Sustainability and Remediation - Dealing with Contaminated Sites: From Theory Towards Practical Application - page 915

sustainability appraisal process should be a tool for arriving at a consensus based
decision. This is not just because inclusive decision making may actually seen as
fundamental to sustainable development, but also because it makes for a more robust
decision that is less likely to be challenged.
20.3.1.2 Using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Advantages that have been suggested for making a limited selection of KPIs for
assessing sustainability in remediation is that they could be connected to wider cor-
porate sustainability reporting, or the use of indicators that are being used to promote
the advantages of particular remediation approaches (see Section 20.3.2 ). The KPIs
suggested are almost always limited to environmental parameters, estimates of Risk
Management performance and measurements of direct cost.
The difficulty with selecting particular indicators as Key Performance Indicators
(KPIs) for project planning and remedy selection is that the selection will neces-
sarily be partial. The selection is likely to be based on perceived importance of
particular issues: e.g. carbon balance might be perceived as more important than soil
functionality. This implicit weighting allows plenty of space for disagreement and
controversy about the sustainability assessment approach let alone its findings. The
smaller the set of KPIs is, the greater is the possibility that an influential component
of the true overall sustainability will be ignored.
KPIs can also be limited to quantifiable measures which, it is felt, remove the
subjectivity inherent in qualitative approaches. However, quantitative assessments
have their own limitations, summarised in Section 20.2.3 , which in turn limit their
usefulness in sustainability appraisal.
20.3.1.3 Agreeing Sustainability Indicator Approaches for Remediation
The US EPA Green Remediation initiative uses a series of measurable environmen-
tal “indicators”. SURF in the USA takes a view of sustainability across all three
elements (environmental, economic and social). This appears also to be the approach
in Europe. Indeed the draft Soil Framework Directive was explicit about environ-
mental, economic and social indicators. At present, there is no European consensus
on which indicators might be used for the assignment of the sustainability of remedi-
ation. There is considerable debate about the use of a limited set of quantifiable KPIs
versus other approaches, particularly within the NICOLE Sustainable Remediation
Working Group.
The view of the chapter authors is that in many cases qualitative approaches
will either be sufficient for project based decision making, or to identify what the
stakeholders involved consider to be the key sustainability “drivers” for a project
(see Section 20.4 ) that need to be quantified. These drivers are likely to include a
component that is strongly project specific. Where some or all of the stakeholders
involved in a project decision prefer a general quantitative approach, it may still be
prudent to carry out a wide ranging qualitative sustainability appraisal as a first step,
to ensure consideration of the wider sustainability outlook.