Sustainability Reporting Statements for Wastewater Systems

By Water Environment Federation

Sustainability Reporting Statements for Wastewater Systems proposes a set of standard environmental performance report formats for wastewater utilities and facilitates uniform reporting similar to what is currently used for financial reporting. The publication outlines the environmental reporting equivalent of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, providing general guidance to wastewater utilities on how information should be compiled and offering standard reporting templates.

Important topics covered include

• sustainability reporting principles, frameworks, and standards;
• wastewater system sustainability;
• wastewater system sustainability indicators;
• proposed sustainability reporting guidelines; and
• sustainability reporting drivers and trends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Water Environment Federation
• Release date: Jun 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781572782853

Book preview

Preface

This publication is intended to provide guidance for wastewater utilities about the basic principles involved in reporting on utilities’ sustainability. It synthesizes key attributes of internationally accepted frameworks for application to the wastewater industry. Primary and secondary sustainability indicators are identified and recommendations are offered on formats for reporting on wastewater system sustainability. These recommendations are placed into context both by reviewing general trends in sustainability reporting and providing examples of sustainability reporting of leading peer utilities.

This publication was produced under the direction of Eric P. Rothstein, Chair, and Andrew R. Shaw, P.E., Vice-Chair.

The principal authors of this publication are as follows:

In addition to the WEF Task Force, reviewers include Nadia B. Ahmad, Esq.; John Pickelhaupt, Jr., P.E.; Dave White; and Ann Ziegler.

Authors’ and reviewers’ efforts were supported by the following organizations:

AECOM, Mississauga, Canada

Altria Client Services, Richmond, Virginia

ARCADIS U.S., Inc., Tampa, Florida, and Buffalo, New York

Associated Engineering, Burnaby, Canada

Badger Meter, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Black & Veatch, Kansas City, Missouri

Carollo Engineers, Walnut Creek, California; Arlington, Massachusetts; and San Antonio, Texas

CDM Smith, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities, Charlotte, North Carolina

CH2M Hill, City of Santa Barbara, California; Englewood, Colorado; Palm Beach Gardens, Florida; Columbus, Ohio; Chantilly, Virginia; and Chatswood, Australia

Clean Water Services, Hillsboro, Oregon

Donohue and Associates, Sheboygan, Wisconsin

East Bay Municipal Utility District, Oakland, California

Galardi Rothstein Group, Chicago, Illinois

Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Atlanta, Georgia

Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson, Sparks, Maryland

Kent County Wastewater Treatment Facilities, Milford, Delaware

King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks, Seattle, Washington

Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio

Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Navigo Resources Management, Inc., Cumberland, Maine

PEACE USA, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania

Hatch Mott MacDonald, Lakewood, Colorado

Savannah River National Laboratory, Aiken, South Carolina

Short Elliott Hendrickson, Inc., St. Paul, Minnesota

Stantec, Rocklin, California

University of Denver, Colorado

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

U.S. EPA, Chicago, Illinois

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.0   BACKGROUND

2.0   SUSTAINABILITY IN CONTEXT

3.0   SCOPE AND TARGET AUDIENCE

4.0   PRIMARY, SECONDARY, AND SUPPLEMENTAL REPORTING

4.1   Primary Metrics

4.2   Secondary Metrics

4.3   Supplemental Information

5.0   DATA COMPILATION AND MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITY

6.0   REPORTING—GUIDANCE, NOT REQUIREMENT

7.0   CHAPTER STRUCTURE

1.0   BACKGROUND

Wastewater utilities deliver essential resource management services to the communities they serve. From collection and treatment of wastewater to industrial waste monitoring and pretreatment to biosolids management, wastewater utilities deliver services vital to community health and sustainable development. These essential services have been provided throughout much of the 20th century with a focus on reliable, low-cost service delivery. However, this role is evolving and expanding in response to the dynamics of ever-changing conditions and the need to account for the true cost of services provided.

Among these dynamics are heightened concerns about the sustainability of wastewater utility operations. Community stakeholders, utility managers, and regulatory agencies are increasingly interested in utility sustainability, typically cast in terms of economic, social, and environmental effects and commonly referred to as the triple bottom line (TBL). Regard for TBL measures of utility activities, whether operating protocols or capital project investments, is increasingly being embraced as a more appropriate decision-making framework. This movement is evidenced by numerous individual water and wastewater utility and professional society efforts, many of which are referenced throughout this publication. As highlighted herein, these efforts are part of a larger movement to measure, monitor, and enhance the performance of various economic sectors in terms of sustainability effects. Indeed, the diversity and extent of industry activities relating to sustainability can be overwhelming to utility and community decision-makers.

This publication attempts to address the following fundamental questions: How do wastewater utilities measure sustainability performance, assess progress over time, and report to their constituencies? This publication synthesizes the various frameworks and metrics used to gauge individual entity or industry performance by describing reporting formats for wastewater utilities. These formats provide for sustainability reporting what financial statements provide for financial reporting, that is, a format by which wastewater utilities’ financial integrity and performance may be assessed on an ongoing basis. Utility managers can readily assess their financial position by referencing their balance sheets or pro forma fund summary representations of cash flows. Similarly, industry advocates, credit rating agencies, and market analysts can glean information on the financial health of the sector from these same statements. Lastly, this publication offers formats for sustainability reporting and outlines how these formats may be used both within utility organizations and to indicate the attributes of sector performance.

2.0   SUSTAINABILITY IN CONTEXT

While financial performance has a reasonably well-defined connotation, in part because of well-established acceptance of standard financial statements, there are various meanings of the term sustainability and an even greater diversity of related performance metrics. Merriam-Webster (www.dictionary.com) defines sustainability as follows: (1) capable of being sustained; (2a) of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged (sustainable techniques) (sustainable agriculture); and (2b) of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods (sustainable society).

However, this definition does not fully characterize connotations of the term that focus on whether utility (or industry) activities may be self-financed (and, therefore, financially sustainable) or whether their activities have, for example, adverse effects on subpopulations that differ from accepted social values (e.g., environmental justice concerns).

Many reporting authorities, in addition to the water and wastewater industry, have embraced some form of TBL assessment of sustainability. In this publication, sustainability will be used broadly, generally using the following definition provided in the United Nations’ 1987 Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future (http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm):

Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

3.0   SCOPE AND TARGET AUDIENCE

The primary audiences for the report formats offered in this publication are wastewater utility decision-makers, specifically utility management and governing boards. The fundamental objective of this publication is to offer accessible, flexible, and insightful sustainability reporting formats enabling decision-makers to readily and consistently assess their organizations’ performance and affect continuous improvement. These formats are further intended to facilitate communication within utility organizations to both help galvanize staff to accomplish specific targets and streamline data collection and management activities.

Beyond these audiences, it is anticipated that organizations concerned with wastewater utility industry effects and performance will benefit from standardized presentation of selected metrics that are consistently calculated using internationally accepted methods. In addition, the publication is designed to establish wastewater utility sustainability reporting standards that are accessible to the general public (i.e., individual utility ratepayers) who ultimately are financially responsible for utility system performance.

4.0   PRIMARY, SECONDARY, AND SUPPLEMENTAL REPORTING

In offering reporting formats while recognizing the need for reporting formats that accommodate a broad array of individual circumstances, the publication uses three general distinctions of information reporting: primary metrics, secondary metrics, and supplemental information.

4.1   Primary Metrics

This publication advances a set of reporting formats that are structured to provide basic sustainability metrics applicable to all wastewater utilities. Examples include the most basic measures of environmental effect (i.e., tons of greenhouse gas emissions or energy use) or financial performance (i.e., operations and maintenance cost per million gallons of treated wastewater or debt service coverage). It is anticipated that these primary measures, calculated and presented in this publication, may provide a basis for fundamental assessment of attributes of utility performance and also for aggregation and reporting across wastewater utilities.

4.2   Secondary Metrics

While primary metrics offer common indicators of sustainable performance, the formats allow for significant report tailoring, which enables utilities to accurately reflect unique attributes of their individual systems. Accordingly, secondary metrics are identified that may be used by some utilities that are not applicable or appropriate for presentation by others. For these secondary metrics, guidance is offered on presentation protocols selection of secondary metrics that will accurately reflect organizational priorities; utility-specific conditions are left to each reporting utility.

4.3   Supplemental Information

Similar to standard financial statement notes, the prescribed reporting formats will enable presentation of a broad array of information that is not available from the specific, standard measures alone but are important to gain a full understanding of the characteristics of individual utilities’ circumstances. Accordingly, the formats offered anticipate that utilities may communicate a considerable amount of supplemental information that may be essential to place primary and secondary metric values into appropriate context within the field.

Furthermore, similar to financial statements, it is anticipated that reporting formats will evolve over time, potentially incorporating new metrics and revising others as reports are used by individual systems and collectively within the wastewater sector.

5.0   DATA COMPILATION AND MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITY

The evolutionary nature of individual utilities’ sustainability reporting imposes a noteworthy set of responsibilities on utility staff and management. In particular, because effective sustainability reporting draws information from the breadth of utility organizations, it is critical that data collection and management responsibilities be clearly defined and maintained to ensure consistency in performance measure calculations and time-series data sets. Therefore, it is recommended that utility management specify which departments or divisions within the utility have responsibility for compiling, managing, and storing such data.

For reported performance metrics to have meaning over time (i.e., within a particular utility) or for utilities in general, it is important that units of measure identified are used for all individual utilities’ reporting. Where practical, prescribed formats enable use of alternative units of measure that may be readily converted.

6.0   REPORTING—GUIDANCE, NOT REQUIREMENT

Finally, while this publication refers to prescribed reporting formats, it should be noted that this document is intended to provide guidance for utilities interested in monitoring their own sustainability performance as well as their performance relative to their peer utilities. Sustainability reporting is not reviewed for the wastewater utility industry in a Water Environment Federation manual of practice nor is it defined by specific regulations. It is recognized that many utilities may choose to not report outcomes or to use entirely different formats.

7.0   CHAPTER STRUCTURE

This publication is organized to convey information on sustainability considerations, reporting frameworks, and metrics available to wastewater utilities, culminating in the presentation of wastewater utility reporting formats in Chapter 6. The chapter titles and a brief summary of their content are as follows:

• Chapter 1, Introduction—reviews the scope, purpose, target audiences, and levels of reporting outlined in the publication;

• Chapter 2, Sustainability Reporting: Principles, Frameworks, and Standards—reviews the background, audiences, and methods for development of reporting on sustainability indicators. The different frameworks used internationally for sustainability reporting across multiple industries and sectors, and from which the reporting formats presented in Chapter 5 are drawn, are reviewed in detail, including performance metrics, principles and standards, report scope and content, and appropriate disclosure requirements;

• Chapter 3, Wastewater System Sustainability—introduces the basic concepts of sustainability and life-cycle thinking, particularly for wastewater systems, and outlines considerations involved in sustainability assessment and reporting. The leading frameworks and certifications used for sustainability reporting across all types of industries and sectors are highlighted, including the TBL framework used herein. Considerations for wastewater systems are discussed and organized per TBL framework by environmental, economic, and social issues;

• Chapter 4, Wastewater System Sustainability Indicators—reviews the attributes of quality performance indicators and their uses and benefits and then identifies the primary and secondary indicators that may be used for sustainability reporting for wastewater systems;

• Chapter 5, Proposed Sustainability Reporting Guidelines—presents a suggested sustainability report format for wastewater utilities to report their sustainability metrics and indicators and provides guidance and commentary on how to calculate metrics or describe indicators. Wastewater utilities should use Chapter