Chapter 5 – Conclusions

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5 Conclusions

One of the most concrete challenges for this new millennium is to meet the UN target that aims at reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and hygienic sanitation by the year 2015 (UN-Water). Experts already predicted that it is impossible to meet the challenge and furthermore the problems have become so complex that there is no single optimal solution. The solutions we are seeking have to be compatible with, or readily adaptable to the local natural, economical, technical and social-cultural environment. In addition, the solution should offer possibilities for further development. The solutions must be formulated with a long-term global view in mind, such that these do not generate new problems.

Or, in other words, sustainable solutions should carefully balancing the use of different resources such as environmental, economical and social-cultural resources in such a way that the contribution to local and global problems is minimised or are at least known and accounted for.

A great number of definitions of sustainable development has been found in literature. A broad range of aspects has been given and this means that the concept is sometimes vaguely used or badly understood. An analysis of dimensions and concepts has been carried out aiming at the suggestion of sustainability criteria and indicators.

Decision-makers within and outside an organisation require meaningful information that can help to identify the effects their decisions imply. There are several reasons for using sustainability indicators including:

• Long term monitoring in order to assess progress over time

• Measuring progress towards sustainability objectives

• Providing benchmarking information, for example for allowing comparison between different processes, companies or geographical regions.

Sustainability indicators should be selected not only by researchers or experts, but should rather involve users and any audience to whom they are relevant which call for more participatory processes. However, even though such bottom-up approaches are often considered important in the sustainability literature, they can be difficult to apply in practice, since the process is time and resource consuming. A combination of the two approaches can be the optimal solution.

Based on the different dimensions of sustainability and on lists of sustainability

indicators that have been obtained from a literature review, a set of indicators

including economic, environmental and institutional-social-cultural aspects has been

defined. In addition, both health-related and technological indicators have been

included in order to account for characteristics of urban water systems management

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and processes. It should be emphasised that the proposed set of criteria and indicators do not include all possible aspects of the sustainability concept.

Sustainability indicators have been used in this work as tools to gain insight in the sustainability of an urban water system. A case study in a developed country (Sweden) has been carried out in order to note the differences in selecting indicators compared to an urban water system in developing country. The Stockholm Water Company (the largest water company in Sweden) has been contacted in order to quantify indicators and assessing temporal trends. Selection of indicators was based on their suitability degree and on the available data and information that the case company could provide with.

At present, the contents of sustainability reports tend to appear in forms and units that are not readily convertible into unique terms. The model presented by Krajnc and Glavič (2005) promises advance in sustainability assessment of the companies and makes sustainability information more useful to decision-makers.

Core and supplemental indicators when combined into composite sustainable development index (I

) can be used to reflect the achievements of the company towards sustainability. The combined index can be used to inform decision-makers of development trends in the company. However, it may also be included in a more targeted context, such as reflecting the status of company regarding sustainability, providing information to critical decision processes or possibly forming the basis for a company to head in a certain direction. The use of the combined index helps to highlight opportunities for improvement and where best practices might be found.

The decision-makers could easily interpret the I

and its corresponding sub-indices than trying to find a trend in many separate indicators of sustainable development. If included in the annual sustainability report, the general combined index could also be used to present the progress of the company to the various parties interested in sustainability of the company. Furthermore, if the I

would be applied to different companies, it would be possible to compare and rank them in terms of sustainable development. Even though further development is called for, it is evident that this model for sustainable development assessment has the potential to become very useful as one of the tools available.

A weakness point of the method is about the weightings of indicators. In this

work, the categories that were expressed by one only indicator presented rates of

variation with the highest registered absolute values. Their negative or positive trend

in the considered period and their weighting factors could not be changed. A better

model should be used if a sensitivity analysis is desired for assessing the limit value

of those indicators with an undesirable temporal trend. This can be useful in order to

consider how the general trend of the combined sustainable development index is

affected by the weightings assigned to each indicator and how the answer of the

system changes when specific indicators are considered more important than other

ones.

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The general trend assessed for the Stockholm Water Company for the period

1999-2003 was positive, with an almost regular increase registered in the period from

2000 to 2002. Although weights should be assigned in order to reflect hierarchies and

priorities of the company, the case company was generally progressing towards

sustainability in the considered period in both the examined cases. Since the trend of

the composite sustainable development index is strongly affected by the model used

for integrating indicators, better considerations about trends can be made by

analysing each single category.