Using Sustainable Development Indicators
(SDIs) For Sustainability Assessment Of Surface
Mining Operations In The Oil Sands Projects:
Applicability, Usefulness And Cost
Author(s)
C. A. Poveda & M. G. Lipsett
Abstract
Sustainable development indicators (SDIs) can be found within currentlyexisting
approaches, strategies, models, appraisals, and methodologies for
environmental and sustainability assessment. Conceptually, the design and
implementation of SDIs brings together different stakeholders towards finding
the balance among economic, social, and environmental development; however,
questions surround SDIs for the assessment of sustainability of projects
(e.g. surface mining operations) or industries (e.g. oil and gas) for which the
development of SDIs still is in its infancy: (1) Do the SDIs properly align theory
with practice?; (2) Do the SDIs meet their intent?; and (3) Can the stakeholders
and project proponents afford the implementation of SDIs? Individual efforts
have been made to establish a set of SDIs by companies developing projects; and
regulatory systems (in some way predecessors of SDIs) require certain levels of
investment to meet a minimum level of performance, particularly on
environmental grounds. But large industrial projects (such as oil sands projects,
which include surface mining operations) do not have a comprehensive set of
SDIs to benchmark sustainable performance and/or measure sustainable
development. Questions remain regarding the rate at which extractive industry
companies align with more sustainable practices, whether it is the applicability
of SDIs, their degree of usefulness, or the costs of development and
implementation of SDIs, or other factors. The present work analyzes the
development and implementation of SDIs in surface mining operations for oil
sands projects, highlights the benefits of using SDIs, proposes an alternative
framework for SDI in the Canadian oil sands industry, and offers
Keywords
sustainable development indicators, SDIs, sustainability assessment, rating systems, oil and gas, oil sands, sustainable development, energy consumption, surface mining operations
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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