Examples of Issues or Issue Categories that We Want Indicators to Address:

Examples of Issues or Issue Categories

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? Public access to products

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

working conditions

 

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?

*Needs more neutral language*

6. air and water quality

see page 19 in Ted's book

also ground water loss or gain

make sure we include 1)use of minerals in air water pollution control equipment, 2) technologies employed to reduce impacts of mining and energy processes, and 3) how much water is recycled throughout mining and energy processes.

Land exchanges to protect sensitive areas (#4, #8, #16) or other environmental, social, cultural, economic values
  1. healthy landscapes????

This term needs to have a practical and detailed definition

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

measurement?

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

fed policies affecting mining and energy related technology

R&D investments

Add reclamation of closed and/or abandoned mines as indicator of investment in sector

Education of workers currently employed

Education of new employees entering workforce

General education on sustainability

Tech transfer

Productivity and integration

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

Include the impacts upon resource development of roadless designation.

Consequences of roadless designations for sustainability need to be acknowledged.

14. geogenic issues

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

expand beyond just mining

amount of material recycled, reused, remanufactured over whole material cycle

Institutional barriers to reuse, recycling, and remanufacturing

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
  1. Certification/ISO/ Best Practices
    Comparison w/ current regulatory program
    Barriers to self-regulation
  2. Find a way to measure the relationship between sustainability and the way we as a society utilize resources.

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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

recognition/measure of reality that some lands now being mined will later be forests or rangelands; also replace vs. with and

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
3B. Distributional Issues – jobs, income, equity, cultural impacts
1C. Environmental Issues

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

include acres planned for reclamation

how many aims are there? How many have been cleaned up, or safeguarded?

2. Measure of historical, e.g., abandoned mine sites

  1. Operators in compliance with environmental portion of approved operational plan (can we get this data?) how do we define and measure this?

Processing

1. Oil refineries, smelters, and mills by facility – air, land, water quality and emission indicators
a. ambient:

miles of streams impacted (define impacted)neutralize this indicator

air emissions (emissions are not necessarily bad)

b. land contamination (?)what contamination?

    1. violation rates on permits add superfund sites

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)

8. measure of consumption as percent of end-used products that have high chance of being recycled.

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)mineral endowment?

    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

  2. Probability of Resource Depletion (how about substitution?)
    substitutability of commodity

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)
4. (Cost of production per unit)

5. lag time to new capacity

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)
  5. Resource abandonment

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.

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