Academic literature on the topic 'Sustainability Metrics and Key Performance Indicator(KPIs)'

Today, sustainability represents a fundamental concept to be developed and implemented in any industrial context. Therefore, it is essential to be able to measure sustainability performance by proper indicators, along the entire lifecycle and the value chain, considering environmental, economic, and social impacts. Moreover, every manufacturing company should have a specific measuring framework to calculate all the specific parameters. In this direction, the modern digital transition and Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies are proposing to transform human–machine relations, with a significant impact on social and organizational aspects. At the same time, digitization can help companies to define and implement sustainability by correlating production with proper evaluation metrics. The aim of this research is to provide a complete overview of sustainability Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on the Triple Bottom Line concept, referring to the three sustainability areas. Such an overview can be used by companies to set their specific KPIs and metrics to measure their sustainability level, according to their needs.

Dry ports have the potential to enhance the sustainability of transport systems, yet their introduction requires major changes to the current logistics chain. Further, emphasising sustainability goals and continued employee engagement can be a challenge when developing or implementing organisational change management programs in dry ports. Key considerations include governmental requirements and compliance, investor expectations, as well as employee engagement; these factors may be conflicting. The top-down management approach supported by strong leadership, participative approaches and constant communication assists in achieving successful change management. Sound selection of key performance indicators (KPIs) provides a set of metrics to track and aid the change process. They serve as a unifying link between top managements’ sustainability goals and employees’ engagement. The initial findings of our research confirm that both port and terminal operators have a gap in their understanding of the importance of sustainability goals and environmental goals. This will have a flow-on effect of port and terminal operators not driving the right messages to their staff in their organisational change management programs. Based on a critical literature review, it has been established what might qualify as good sustainability KPIs for dry ports. An example of a dry port at the Port of Somerton has been included. As every dry port has different requirements and constraints, it is important to develop KPIs together with stakeholders.

Institutions in higher education (HE) continuously strive to develop and deliver impactful educational programs. At the same time, they should continue to fulfill their mission to educate students in basic applied subjects and in parallel respond to the need to equip students with new skills. For this reason, higher education institutions (HEI) perform periodical curricular reviews adhering to internal and external quality assurance systems. The subsequent curricular reforms are of a transformative nature, preparing graduates to tackle the challenges of globalization, unemployment and vanishing professions. For these reforms to lead to sustainable curricula, the integration of quality into educational programs is instrumental. A suggested way of achieving a transformative stance is to provide the context for the application and diffusion of quality metrics in teaching and learning. This research intends to provide a discussion of key performance indicators (KPIs) related to quality. This paper presents the second round of qualitative interviews with higher education administrators and professors as a promising vehicle for advancing towards the formulation of KPIs based on their understanding of the different independent dimensions of the quality construct. These KPIs will provide valuable insights into improving teaching, learning and assessment and will eventually lead to sustainable curricula. Research findings outline the significance of the time invested to design and update a course, indicate that technology-enhanced learning solutions are perceived as key quality drivers, and point out the need to align courses with industry requirements and real-world problems. Additionally, findings indicate that the quality and impact of teaching and learning is promoted by the multi/inter-disciplinary character of a course, the engagement of students in interactive discussions and student research as part of summative assessment. The main contribution of this research is an analytic discussion of perceptions of higher education administrators and professors about quality, leading to a significant enrichment of the relevant literature. A set of innovative generic KPIs which can be used in multidimensional quality assessment in higher education is eventually proposed.

Nowadays, organizations are trying to have, not only a competitive advantage in the market, but also in sustainable development. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process of measuring organizations’ sustainability using process-oriented indicators. The research seeks to address the following research question: How are process-oriented indicators linked to an organization’s strategy in the context of sustainable development? This research is based on reviewing the literature on organizational performance analysis in the context of sustainable development. The literature review highlights the main elements of organizational performance analysis and linkages to the overall business strategy. There are many ways of how to conduct an in depth assessment of an organization’s performance regarding sustainability. The research shows the elements that are integrated in the process and the organization’s performance analysis. These elements are—objectives, metrics, data measures, indicators and key performance indicators (KPIs). The research shows that growing organizations with a strategic focus on sustainability integrate these elements in the process analysis.

Occupant behavior can significantly influence the operation and performance of buildings. Many occupant-centric key performance indicators (KPIs) rely on having accurate counts of the number of occupants in a building, which is very different to how occupancy information is currently collected in the majority of buildings today. To address this gap, the authors develop a standardized methodology for the calculation of percent space utilization for buildings, which is formulated with respect to two prevalent operational data schemas: the Brick Schema and Project Haystack. The methodology is scalable across different levels of spatial granularity and irrespective of sensor placement. Moreover, the methods are intended to make use of typical occupancy sensors that capture presence level occupancy and not counts of people. Since occupant-hours is a preferable metric to use in KPI calculations, a method to convert between percent space utilization and occupant-hours using the design occupancy for a space is also developed. The methodology is demonstrated on a small commercial office space in Boulder, Colorado using data collected between June 2018 and February 2019. A multiple linear regression is performed that shows strong evidence for a relationship between building energy consumption and percent space utilization.

Agricultural production systems have been identified as significant sources of anthropogenic impacts across several environmental key performance indicators (KPIs). Livestock husbandry is growing in global importance as the demand for high-quality protein continues to increase. It is therefore imperative to have sustainable intensification technologies, and we describe one such technology. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of Enogen® corn grain compared to conventional feed corn when used as an ingredient in backgrounding and feed yard beef rations using life cycle assessment. The project was conducted in compliance with ISO standards, including a third-party panel review. A series of scenarios were analyzed to evaluate the impacts of boundaries and functional units on the outcomes. The use of Enogen corn as a feed component in beef production showed a quantifiable benefit in terms of the sustainability metrics of primary interest in this study. The gate-to-gate improvements at the feed yard and backgrounding based on full field trial datasets from field trials conducted at Kansas State University and at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln showed 3.4 and 5.8 percent reductions in Global Warming Potential, respectively. It is particularly noteworthy that the improvement in feed conversion ratio at the feed yard results in approximately 6 percent improvement in the four key environmental performance metrics of beef production, which demonstrates potential for the sector to meet its sustainability targets.

Purpose This study aims to evaluate corporate sustainability integration by evaluating corporate practices against the sustainability principles of inclusivity, materiality, responsiveness and impact outlined in AccountAbility’s AA1000 Accountability Principles (AA1000AP) standard. Design/methodology/approach Data comprise 12 semi-structured interviews with senior managers of listed New Zealand companies. Findings are evaluated against AccountAbility’s principles of inclusivity, materiality, responsiveness and impact, which are based on a normative view of stakeholder theory. Findings In terms of inclusivity, stakeholder engagement is primarily monologic and is directed more towards traditional stakeholder groups. However, social media, which is gaining popularity, has the potential to facilitate greater dialogic stakeholder engagement. While most companies undertake a materiality assessment (with varying degrees of rigour) to support sustainability reporting, only some use it to drive planning and decision-making. Companies demonstrate responsiveness to stakeholder concerns through corporate governance and sustainability initiatives. Companies are monitoring and measuring their impact on stakeholders using sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs). However, measuring traditional metrics is easier than measuring areas such as the community. In rare instances, the executive’s remuneration is linked to these sustainability KPIs. Practical implications The study findings offer useful examples of the integration of sustainability into corporate processes and systems. Practitioners may find the insights useful in understanding how sustainability is currently being integrated into corporate practices by best practice New Zealand companies. Regulators may consider incorporating AA1000AP into their corporate governance guidelines. Finally, academics may find the study useful for teaching business and accounting courses and to guide the next generation of business managers. Originality/value First, the study brings together four streams of research on how sustainability reports are prepared (inclusivity, materiality, responsiveness and impact) in a single study. Second, the findings offer novel insights by evaluating corporate sustainability against the requirements of a standard that has received little academic attention.

We report on a novel evaluation framework to globally assess the footprint of smart cities and communities (SCC) projects, being also expandable to the case of smart grid related projects. The uniform smart city evaluation (USE) framework is constructed upon three complementary evaluation axes: the first one aims to weigh up the success of a SCC project based on performance metrics against pre-defined project-specific target values. The second axis focuses on the project’s impact towards the sustainability of a city and it is bench-marked against national and international key objectives arising from strategic plans. This bench-marking feeds the third axis which provides a more inclusive evaluation against four pre-defined and widely acclaimed sectors of interest. The steps to be followed for the uniform evaluation of each axis and corresponding index are presented in detail, including necessary key performance indicator (KPI) normalization, weighting, and aggregation methods. The resulting indices’ scores for each axis (namely project performance index, sustainability impact index, and sustainability performance index) can be post-processed with adequate data processing and visualization tools to extract important information on the extent to which the range of success of a SCC project contributes to the city sustainability progress. Illustrative examples from an on-going SCC project are provided to highlight the strengths of the approach. The proposed framework can be used to compare multiple projects within a city and sustainability and project performance in different cities, evaluate the interventions chosen per project against city needs, benchmark and design future projects (with, e.g., reverse engineering, projections), as well as evaluate various spatial and temporal scales.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is undergoing a major transformation in response to a revolutionary vision of 2030, given that healthcare reform is one of the top priorities. With the objective of improving healthcare and allied professional performance in the Kingdom to meet the international standards, the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties (SCFHS) has recently developed a strategic plan that focuses on expanding training programs’ capacity to align with the increasing demand for the country’s healthcare workforce, providing comprehensive quality assurance and control to ensure training programs uphold high quality standards, and providing advanced training programs benchmarked against international standards. In this research paper, we describe our attempt for developing a general framework for key performance indicators (KPIs) and the related metrics, with the aim of contributing to developing new strategies for better medical training compatible with the future. We present the results of a survey conducted in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), for the enhancement of quality of postgraduate medical training. The recent developments in the field of learning analytics present an opportunity for utilizing big data and artificial intelligence in the design and implementation of socio-technical systems with significant potential social impact. We summarize the key aspects of the Training Quality Assurance Initiative and suggest a new approach for designing a new data and services ecosystem for personalized health professionals training in the KSA. The study also contributes to the theoretical knowledge on the integration of sustainability and medical training and education by proposing a framework that can enhance future initiatives from various health organizations.

Sustainability performance can be said to be an ability of an organization to remain productive over time and hold on to its potential for maintaining long-term profitability. Since the brewery sector is one of the most important and leading markets in the foodstuff industry of the Czech Republic, this study depicts the Czech breweries’ formal entry into sustainability reporting and performance. The purpose of this paper is to provide an efficiency level evaluation which would represent the level of corporate performance of Czech breweries. For this reason, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is introduced. In order to apply it, we utilize a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) based on two international standard frameworks: the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and its GRI 4 guidelines, and the guideline KPIs for ESG 3.0, which was published by the DVFA Society. Four sustainability dimensions (economic, environmental, social and governance) are covered, making it thus possible to adequately evaluate sustainability performance in Czech breweries. The main output is not only the efficiency score of the company but also the input weights. These weights are used to determine the contribution of particular criteria to the breweries’ achieved score. According to the achieved efficiency results for Czech breweries, the percentage of women supervising the company does not affect the sustainability performance.

Food is one of the strongest influences affecting both human health and the environment. The food sector is responsible for a substantial share of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, and the demand for more sustainable diets has, therefore, increased. The individual is starting to realize one's own possibility to contribute to a more sustainable society, and people are willing to change their habits to become more sustainable. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to create holistic KPIs for sustainable food systems that encourage improvement. The KPIs aim to measure and quantify sustainability from three perspectives: environmental, economic and social sustainability. The methodology used is a framework consisting of five focus areas aiming to create sustainability indicators. The purpose of the five focus areas are to establish vision, indicator framework, indicator selection, stakeholder participation and lastly communication design and strategy. 13 KPIs have been developed, focusing on electricity usage, water usage, GHG emissions, waste management, well-being and expenses. The target group, aimed to use the KPIs, consists of students living in Sweden, making the KPIs adjusted to a student’s lifestyle. The KPIs range from 0-100 %, and a final sustainability ranking is provided through a weighted average of the 13 indicators. The indicators are presented in a radar chart to increase awareness of the students' everyday habits and aim to encourage improvement to increase the sustainability ranking.

Monitoring key performance indicators (KPI) give practitioners immersive experience that is priceless when it comes to decision making and performance-enhancing in software companies. Used together with different tools that enable visualization of KPIs, users obtain big advantages that enable quick troubleshooting and detections of errors that could emerge in a product or a system. Many studies have been followed out in the field of data visualization using KPIs and digital dashboards. Still, the subject of KPIs providing valuable information to companies that are developing HR and payroll systems is relatively unexplored. The purpose of this thesis has been to investigate how essential KPIs should be visualized on a digital dashboard using a case company that focuses on developing HR and payroll systems. To investigate the phenomenon, five different interviews were conducted, and a digital dashboard was developed. The interviewees that participated in the empiric data collection were employees stationed in different teams with various authorities and experiences in the field of dashboards and KPIs. Previous works in the field of data visualization indicates that KPIs can be used and presented in various ways. When presenting KPIs on a dashboard, there are different factors that are of big influence of how successful the visualization gets. There are no complete templates on how KPIs should be visualized, however there are guidelines on how a dashboard could be shaped. Something that previous works and different interviewees in the present study agreed on was that a dashboard should consist of 4 to 8 KPIs. Too many KPIs can decrease the chance of obtaining the advantages that monitoring and visualizing KPIs on a digital dashboard can bring. Something that emerged from the study is the importance of first identify what to visualize and then implement how. Among the answers during the data collection, many interviewees found the number of users that were logged in on their products as something that would be useful to monitor. The reason for this was partly that the interviewees considered that by monitoring these numbers, it could increase the pride among the colleagues. The interviewees thought that it might boost morale among the employees if they visualized the many users of the products they are developing.
Genom att övervaka nyckeltal (KPIer) kan användare erhålla fördelar som är ovärderliga när det gäller beslutsfattande och prestandaförbättring hos mjukvaruföretag. Tillsammans med olika verktyg som möjliggör visualisering av KPIer får användare stora fördelar som gör det möjligt att snabbt upptäcka fel som kan uppstå i en produkt eller i ett system. Många studier berör ämnet datavisualisering och digitala instrumentpaneler. Trots det här är ämnet KPIer, specifikt de som ger värdefull information till företag som utvecklar HR- och lönesystem outforskat. Syftet med den här studien har varit att undersöka hur viktiga KPIer bör visualiseras på en digital instrumentpanel hos ett företag som fokuserar på att utveckla HR- och lönesystem. För att undersöka fenomenet genomfördes fem olika intervjuer. En digital instrumentpanel utvecklades även som ett komplement till att svara på forskningsfrågan utifrån tidigare forskning och de empiriska resultat som framkom under studiens gång. Informanterna som deltog i den empiriska datainsamlingen var anställda på ett fallföretag och stationerade i olika utvecklingsteam. Informanterna hade sedan tidigare olika erfarenheter av att använda instrumentpaneler och KPIer. Tidigare studier inom datavisualisering indikerar att KPIer kan användas och visualiseras på olika sätt. När KPIer presenteras på en instrumentpanel finns det olika faktorer som har stort inflytande på hur framgångsrik visualiseringen blir. Det finns inga kompletta mallar för hur KPIer ska visualiseras men det finns riktlinjer för hur en instrumentpanel kan utformas. Något som tidigare studier samt informanterna i den här studien enades om var att en instrumentpanel bör bestå av ett antal mellan fyra och åtta KPIer. Genom att använda för många KPIer så minskar chansen att få de fördelar som övervakning och visualisering av KPIer på en digital instrumentpanel kan ge. Något som den här studien belyser är vikten av att först identifiera vad som ska visualiseras för att sedan implementera hur. En av flera KPIer som ansågs värdefulla för informanterna var antalet användare som var inloggade i deras produkt. Anledningen till det här var delvis att informanterna ansåg att övervakning av användare skulle skapa ökad stolthet bland kollegorna på kontoret.

Defense budget are shrinking and human resources are becoming more critical, while operational needs of Warships increase and change in the life cycle to face new threats. To achieve the best balance between operational availability (Ao) and costs all along the life cycle, the sustainability requires a correct initial definition of the support followed by its continuous optimization, guaranteed by constant monitoring and analysis of the data coming back from the field, by a review of the reliability parameters, maintenance plan and spare parts list. The ITN (Italian Navy) started a change management initiative from beginning of 2000’ through an optimization process by analysing the return from the field data during the TGS FREMM contract, which has lasted for more than 10 years. This process consist of: ∙ An initial definition of the support: configuration management, obsolescence monitoring, maintenance plans and definition of stocks, optimized with OPUS10 tools, whose models are created starting from the logistic databases provided by the private industry; ∙ The evaluation and analysis of return from the field data: measure of the reached availability, KPIs (Key Performance Indicator) evaluation and reliability calculation, trough assessment software tools (Weibull) and recalculation software (Calypso); ∙ The optimization of support: in terms of operational availability and costs, in compliance with the operational requirements. After the FREMM experience, ITN is taking over all the activities performed so far by the private companies, for current and future shipbuilding programs (LSS, PPA and LHD). The authors will go through the process set, tested for FREMM program, will show results after more than 10 years of experience, and will cover all the activities Italian Navy is taking care by itself for new programs, mentioning as well ITN investments and available tools.

Abstract The general concept of sustainability lies in the vision that incorporates the economic, social, and environmental dimensions. The energy sector has been addressed as one of the main contributors to emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Therefore, sustainability in the oil and gas (O&G) industry is mainly associated with the advancement in environmental and social performance across the industry. Individual firms, particularly those belonging to the O&G sector, are now assessed for their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and their impact on climate change. To meet the different key performance indicators (KPIs) for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ESG, the planning, development, and operation of O&G infrastructure must be conducted in an environmentally responsible. This paper discusses how methane detection of O&G infrastructure using remote sensing technologies enables operators to detect, quantify, and minimize the emissions while gaining insights and understanding of their operations via data analytics products. The remote sensing platforms accounted are satellite and aerial operating in tandem with data analytics to support sustainability initiatives and ESG metrics. This paper presents examples of measurements at O&G sites taken with GHGSat's satellites and aircraft platforms, showing evidence of methane emissions. A discussion of each platform and how they work together is presented. In addition, this paper discusses how these data can be used to achieve sustainability goals and tools for ESG initiatives through analytical models.

The need for an open, inclusive, and neutral procedure in selecting key performance indicators (KPIs) for sustainable manufacturing has been increasing. The reason is that manufacturers seek to determine what to measure in order to improve environmental sustainability of their products and manufacturing processes. A difficulty arises in understanding and selecting specific indicators from a large number of stand-alone indicator sets available. This paper presents a procedure for individual manufacturers to select KPIs for measuring, monitoring and improving environmental aspects of manufacturing processes. The procedure is the basis for a guideline, being proposed for standardization within ASTM International. That guide can be used for (1) identifying candidate KPIs from existing sources, (2) defining new candidate KPIs, (3) selecting appropriate KPIs based on KPI criteria, and (4) composing the selected KPIs with assigned weights into a set. The paper explains how the developed procedure complements existing indicator sets and sustainability-measurement approaches at the manufacturing process level.

Abstract Performance contracts are increasingly common in the drilling industry, especially in recent years. This incentivized contract structure, established as a partnership between operator and contractor, improves both well performance and operational execution while incorporating the rig contractor as an additional stakeholder in the operational performance of the well. Many performance contract styles exist, with one common goal: if targets are met, all parties involved benefit. An increasingly common performance contract type is a tier-structure KPI (Key Performance Indicator) format. In this format, metrics in the form of KPIs are determined, and goal ranges are set in a tiered system. Prior research and data collection, requiring effort from multiple departments, is needed to determine achievable and stretch metrics. After the goals are agreed upon, field personnel, experienced rig leadership, and comprehensive technology support are determined, forming a foundation for success. Establishing an effective communication structure is crucial for continuous improvement. This is achieved by regular performance improvement meetings, occurring among field and office personnel, for both the rig contractor and operator. Here, relevant performance data is shared regarding both successes and failures, with improvements needed for future wells are captured and implemented. In this instance, a four-tiered incentivized structure with KPIs measuring cycle time ft/day, connection times, tripping speeds and skid times were used. Over time, the performance contract structure benefits the operator/contractor relationship, with greater alignment on goals and responsibilities. A constant line of communication allows for frequent brainstorming and an eagerness to trial new methods, leading to a unique opportunity to demonstrate value with near-immediate results. Certain contractor technologies are at the operator's disposal as they benefit the well program, creating more openness to technologies not initially considered. Performance contracts allow for the continuous questioning of, "does this help us achieve our overall goal?" The constant focus on continuous improvement leads to performance benchmarks continually reviewed and fine-tuned with new data. There is no true "one size fits all" solution - despite everyone's best efforts, performance contracts don't all succeed at well release. Both the operator and contractor must continually be prepared to fail fast, identify improvement opportunities, make changes, and work together. However, all performance contracts ultimately play a part in innovative spirit while implementing fundamental changes in an evolving drilling industry and energy landscape. Over the course of deployment, this contract structure led to increased and more consistent performance compared to the unincentivized rigs. Overall, the rig experienced an 8.2% increase in average feet drilled per day compared to the operator's prior year benchmark. 42% of wells fell within the half-standard deviation boundaries of the mean ft/day, a highly consistent zone. Additionally, the rig drilled two record-breaking wells in different target formations. We will explore how and why the performance contract structure can yield consistent delivery of high-performance wells.