Title: The Sustainability Assessment Model (SAM): Measuring Sustainable Development Performance
Abstract: The Sustainability Assessment Model (SAM): Measuring Sustainable Development Performance Tom Baxter; Tom Baxter Genesis Oil And Gas Consultants Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Jan Bebbington; Jan Bebbington The University Of Aberdeen Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar David Cutteridge; David Cutteridge Inchferry Consulting Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Gordon Harvey Gordon Harvey BP Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Paper presented at the SPE Offshore Europe Oil and Gas Exhibition and Conference, Aberdeen, United Kingdom, September 2003. Paper Number: SPE-83986-MS https://doi.org/10.2118/83986-MS Published: September 02 2003 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Get Permissions Search Site Citation Baxter, Tom, Bebbington, Jan, Cutteridge, David, and Gordon Harvey. "The Sustainability Assessment Model (SAM): Measuring Sustainable Development Performance." Paper presented at the SPE Offshore Europe Oil and Gas Exhibition and Conference, Aberdeen, United Kingdom, September 2003. doi: https://doi.org/10.2118/83986-MS Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll ProceedingsSociety of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)SPE Offshore Europe Conference and Exhibition Search Advanced Search AbstractBusiness has a fundamental role to play in delivering Sustainable Development - the process needed to achieve a sustainable society. Sustainable Development is becoming increasingly recognised as a critical issue for the oil and gas industry to address, and act upon. This paper outlines a practical tool (The Sustainability Assessment Model - SAM) which has been developed to analyse, compare and rank Sustainable Development performance.The SAM assesses the social, environmental, economic, and resource usage impacts of a project over its full life cycle including product use. It also helps address the remediation and restoration options.The SAM monetises all the impacts so that they can be compared on a like-for-like basis. This also allows the impacts to be combined into a single measure which reflects the overall Sustainable Development performance of a project. This paper will show how SAM has been used to assess the performance of several energy projects.A project focus was initially adopted in the belief that greater control over impacts can be influenced and achieved at this level. However this paper will also show how the tool has been used to:Aid specific design decisions such as concept selectionAssess the overall holistic Sustainable Development performance of an industry sector.BackgroundIt is becoming widely accepted that conventional accounting numbers do not tell the 'full story' of how a business impacts upon its environment (in its broadest sense). In particular, all business decisions have economic, resource, environmental and social impacts. Furthermore, these impacts are incompletely captured by conventional accounting and reporting mechanisms. As a result, managing the diverse impacts of business decisions is difficult because conventional accounting decision making tools do not usually recognise their existence. The consequences of the partial nature of business control systems are obvious - important economic and business decisions are made without information about the external impacts those decisions will have. It is therefore likely that decisions will be made, and activities will be undertaken, which may well maximise a company's economic and financial benefits but which may also create social and environmental costs. Indeed, the cumulative effect of these processes can be seen in the economic, resource, environmental and social stresses which our society currently experiences. The idea of pursuing sustainable development (however defined) has emerged in response to these stresses. The Sustainability Assessment Model (SAM) is one way to take account of externalities and hence move towards Sustainable Development.A broad overview of the SAMThe SAM follows a four step approach. Firstly the SAM defines the focus of the costing exercise as a discrete project. The project focus has been specifically adopted because we believe that this gives clearer visibility of the significant contributions to sustainability from a project and thus allows greater control over the resultant impacts (given that most companies organise their activities on a project basis). Keywords: sustainable development performance, category, signature, social responsibility, environmental impact, society of petroleum engineers, product use, sustainability assessment model sam, economic flow, gas project Subjects: Sustainability/Social Responsibility, Sustainable development This content is only available via PDF. 2003. Society of Petroleum Engineers You can access this article if you purchase or spend a download.
Publication Year: 2003
Publication Date: 2003-09-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 6
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