An integrated approach for sustainability assessment: the Wa-Pa-Su project sustainability rating system

Abstract

The aim of sustainable development is to balance social, economic, and environmental needs. In order to justify the decisions they make, stakeholders must quantify the different impacts found in the operations and developments of companies and/or projects throughout their life cycle. However, as some areas are subjective in nature, the quantification process of the different impacts and the assessment of sustainable development performance become arduous tasks of development, validation, and application of scientific and empirical methods with the intrinsic objective of finding an agreement among the involved parties (i.e., stakeholders). Several environmental and sustainability assessment tools, instruments, processes, and methodologies have been developed; rating systems stand out and have gained attention and credibility, as demonstrated by the vast number of certified projects around the world and the widely-known usefulness and advantages of their application. The Wa-Pa-Su project sustainability rating system presents an integrated approach to sustainability assessment by integrating three distinctive areas of knowledge: (1) sustainable development theory and fundamentals supports the ultimate goal of the rating system, which is to contribute to sustainability, with the aim of finding a path to balance social, economic, and environmental needs; (2) continual performance improvement becomes essential due to the duration of the projects, as it is critical to allow organizations or projects to improve performance over time; and (3) multi-criteria decision analysis assists with the assessment process through stakeholder engagement and participation, and the design and implementation of a criteria weighting system.

Keywords:

• sustainability assessment
• sustainable development
• rating systems
• quantification methods
• continual performance improvement (CPI)
• multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA)

Notes

^1. The name ‘Wa-Pa-Su’ honours three main facets: history, Aboriginal heritage, and sustainable development. The first white man to see bitumen from the largest oil deposit in Canada was Henry Kelsey, manager of the Hudson’s Bay Company at York Factory in 1719, when a Cree named Wa-Pa-Su brought him a sample. In the Plains Cree language, wâpisiw (pronounced and commonly Anglicized as WA-PA-SU) means ‘white swan.’ Finally, considering the goal and objectives of sustainable development, the acronym denotes World And People Aligned for SUstainability.