Sustainability Performance in the Water Supply: Development of Indicators for Operation Controlling and Transparent Information of the Public |
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Project Head: Project Team: Cooperation: Funding: Duration: Research Area:
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Sustainability is an important objective for the conformance to public service requirements of water utilities. How is it possible to inform about the sustainability performances of German water utilities? The joint project aims at the development of indicators for sustainability in the drinking water supply sector. As operating figures such indicators can be used for an in-house (sustainability) controlling as well as for informing the public adequately on the company’s sustainability performance and its costs. Based on a catalog of suitable indicators a manual on communicating the utility’s sustainability performances was developed.The relevance of comparing companies in order to attain sustainability objectives has been emphasized by German water suppliers as in the revised "benchmarking" statement of the German water organisations (June 2005; http://www.vku.de). Up to now very often sustainabilty is understood only in the sense of an environmental orientation. The perspective of a long-term orientation of business activities as well as that of services of general interest leads to an enhanced comprehension of sustainability so that social, economical and ecological aspects have to be included. Operationalising Abstract ObjectivesResults of the German field-test of the International Water Association’s performance indicator benchmarking (conducted by IWW) and results of the joint project netWORKS show that indicators of environmental, techno-economical and social sustainability as well as the costs of sustainability performances are currently not sufficiently accepted within the water sector. When it comes to a business company’s perspective abstract objectives such as sustainability need to be operationalised to be of use as operating figures for the internal controlling and management process. Therefore a feasible catalogue of operating and performance figures is needed which should be based on the experience and needs of companies. Evaluation and Communication of SustainabilityPerformances A general aim of the project is to generate recommendations for an appropriate evaluation and interpretation of sustainability performances within the drinking water supply sector. With respect to company processes these recommendations have to focus on operation controlling as well as on the development of target group specific preparation for an external use of relevant information. With the development of a catalogue of operation figures a base will be established for an overview of the sustainability performances of water supply utilities. Beside of operation figures the catalogue contains performance figures indicating social issues as corruption control as well as environmental issues. In order to obtain target group specific information a simplification of the information offers is needed. Therefore the project developed problem orientated modes of presentation for specific target groups such as municipal owners of companies, consumers, concerned citizens and NGOs. Superior aim of the project was to enforce the interlocking of sustainability and performance enhancement. Especially with regard to EU policy it has to be demonstrated that in Germany a self-organised process of increased company efficiency is already on the way and connected with an optimisation of sustainability performances. |
Date 2007-10-09 |
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