Evaluating sustainability on projects using indicators

The concept of balancing people, planet, and profit to maximize the absolute value of an enterprise is known as sustainability. It is concerned with the economic, social, and environmental effects of an enterprise in the long term. However, in practice, this definition does not provide companies with a meaningful framework to integrate sustainability into their projects, which by definition are one-off endeavors. Given this divide between the long-term nature of sustainability and the temporary nature of projects, companies have found it difficult to incorporate relevant sustainability indicators into project baselines. In this chapter, the authors examine a methodology for integrating sustainability into project baselines for consultants in the industrial and resource extraction fields. The methodology is comprised of an indicator set and a procedure for using the indicator set. This chapter's goal is to help standardize the sustainability process, making it easier to implement and more mainstream. The objectives of this chapter are: (1) identify different sustainability indicator sets and their strengths and weaknesses; (2) explain what a multi-level analytical hierarchy project is and why it is important to integrating sustainability into such projects; and (3) state the steps in a procedure to integrate sustainability into project baselines.