Chapter 2- Sustainability Frameworks

A number of frameworks for integrating sustainability concepts into projects have been developed in the last two decades. Table 1 provides a summary of sustainability frameworks and related references relevant to the wastewater industry. The choice of which framework is most appropriate for a given project depends on the overall project goals, geographic location, intended use of the installed facility, and owner preferences. Regardless of which tool is used to help integrate sustainability into a project, the project team should anticipate that there will be tradeoffs between competing objectives during each phase and plan ahead as to how objectives will be prioritized and the resulting facility optimized. These tradeoffs are themselves a function of previous decisions about economic, environmental, and community boundaries.