| Delphi Round 3 - Working Notes |
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Mission, Goals and Guiding Principles Mission The Mission of the Roundtable is to support the nation’s commitment to sustainable development. The Roundtable will develop indicators of sustainability that reflect social, economic, and environmental factors to assess the status and trends of minerals/materials and energy systems. Vision We envision a future in which the capacities of mineral/material and energy systems meet the demands of current and later generations, while maintaining or enhancing the environmental, social, and economic systems in the U.S. and the world. Guiding Principles 1. Encompass all lands and resources. 2. Acknowledge and utilize, as appropriate, other indicator initiatives. 3. Ensure that indicator development process reflects issues of scale. 4. Operate within the framework of Montreal-like Criteria* as appropriate (other frameworks may be utilized if necessary). 5. Encourage open, consensus-seeking collaboration by government, Tribal representatives, non-governmental organizations, industry, academia, and other stakeholders. 6. Adopt the definition of sustainable development by the Brundtland Commission: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Goal Statement The goal of the Roundtable is to develop indicators that show progress toward sustainable mineral/material and energy systems. In the case of mineral/material and energy systems, the goal of sustainable development should be to find, extract, produce, add value to, use, re-use and recycle mineral/material and energy products in the most efficient manner possible, while respecting the needs and values of other resource users and maintaining and/or enhancing environmental quality for present and future generations. Achieving this goal requires a consideration of intra- and inter-generational equity, mineral consumption and depletion. By 2001, the Roundtable will develop indicators for assessing the degree to which mineral/material and energy systems are contributing to or detracting from sustainable development. In this context, the indicators should measure the status and trend of mineral/material and energy systems in finding, extracting, producing, adding value to, using, re-using and recycling minerals/materials and energy. In addition, the indicators should measure the effects on the economic, environmental, and social systems. [Work on the goal statement will be continued at a later date] *Sustainable Minerals Roundtable – Montreal-like Criteria A. Conservation of biological diversity B. Maintenance of capacities to produce commodities B1. Ecosystems (e.g. timber and
forage). C. Maintenance of ecosystem health (forest, range, and aquatic). D. Conservation and maintenance of air, land and water (quality and quantity). …soil, water, air and physical
geology (including quality, quantity and form). E. Maintenance of contribution to global carbon cycle (not addressed here). F. Maintenance and enhancement of long-term social, economic, and cultural benefits to meet the needs of societies F1. Social, economic, and cultural
benefits stemming from systems other than energy and
mineral/material systems. G. Legal, institutional and economic
framework to support sustainable development. Examples of Issues or Issue Categories that We Want Indicators to Address: 1. Consumption - measuring what you are using and trends in use; opportunity to relate what is produced with production costs; efficiency 2. Accessibility to mineral and energy resources - wo/ opportunity to access, you can’t find the resource areas off-limits to exploration and/or mining increasing or decreasing accessibility. 3. community dependence/resilience local, county, state, and national increased or decreased dependence on resource; desire to have it decrease? Increase or decrease in community capacity; increase in education, infrastructure, economic development. 4. standard of living per capita income quality of life (world health org.) economic opportunity 5. environmental justice equity issue - are certain groups (poor people) more likely to pay the costs of mineral/energy extraction while others reap the benefits? 6. air and water quality see page 19 in Ted’s book also ground water loss or gain 7. healthy landscapes 8. biodiversity ecological systems view and taxonomic view 9. social justice human rights issues access to employment treatment of workers treatment of groups relative distribution of wealth power 10. exploration, R&D wi/ U.S. seems to be decrease in exploration activity - why? document since has implications for provisions of energy and minerals from U.S. in the future lag time from exploration to utilization; permitting time 11. other technological R&D meant to include diverse domains of tech from extraction to use and substitution modifiers of demand for minerals and energy; efficiency improvements and redesign reclamation of closed mines 12. import dependency relative provision of materials from here and those we gain from elsewhere combine with consumption? Strategic 13. wilderness and roadless areas effects of energy and mineral activities on extent of roadless and wilderness areas appeal of these areas to American people; don’t want to see amount of area decline relationship of human health and wild
areas degree to which geologic features are part of our natural heritage (caves, mountaintops, hot springs etc.) development in geologically unstable areas percentage of built environment on unstable ground; relation to social and economic sustainability amount of resource lost to other activities [part of cultural heritage] 15. recycling/reuse/remanufacturing degree of closed circuits on the mine site 16. property rights security of tenure access fragmentation of resources rights to water effects of government activities on nonfederal lands obtaining property rights on public land 17. environmental impacts associated with minerals and energy generation of toxic and hazardous wastes definition of hazardous wastes site stability and sustainability 18. social impacts activities associated with energy and mineral systems as part of cultural heritage 19. legal and regulatory framework continuity of legal frameworks that we operate under; retroactive legislation tough to plan for degree to which the existing legal regulatory institutional framework supports/facilitates sustainable development related to energy/mineral systems Priority Areas for Indicator Work: 1A. Capacity – commodity production capacity including the entire life cycle 2A. Capacity- forest vs. minerals; extraction issues; substitution and changes over time 3A. Efficiency issues – goes to how wisely resources are used, conserved for future generations; waste and environmental impacts; may resonate w/ stakeholders; benchmarking area 1B. Social, Economic, Cultural Effects 2B. Environmental – air, land, and
water 2C. Social, Economic, Cultural 3C. Changes to Endowments – env., human capital, built physical endowments. Overarching issue that would address additions and detractions 1D. Regulatory Effects Capacity *Two indicators linking B1 and B2 and showing trends over time 1. Annual consumption, by weight, of
1)forest materials (wood products, etc.) and 2)mineral materials
("mineral materials" here includes all minerals: energy fuel
and non-fuel minerals; hardrock minerals; industrial minerals, stone,
aggregate, cement, etc.). 2. Percentage of annual consumption supplied from 1) forestry materials vs. 2) mineral materials. Environment Extraction 1. Acres of land in current mineral and extraction use acres reclaimed acres not reclaimed 2. Measure of historical, e.g., abandoned
mine sites 3. Operators in compliance with
environmental portion of approved operational plan (can we get this
data?) Processing 1. Oil refineries, smelters, and mills by
facility – air, land, water quality and emission indicators miles of streams impacted air emissions b. land contamination (?) c. violation rates on permits Use/Consumption 1. Recycle measures 2. Conservation of Energy – measure 3. Renewable vs. nonrenewable use 4. Cross-sector impacts, e.g., substitution of minerals for wood and minerals for renewable resources (photovoltaics) 5. Efficient resource use – process design, green chemicals, etc. 6. Self-regulate/Beyond Compliance – save money and help environment 7. Measure ambient levels of minerals and energy by-products – people and environment (including biota) Extraction, Processing, and Use Funding of R&D on environmentally friendly/sustainable practices Funding of technological transfer on environmentally friendly/sustainable practices Productive Capacity Resources (subheadings will be harmonized) 1. Identified resources (metal and nonmetal minerals, including sand and gravel) 2. Recovereable oil and gas and resources (will be expanded to include other resources) (geothermal needs to be captured someplace else) 3. USGS term for coal resources 4. Probability of Resource Depletion (how
about substitution?) Exploration Capacity 1. Access to promising areas (restrictions on explorations) (Percent of land by ownership type that is open for exploration by mineral type; potential) does this include resources conserved for future generations? 2. Maximum rate of exploration with current capacity 3. Finding rate per unit of exploration activity 4. Expenditures in U.S. (include cost per unit found) Production Capacity 1. At maximum use of current capital 2. Idle Capacity 3. Average yield (efficiency) Processing Capacity 1. Virgin materials 2. Recycled materials 3. Average Yield (efficiency) (out of the ground or out of the ore) 4. Energy per unit production (efficiency)
Use Capacity - Domestic 1. Manufacturing (how far downstream?) 2. Remanufacturing 3. The whole recycling loop 4. In place stocks 5. Import/Export (import dependence) Social, Economic, Cultural 1. County-level 2. Impact of mineral on the social, economic system and whether the impact was contributing to sustainability or whether it was a boom and bust cycle. Data could be aggregated for jurisdictions as a whole. 3. economic dependency 4. economic diversity 5. industry generated jobs, incomes, tax revenues (number and percent) 6. multipliers (direct and induced impacts of the industry on the economy) 7. percent of (population living in) counties that exceed some yet to be determined cut-off point – indicators of impacts mentioned above (health, crime, education, wealth distribution, civic institutions) *smaller unit of analysis, more overflow of effects across boundaries *communities should be able to choose their own indicators to measure their level of sustainability? Sustainable vs. resilient?? *use neutral terminology Distributional 1. Amount of rent generated 2. Distribution of rents owners/shareholders/community 3. wealth dissipation Situations such as northslope operations where salaries go to communities all over the SE; no single community can be identified. Somehow capturing and reporting the amount of economic activity (construction, manufacturing) that is material input dependent. What percent of GDP is generated by industrial sectors that are dependent upon use of raw materials. If flow of raw materials is interrupted, industries may relocate. |