Sustainability Assessment
A Rating System Framework for Best Practices
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- Description
- Contents
- Reviews
- About
Part I: Sustainability assessment 1. Assessment approaches, frameworks, and other tools 2. Environmental and sustainability rating systems 3. Potential benefits of developing and implementing environmental and sustainability rating systems
- Part II: A new sustainability rating system 4. Origins and fundamentals 5. The Wa-Pa-Su project sustainability rating system
- Part III: The Canadian oil sands 6. Background and processes 7. Impacts of development and operations 8. Resources management and performance: a report
- Part IV: An application step by step: the surface mining process 9. Areas of excellence and sub-divisions 10. Identifying sustainable development indicators (SDIs) 11. Designing and implementing SDIs: more of a positive thing than not 12. Weighting SDIS using the AHP method 13. Design of performance improvement factors (PIFs) 14. Simulated case study of implementation and sustainability assessment
- Afterword
- Appendix A Abbreviations & acronyms Appendix B Timeline of the energy industry in Alberta Appendix C Descriptions – preselected sustainable development indicators (SDIs) for the surface mining process
“The sustainability tool that [Dr. Cesar Poveda] describe[s] is both interesting and valuable. The oil sands industry—and the industry in general—would benefit from this approach.”
“After reading [Dr. Cesar Poveda’s] journal paper, I believe that this rating system [Wa-Pa-Su Project Sustainability Rating system] has merit.”
This book details a rating systems framework for sustainability assessment, the Wa-Pa-Su project sustainability rating system, for use in various industries and any type of project or organization. It places stakeholders at the center of the decision-making process while making them accountable throughout the process and for the end results. The book uses the example of the Canadian oil sands mining operations to illustrate the need to develop and implement environmental and sustainability rating systems in industries with social, economic, environmental, health, and other impacts. It outlines general approaches, frameworks, and specific strategies for sustainability assessment; tools used in environmental and sustainability rating systems, such as LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design), BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method), comprehensive assessment systems for built environment efficiency (CASBEE), Green Star, and SBTool; and the benefits of developing and implementing rating systems. It details the origins and fundamentals of the Wa-Pa-Su project sustainability rating system, conceived to measure sustainability performance of the Canadian oil sands projects; the integrated approach to sustainability assessment implement in the rating system; background on the Canadian oil sands and their life cycle; the economic, social, environmental, health, and other impacts of current operations in the Canadian oil sands; statistics in sustainability performance of 10 of the developers and operators of the oil sands; the rating system structure and its application to surface mining; six sources for pre-selecting sustainable development indicators (SDIs); the development and implementation of SDIs in surface mining operations for oil sands projects, the benefits of using SDIs, and an alternative framework for SDIs in the Canadian industry; the application of the analytic hierarchy process to weight the different criteria to measure the sustainability of surface mining operations; the design of performance improvement factors; and the flexibility and applicability of the rating system, through a case study of implementation and sustainability assessment using the approach adopted in the rating system.