Abstract Summary
A Harmonised Sustainability Assessment Framework (HSAF) was developed and tested on different case studies explored during the Water-Mining project, ranging from the desalination to the urban and industrial wastewater treatment sectors. HASF incorporates or circular economy metrics, with traditional sustainability dimensions (environmental, economic and social), allowing to report on the progress of a system’s sustainability performance while expanding the scope to include circular practices. The framework incorporates environmental, social, economic and circular methodologies to assess the performance of the systems, as well as a classification approach for defining circular and linear flows. Environmental performance is measured following the International Standard Organisation (ISO) 14040 and 14044 for Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (E-LCA), social LCA (S-LCA) follows the same systematic approach and framework as E-LCA, in line with S-LCA guidelines, the economic performance is measured through the Life Cycle Costing (LCC) approach (ISO 15686), and circularity is measured through the ISO 59020 guidelines. The classification approach is employed for the circularity assessment as a means to assign circularity definitions (e.g. linear or circular source) to all resources involved in each system. Stakeholder views are considered for the assessment of the technologies to identify shortcomings in their sustainability and circularity aspects and support decision-making to achieve better sustainability performance. Additionally, through a sensitivity analysis different scenarios are considered. Lastly, the outcomes of each assessment are aligned with the EU’s Green Deal policy package.
