×

An integrated framework for prioritizing sustainability indicators for the mining sector with a multicriteria decision-making technique. (English) Zbl 1505.90068

Summary: Sustainable development challenges are nowhere more relevant than in the natural resource sectors, most importantly coal mining, due to environmental and societal challenges, which are a known fact. A plethora of frameworks and indicators for assessing sustainable development are available in the literature. The GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) is one such instrument that is predominantly adopted by various sectors. However, the large number of GRI indicators often draws concern about the accuracy of measurements and management of the variables. The present study aims to prioritize the 78 GRI indicators for the mining sector on four attributes – practicality, relevance, reliability, and importance – to enhance the accuracy of measurements. A survey-based methodology in line with the Delphi method and the multicriteria decision-making methods (MCDM) TOPSIS, MOORA, and SAW combined with criteria weight calculation by the entropy method is applied to rank the GRI indicators. The study enables the prioritization of 78 indicators into 20 indicators based on stakeholder perception using a perceptual map and ranks them through the application of MCDM. Second, the larger Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient of TOPSIS with MOORA and SAW shows better agreement between these three MCDM methods. The study demonstrates the usefulness of the MCDM methods either individually or in combination as a tool to support the decision-making process for prioritizing the indicators, assessing sustainability at coal mine sites, and benchmarking between adjacent mine sites.

MSC:

90B50 Management decision making, including multiple objectives
PDFBibTeX XMLCite
Full Text: DOI

References:

[1] Bridge, G., Contested terrain: mining and the environment, Annu Rev Environ Resour, 29, 205-259 (2004) · doi:10.1146/annurev.energy.28.011503.163434
[2] Younger, PL, Environmental impacts of coal mining and associated wastes: a geochemical perspective, Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 236, 1, 169-209 (2004) · doi:10.1144/GSL.SP.2004.236.01.12
[3] Saini V (2018). Impact of coal mining and mine fires on the local environment in Jharia coalfield, Jharkhand. LIII. 18-22
[4] Timofeeva SS, Murzin MA (2019) Man-made risks of coal mining enterprises. In IOP Conference series: earth and environmental science 229(1):012028. IOP Publishing
[5] Zhengfu, BIAN; Inyang, HI; Daniels, JL; Frank, OTTO; Struthers, S., Environmental issues from coal mining and their solutions, Mining Science and Technology (China), 20, 2, 215-223 (2010) · doi:10.1016/S1674-5264(09)60187-3
[6] Zhao, L.; Ren, T.; Wang, N., Groundwater impact of open cut coal mine and an assessment methodology: a case study in NSW, Int J Min Sci Technol, 27, 5, 861-866 (2017) · doi:10.1016/j.ijmst.2017.07.008
[7] Aneja, VP; Isherwood, A.; Morgan, P., Characterization of particulate matter (PM10) related to surface coal mining operations in Appalachia, Atmos Environ, 54, 496-501 (2012) · doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2012.02.063
[8] Jena, S.; Perwez, A.; Singh, G.; Kumar Dubey, A., Investigation of impacts of mining and transportation activities on ambient air quality of Dhanbad City, Current World Environment, 10, 3, 1022 (2015) · doi:10.12944/CWE.10.3.35
[9] Roy D, Singh G (2014) Chemical characterization and particulate distribution of PM10 and PM2. 5 at critically polluted area of Dhanbad/Jharia coalfield. Int J Eng Res Appl 4(3)
[10] Roy, D.; Singh, G.; Yadav, P., Identification and elucidation of anthropogenic source contribution in PM10 pollutant: insight gain from dispersion and receptor models, J Environ Sci, 48, 69-78 (2016) · doi:10.1016/j.jes.2015.11.037
[11] Nayak T, Chowdhury IR (2018) Health damages from air pollution: evidence from opencast coal mining region of Odisha, India. Ecology, Economy and Society-the INSEE Journal 1(1):43-65
[12] Jenkins, WD; Christian, WJ; Mueller, G.; Robbins, KT, Population cancer risks associated with coal mining: a systematic review, PLoS ONE, 8, 8 (2013) · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0071312
[13] Hendryx, M., Mortality from heart, respiratory, and kidney disease in coal mining areas of Appalachia, Int Arch Occup Environ Health, 82, 243-249 (2009) · doi:10.1007/s00420-008-0328
[14] Werner, AK; Watt, K.; Cameron, C.; Vink, S.; Page, A.; Jagals, P., Examination of child and adolescent hospital admission rates in Queensland, Australia, 1995-2011: a comparison of coal seam gas, coal mining, and rural areas, Matern Child Health J, 22, 9, 1306-1318 (2018) · doi:10.1007/s10995-018-2511-4
[15] Kholod, N.; Evans, M.; Pilcher, RC; Roshchanka, V.; Ruiz, F.; Coté, M.; Collings, R., Global methane emissions from coal mining to continue growing even with declining coal production, J Clean Prod, 256 (2020) · doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120489
[16] Singh, PK; Singh, R.; Bhakat, D.; Singh, G., Impact of climate change in mining region—a case study, Asia Pac Bus Rev, 6, 1, 128-138 (2010) · doi:10.1177/097324701000600112
[17] Singh, AK; Kumar, J., Fugitive methane emissions from Indian coal mining and handling activities: estimates, mitigation and opportunities for its utilization to generate clean energy, Energy Procedia, 90, 336-348 (2016) · doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2016.11.201
[18] Bond, A.; Morrison-Saunders, A.; Pope, J., Sustainability assessment: the state of the art, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 30, 1, 53-62 (2012) · doi:10.1080/14615517.2012.661974
[19] Hilson, G.; Basu, AJ, Devising indicators of sustainable development for the mining and minerals industry: an analysis of critical background issues, Int J Sust Dev World, 10, 4, 319-331 (2003) · doi:10.1080/13504500309470108
[20] Ness B, Urbel-Piirsalua E, Anderbergd S, Olssona L (2007) Categorising for sustainability assessment. Ecol Econ 60(3):498-508
[21] Sala, S.; Farioli, F.; Zamagni, A., Progress in sustainability science: lessons learnt from current methodologies for sustainability assessment: Part 1, Int J Life Cycle Assess, 18, 1653-1672 (2013) · doi:10.1007/s11367-012-0508-6
[22] Štreimikienė D, Girdzijauskas S, Stoškus L (2009) Sustainability assessment methods and their application to harmonization of policies and sustainability monitoring. Environ Res Eng Manag = Aplinkos tyrimai, inžinerija ir vadyba 48(2):51-62. Kaunas, Technologija. ISSN 1392-1679
[23] Mudd G (2007) Sustainable mining – an oxymoron? Chem Eng (TCE), December 2007/January 2008, pp 27-29
[24] Peterie, T.; Cohen, B.; Stewart, M., Decision Support Frameworks and matrices for sustainable development of minerals and metals, Clean Technol Environ Policy, 9, 133-145 (2007) · doi:10.1007/s10098-006-0074-3
[25] Lozano, R.; Lukman, R.; Lozano, FJ; Huisingh, D.; Lambrechts, W., Declarations for sustainability in higher education: becoming better leaders, through addressing the university system, J Clean Prod, 48, 10-19 (2013) · doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2011.10.006
[26] Lozano, R., (2018) Proposing a definition and a framework of organisational sustainability: a review of efforts and a survey of approaches to change, Sustainability, 10, 4, 1157 (2018) · doi:10.3390/su10041157
[27] Böhling, K.; Murguía, DI; Godfrid, J., (2019) Sustainability reporting in the mining sector: exploring its symbolic nature, Bus Soc, 58, 1, 191-225 (2019) · doi:10.1177/0007650317703658
[28] Fonseca, A.; McAllister, ML; Fitzpatrick, P., Sustainability reporting among mining corporations: a constructive critique of the GRI approach, J Clean Prod, 84, 70-83 (2014) · doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.11.050
[29] Jenkins, H.; Yakovleva, N., Corporate social responsibility in mining industry: exploring trends in social and environmental disclosure, J Clean Prod, 14, 271-284 (2006) · doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2004.10.004
[30] Que S, Wang L, Awuah-Offei K, Chen Y, Yang W (2018) The status of the local community in mining sustainable development beyond the triple bottom line. Sustainability 10:1749. doi:10.3390/su10061749
[31] Boiral, O., Sustainability reports as simulacra? A counter-account of A and A+ GRI reports, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 26, 1036-1071 (2013) · doi:10.1108/AAAJ-04-2012-00998
[32] Boiral, O.; Henri, J-F, Is sustainability performance comparable? A study of GRI reports of mining organizations, Bus Soc, 56, 2, 283-317 (2017) · doi:10.1177/0007650315576134
[33] Yu, CC; Quinn, JT; Dufournaud, CM; Harrington, JJ; Roger, PP; Lohani, BN, Effective dimensionality of environmental Indicators: a principal component analysis with bootstrap confidence intervals, J Environ Manag, 53, 1, 101-119 (1998) · doi:10.1006/jema.1998.0184
[34] Falck, WE; Spangeberg, JH, Selection of social demand-based indicators:EO-basedindicators for mining.J, Clean Prod, 84, 193-203 (2014) · doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.02.021
[35] Dahl, AL, Achievements and gaps in indicators for sustainability, Ecol Indic, 17, 14-19 (2012) · doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.04.032
[36] Sitorus, F.; Cilliers, JJ; Brito-Parada, PR, Multi-criteria decision making for the choice problem in mining and mineral processing: applications and trends, Expert Syst Appl, 121, 393-417 (2019) · doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2018.12.001
[37] Turoff M, Linstone H (2002) The Delphi method-techniques and application · Zbl 0347.62081
[38] Ogbeifun E, Agwa-Ejon J, Mbohwa C, Pretorius JHC (2016) The Delphi technique: a credible research methodology. Proceedings of the 2016 international conference on industrial engineering and operations management. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, March 8-10, 2016
[39] Feng SC, Joung CB (2009) An overview of a proposed measurement infrastructure for sustainable manufacturing. In Proceedings of the 7th global conference on sustainable manufacturing. Chennai, India (Vol. 355, p. 360)
[40] Popovic, T.; Kraslawski, A.; Barbosa-Póvoa, A.; Carvalho, A., Quantitative indicators for social sustainability assessment of society and product responsibility aspects in supply chains, Journal of International Studies, 10, 4, 9-36 (2017) · doi:10.14254/2071-8330.2017/10-4/1
[41] Wang J, Zionts S (2015) Using ordinal data to estimate cardinal values.J Multi-Criteria Decis Anal 22(3-4):185-196. Published online 4 Jul 2014 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). doi:10.1002/mcda.1528
[42] Majumdar, BB; Dissanayake, D.; Rajput, AS; Saw, YQ; Sahu, PK, Prioritizing metro service quality attributes to enhance commuter experience: TOPSIS ranking and importance satisfaction analysis methods, Transp Res Rec, 2674, 6, 124-139 (2020) · doi:10.1177/0361198120917972
[43] Shirouyehzad H, Dabestani R (2011) evaluating projects based on safety criteria; using TOPSIS. In 2011 2nd International conference on construction and project management IPEDR 15:69-73
[44] Dehdasht, G.; Ferwati, MS; Zin, RM; Abidin, NZ, A hybrid approach using entropy and TOPSIS to select key drivers for a successful and sustainable lean construction implementation, PLoS ONE, 15, 2 (2020) · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0228746
[45] Sinha, S.; Sadhukhan, S.; Priye, S., The role of quality assessment for development of sustainable bus service in mid-sized cities of India: a case study of Patna, Procedia engineering, 198, 926-934 (2017) · doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2017.07.138
[46] Tourani, S.; Hassani, M.; Ayoubian, A.; Habibi, M.; Zaboli, R., Analyzing and prioritizing the dimensions of patient safety culture in emergency wards using the TOPSIS technique, Global J Health Sci, 7, 4, 143 (2015) · doi:10.5539/gjhs.v7n4p143
[47] Asnaashari E, Doulabi RZ, Dadkhah N, Saghafi N, Ghanbariha L (2021) Identifying and ranking the occupational stressors and developing a TOPSIS framework for project managers in Iran to cope with occupational stress. In: Scott, L and Neilson, C J (Eds) Proceedings of the 37th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-7 September 2021, UK. Association of Researchers in Construction Management, 199-208
[48] Azimi H (2017) Ranking the effect of services marketing mix elements on the loyalty of customers
[49] Hosseini, SM; Bahadori, M.; Raadabadi, M.; Ravangard, R., Ranking hospitals based on the disasters preparedness using the TOPSIS technique in western Iran, Hosp Top, 97, 1, 23-31 (2019) · doi:10.1080/00185868.2018.1556571
[50] Elyazgi M, Nilashi M, Ibrahim O, Rayhan A, Elyazgi S (2016) Evaluating the factors influencing e-book technology acceptance among school children using TOPSIS technique. Journal of Soft Computing and Decision Support Systems 3(2)
[51] Nanayakkara, C.; Yeoh, W.; Lee, A.; Moayedikia, A., Deciding discipline, course and university through TOPSIS, Stud High Educ, 45, 12, 2497-2512 (2020) · doi:10.1080/03075079.2019.1616171
[52] Ahmadi, H.; Salahshour, M.; Nilashi, M.; Ibrahim, O.; Almaee, A., Ranking the mirco level critical factors of electronic medical records adoption using TOPSIS method, Health Informatics-An International Journal, 4, 19-32 (2013) · doi:10.5121/hiij.2013.2402
[53] Stojčić, M.; Zavadskas, EK; Pamučar, D.; Stević, Ž.; Mardani, A., Application of MCDM methods in sustainability engineering: a literature review 2008-2018, Symmetry, 11, 3, 350 (2019) · doi:10.3390/sym11030350
[54] Caylor JP, Hanratty TP (2020) Survey of multi criteria decision making methods for complex environments. CCDC Army Research Laboratory
[55] Behzadian M, Khanmohammadi Otaghsaea S, Yazdani M, Ignatius J (2012) A state-of the-art survey of TOPSIS applications, expert systems with applications. Expert Systems with Applications 39(1):13051-13069. (Elsevier)
[56] Ebrahim, KS; Omid, AN; Nasser, T., Application of TOPSIS method in evaluation and prioritization of social stability in rural areas (Case study: Zidasht Basin), J Appl Sci Environ Manag, 21, 1, 49-56 (2017)
[57] Serrai, W.; Abdelli, A.; Mokdad, L.; Hammal, Y., Towards an efficient and a more accurate web service selection using MCDM methods, Journal of computational science, 22, 253-267 (2017) · doi:10.1016/j.jocs.2017.05.024
[58] Hussain SAI, Mandal UK (2016) Entropy based MCDM approach for Selection of material. In National Level Conference on Engineering Problems and Application of Mathematics (pp. 1-6)
[59] Moradian, M.; Modanloo, V.; Aghaiee, S., Comparative analysis of multi criteria decision making techniques for material selection of brake booster valve body, Journal of Traffic and Transportation Engineering (English Edition), 6, 5, 526-534 (2019) · doi:10.1016/j.jtte.2018.02.001
[60] Vujičić, MD; Papić, MZ; Blagojević, MD, Comparative analysis of objective techniques for criteria weighing in two MCDM methods on example of an air conditioner selection, Tehnika, 72, 3, 422-429 (2017) · doi:10.5937/tehnika1703422V
[61] Sarraf, AZ; Mohaghar, A.; Bazargani, H., Developing TOPSIS method using statistical normalization for selecting knowledge management strategies, Journal of industrial engineering and management, 6, 4, 860-875 (2013)
[62] Odu, GO, Weighting methods for multi-criteria decision-making technique, J Appl Sci Environ Manag, 23, 8, 1449-1457 (2019)
[63] Karmaker, CL; Ahmed, SMT; Rahman, MS; Tahiduzzaman, M.; Biswas, TK; Rahman, M.; Biswas, SK, A framework of faculty performance evaluation: a case study in Bangladesh, International Journal of Research in Advanced Engineering and Technology, 4, 3, 18-24 (2018)
[64] Pamučar, DS; Božanić, D.; Ranđelović, A., Multi-criteria decision making: an example of sensitivity analysis, Serbian journal of management, 12, 1, 1-27 (2017) · doi:10.5937/sjm12-9464
[65] Cakir S, Hecht R, Krellenberg K (2021) Sensitivity analysis in multi-criteria evaluation of the suitability of urban green spaces for recreational activities. AGILE: GIScience Series 2:1-8
[66] Janoušková S, Hák TB (2018) Global SDGs assessments: helping or confusing indicators? Sustainability 10:1540. doi:10.3390/su10051540
[67] Aires, RFDF; Ferreira, L., The rank reversal problem in multi-criteria decision making: a literature review, Pesquisa Operacional, 38, 331-362 (2018) · doi:10.1590/0101-7438.2018.038.02.0331
This reference list is based on information provided by the publisher or from digital mathematics libraries. Its items are heuristically matched to zbMATH identifiers and may contain data conversion errors. In some cases that data have been complemented/enhanced by data from zbMATH Open. This attempts to reflect the references listed in the original paper as accurately as possible without claiming completeness or a perfect matching.