Sustainability Concepts in Decision-Making Tools and Approaches for the US Environmental Protection Agency (2014) / Chapter Skim
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Summary
Pages 3-11
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From page 3... ...
EPA has indicated that it will need to consider the use of a variety of analytic tools and approaches for assessing the potential sustainability-related effects of its decisions and actions in response to complex environmental challenges. EPA asked the National Research Council to convene a committee to examine applications of scientific tools and approaches for incorporating sustainability considerations into assessments that are used to support EPA decision-making.
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From page 4... ...
The scientific foundation and analytic tools used to support decisions in a sustainability context will benefit from new knowledge and better use of existing knowledge. A recent EPA report, Sustainability Analytics: Assessment Tools and Approaches, summarizes 22 types of tools and methods for conducting sustainability assessments.
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From page 5... ...
emissions and based on a particular climate-change scenario at a particular point in the future. It allows government agencies to evaluate and incorporate the social benefits of reducing GHG emissions as part of the development of ways to mitigate climate change.
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From page 6... ...
LCA was used to evaluate remediation alternatives by considering GHG emissions, water pollution effects (eutrophication) , air pollution effects (particulate matter emissions)
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From page 7... ...
Systematic life cycle considerations over a full value chain can identify potential effects that may not be accounted for through traditional approaches that focus on individual source categories. For example, the increasing use of natural gas instead of coal for electricity generation can result in an aggregate reduction in GHG emissions from the electricity-production sector, because combustion of natural gas results in less GHG emission, per unit of energy released, than combustion of petroleum or coal.
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From page 8... ...
That approach has been increasingly necessary as a fuller understanding of carbon, water, and other environmental footprints has revealed that a growing portion of a company's sustainability concerns (for example, air pollution, GHG releases, waste generation, and water consumption) are associated with activities that occur outside its own manufacturing operations, including activities associated with materials sourcing, supply-chain management, packaging, and consumer use of products.
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From page 9... ...
EPA should develop screening tools to assess new issues rapidly to support the selection of appropriate sustainability tools and approaches. Existing screening approaches, tools, and formal sustainability assessments should be automated further to accommodate the rapid throughput that new-issue responses will require.
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From page 10... ...
That would include filling information gaps in the commercial economy related to the ultimate disposition of economically valuable materials that can present health and environmental risks if they are not subject to a system of recovery and reuse and the monitoring and identification of problems and trends, many of which emerge in a nonregulatory context. Serving as a convener for collaboration in system-level solutions to leverage knowledge and problem-solving beyond the capability of any single institution or group, to foster cross–business-sector collaboration and, public–private partnerships and to design system-level evaluation approaches for specific value chains.
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From page 11... ...
EPA should develop an integrated sustainability and risk-assessment–risk-management approach for decision-makers. Such an integrated approach should include an updated set of appropriate tools and methods for specific issues and scenarios, examination of how EPA can apply risk assessment and other sustainability tools throughout specific value chains, and selected postdecision evaluations to identify lessons learned and new opportunities to inform future decision-making.
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