainability assessment by creating a conceptual model for evaluating environmental sustainability in higher education. This model can be applied to any higher education institution.