Title Participants Abstract "Sustainability Indicators of Iran's Developmental Plans: Application of the Sustainability Compass Theory." "K. Naderi Mahdei, M. Pouya, F. Taheri, Hossein AZADI, Steven VAN PASSEL" "The main purpose of this study was to analyze Iran’s developmental plans in order to examine and compare their direction and conformity with the sustainable development theory via the compass of sustainability. The approach involves a content analysis used in line with qualitative research methodologies. The results indicated that, in the first developmental plans, there was no direct reference to sustainable development. In the second to fifth plans, the main focus was on the social, environmental, and economic dimensions of development; which were common elements seen in the policies of all the plans. An analysis of the fourth plan revealed that expressions related to sustainable development appeared more frequently, indicating a stronger emphasis on sustainable development by decision-makers." "Sustainability indicators of Iran's developmental plans : application of the sustainability compass theory" "Karim Naderi Mahdei, Mehrdad Pouya, Fatemeh Taheri, Hossein Azadi, Steven Van Passel" "Sustainability appraisal tools for soil and groundwater remediation: how is the choice of remediation alternative influenced by different sets of sustainability indicators and tool structures?" "Alistair Beames, Steven Broekx, Richard Lookman, Kaat Touchant" "The use of care indicators in Flemish cities: a study into the use of local sustainability indicators for the care sector in Flemish central cities" "Joke Van Assche" "Sustainability indicators for biobased chemicals: A Delphi study using Multi- Criteria Decision Analysis" "Sophie VAN SCHOUBROECK, Johan SPRINGAEL, Miet VAN DAEL, Robert MALINA, Steven VAN PASSEL" "Biobased chemistry has gained interest and has the potential to tackle some of the sustainability challenges the chemical industry must endure. Sustainability impacts need to be evaluated and monitored to highlight the advantages and pitfalls of different biobased routes over the entire product life cycle. This study aims for expert consensus concerning indicators needed and preferred for sustainability analysis of biobased chemicals in Europe. Experts are consulted by means of a Delphi method with stakeholders selected from three core groups: the private, public and academic sector. Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) is performed to gather data on the prioritization of the sustainability indicators per respondent. Afterwards, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is used to develop a consensus ranking among the experts. The results show that GHG emissions, market potential and acceptance of biobased materials are deemed the most crucial indicators for respectively environmental, economic and social sustainability. Expert consensus is positive in all three sustainability domains, with the strongest consensus measured for environmental sustainability showing a median Kendall’s τ of 0.63 (τ ranging from -1 to 1) and the weakest consensus found within social sustainability showing a median Kendall’s τ of 0.50. Further research can apply the ranked indicators on specific case studies to evaluate the practicability of the defined indicator set." "A review of sustainability indicators for biobased chemicals" "Sophie VAN SCHOUBROECK, Miet VAN DAEL, Steven VAN PASSEL, Robert MALINA" "Companies dealing with chemical products have to cope with large amounts of waste and environmental risk due to the use and production of toxic substances. Against this background, increasing attention is being paid to “green chemistry” and the translation of this concept into biobased chemicals. Given the multitude of economic, environmental and societal impacts that the production and use of biobased chemicals have on sustainability, assessment approaches need to be developed that allow for measurement and comparison of these impacts. To evaluate sustainability in the context of policy and decision-making, indicators are generally accepted means. However, sustainability indicators currently predominantly exist for low-value applications in the bioeconomy, like bioenergy and biofuels. In this paper, a review of the state-of-the-art sustainability indicators for biobased chemicals is conducted and a gap analysis is performed to identify indicator development needs. Based on the analysis, a clear hierarchy within the concept of sustainability is found where the environmental aspect dominates over economic and social indicators. All one-dimensional indicator-sets account for environmental impacts (50%), whereas two-dimensional sets complement the environmental issues with economic indicators (34%). Moreover, even the sets encompassing all three sustainability dimensions (16%) do not account for the dynamics and interlinkages between the environment, economy and society. Using results from the literature review, an indicator list is presented that captures all indicators currently used within sustainability assessment of biobased chemicals. Finally, a framework is proposed for future indicator selection using a stakeholder survey to obtain a prioritized list of sustainability indicators for biobased chemicals." "Advantages and limitations of exergy indicators to assess sustainability of bioenergy and biobased materials" "Dries MAES, Steven VAN PASSEL" "Innovative bioenergy projects show a growing diversity in biomass pathways, transformation technologies and end-products, leading to complex new processes. Existing energy-based indicators are not designed to include multiple impacts and are too constrained to assess the sustainability of these processes. Alternatively, indicators based on exergy, a measure of “qualitative energy”, could allow a more holistic view. Exergy is increasingly applied in analyses of both technical and biological processes. But sustainability assessments including exergy calculations, are not very common and are not generally applicable to all types of impact. Hence it is important to frame the use of exergy for inclusion in a sustainability assessment. This paper reviews the potentials and the limitations of exergy calculations, and presents solutions for coherent aggregation with other metrics. The resulting approach is illustrated in a case study. Within the context of sustainability assessment of bioenergy, exergy is a suitable metric for the impacts that require an ecocentric interpretation, and it allows aggregation on a physical basis. The use of exergy is limited to a measurement of material and energy exchanges with the sun, biosphere and lithosphere. Exchanges involving services or human choices are to be measured in different metrics. This combination provides a more inclusive and objective sustainability assessment, especially compared to standard energy- or carbon-based indicators. Future applications of this approach in different situations are required to clarify the potential of exergy-based indicators in a sustainability context." "Using indicators to disentangle the transport-related sustainability of a city" "Dries Meers, Elke HERMANS, Heleen Buldeo Rai, Tom van Lier, Yongjun SHEN, Cathy Macharis" "As a consequence of the growing awareness on sustainability in relation to passenger mobility and freight transport, cities encounter the need to monitor and benchmark their performance. An indicatorbased evaluation framework on city level can be employed to evaluate the performance in a simple and unambiguous manner. This paper applies such a framework, based on a wide range of indicators, on a case study. The results of this case study show that the applicability of the framework depends mainly on data quality and data availability, where poor or few data hinders comparability and aggregation. To actually monitor a city’s performance, time series data should be collected and a city classification can be made up for benchmarking purposes. Finally, the case study also sheds light on the quest to collect appropriate data in an inexpensive and regular way." "Identifying Social Indicators for Sustainability Assessment of CCU Technologies: A Modified Multi-criteria Decision Making" "Parisa Rafiaani, Miet Van Dael, Tom Kuppens, Hossein Azadi, Philippe Lebailly, Steven Van Passel" "Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies capture CO2 waste emissions and utilize them to generate new products (such as fuels, chemicals, and materials) with various environmental, economic, and social opportunities. As most of these CCU technologies are in the R&D stage, their technical and economic viability are examined with less attention to the social aspect which is an important pillar for a holistic sustainability assessment. The lack of systematic social impact research is mainly due to the difficulty of identifying and quantifying social aspects through the entire life cycle of products. We will fill this gap for CCU technologies and identify the main social indicators. A multi-criteria decision making tool: technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) was applied to empirically determine which indicators are more relevant for assessing the social impact of a company operating CCU activities within a European context. First, seeing that social impact categories are linked to key stakeholder groups, we considered workers, consumers, and local communities as relevant stakeholders. Second, the main social impact categories and their potential performance indicators associated to each group of stakeholders were listed using the United Nations Environment Program/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (UNEP/SETAC) guidelines. In the third step, an online questionnaire was distributed to identify the main social categories and indicators for CCU, to which 33 European CCU experts responded. Finally, a modified TOPSIS was applied to rank the indicators based on their relevance. We found that the indicators related to “end of life responsibility” and “transparency” within a CCU company achieved the highest rank affecting the consumers group, whereas “fair salary” and “equal opportunities/discriminations” were determined as the most relevant impact categories for the workers. For the local community group, “secure living conditions” and “local employment” received the highest priority from the experts’ point of view. Furthermore, “health and safety” considerations were identified as one of the most important criteria affecting all three groups of stakeholders. The ranking list of the main social indicators identified in our study provides the basis for the next steps in the social sustainability assessment of CCU technologies; that is, data collection and impact assessment. Our outcomes can also be used to inform the producers regarding the most and least relevant social aspects of CCU so that the potential social impacts caused by their production activities can be improved or prevented." "Sustainability indicators for clean development mechanism projects in Vietnam" "Jean Hugé" "The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is one of the flexible instruments of the Kyoto Protocol designed to combat climate change so as to bring advantages to developing countries and developed countries alike. Indeed, CDM projects have a twofold objective: to offset greenhouse gas emissions and to contribute to sustainable development in the host country. However in many cases, the latter objective appears to be marginalized. This is at least partly due to the difficulties surrounding the definition and the measurement of sustainability, in particular in a developing country context. To assess CDM projects' contribution to sustainable development in the host country, scholars and practitioners need adapted indicator sets. A set of indicators was developed by way of an iterative Delphi approach amongst selected Vietnamese experts. The Delphi approach allowed a systematic collection of the experts' judgements on the sustainability indicators through a set of sequentially applied questionnaires, interspersed with feedback from earlier responses. This exercise resulted in the selection of a set of 36 indicators, which emphasize economic efficiency, public health and pollution issues. The exercise yielded a locally supported and context-specific set of sustainability indicators that will allow Vietnamese decision-makers to enhance the sustainability of the approved CDM-projects. In the future this set should be continually improved through real-life application and further participation from local stakeholders. This study is a first step in a long-term process towards developing an adapted toolkit for sustainability assessment of CDM projects in Vietnam."