Metrics

Established assessments focusing on the resource recovery are based on aspects from either a few or even a single domain (i.e. environmental, economic, social and technical) of value. This partial approach often delivers misleading messages for policy and decision-makers, failing to cut through the systemic complexity, and obscuring as such the hidden impacts, trade-offs and problem shifting that some resource recovery processes or systems may cause.

To address challenges arising from such partial approaches, CVORR looks at how materials flow though the systems and how their ‘complex value’ changes across the whole resource recovery system. Within such a novel methodology selection of appropriate metrics that describe the benefits and losses is critical in ensuring an effective and transparent analysis of resource flows, and the values associated with their environmental, economic, social and technical aspects. Therefore, CVORR has critically reviewed the wide array of existing metrics used in environmental, economic, social and technical assessment. It provides an analytical approach as to how existing metrics are able to support systems analysis and decision making for promoting the efficient recovery of resources.

The wide range of existing metrics illustrates the complexity of resource recovery systems and the need to simplify the process of assessing and evaluating resource recovery systems.  Therefore, the development of comprehensive, easy to use metrics forms an important element of the CVORR project's approach.