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Welcome to the Sustainability Performance Measures Userâs Guide 1 Chapter 1 Welcome to the Sustainability Performance Measures Userâs Guide ABOUT THIS GUIDE Many transportation agencies are recognizing the importance of sustainabilityâin terms of concern for the environment, community health and vitality, and economic development, now and into the future. However, these agencies often struggle to apply sustainability in their core activities. This guidebook provides a flexible framework through which transportation agencies can apply the concepts of sustainability through performance measurement. NCHRP Project 8-74, âSustainability Performance Measures for State DOTs and Other Transportation Agencies,â includes this guidebook, the enclosed CD-ROM, and a research report. The research report forms the basis for the research approach and is available at the NCHRP Project 8-74 website. The research report offers ⢠Background on sustainability definitions and issues, ⢠Theory on how to apply sustainability, ⢠Performance measurement for sustainability, and ⢠Detailed references and resource material. The guidebook will help you, your partners who are familiar with how sustainability applies to your work and are ready to design performance measures, and other transportation professionals: ⢠Establish and use sustainability performance measures to evaluate your programs and Many transportation agencies are recognizing the importance of sustainabilityâin terms of concern for the environment, community health and vitality, and economic development, now and into the future.
2 A Guidebook for Sustainability Performance Measurement for Transportation Agencies ⢠Gauge the effectiveness of these strategies in implementing sustainability. HOW IS IT ORGANIZED? Every transportation agency brings different resources, goals, and challenges to incorporating sustainability. This guidebook allows you to quickly find the information and resources you need to implement and evaluate sustainability. Highlights from case studies are located throughout the chapters to provide real-world examples of how agencies are incorporating sustainability performance measures. The appendices contain full case studies as well as other supplemental materials that you may find useful, including a glossary of terms and examples of performance measure use. The CD-ROM accompanying this guidebook contains an electronic compendium of performance measures as well as a PowerPoint presentation and materials that you may want to use to introduce sustainability concepts to your agency. These electronic materials are also available on the NCHRP Project 8-74 website. Following is a description of the remaining chapters of the guidebook: ⢠Chapter 2: What Does Sustainability Mean to Transportation Agencies? â This chapter provides an overview of the basics of sustainability, explains how these basics relate to the work of transportation agencies, and orients any user to the principles of sustainability. ⢠Chapter 3: Getting OrganizedâSetting Yourself Up for Success â This chapter discusses how to take a practical, phased approach to implementing performance measurement and offers questions to assess how you can take advantage of the data and processes you may already have in place. ⢠Chapter 4: Understanding the Sustainability Performance Measurement Framework â This chapter explains the general, applicable framework that you can use to design your agencyâs performance measurement system. ⢠Chapter 5: Using the Sustainability Performance Measurement Framework â This chapter provides a step-by-step explanation of how to use each of the components of the framework to fit your agencyâs needs. You can turn to the step that matches where your agency is in the process. ⢠Chapter 6: Resources for Performance Measure Development and Application â This chapter presents an overview of the compendium of objectives and performance measures. ⢠Chapter 7: Sustainability Measures Checklist â This chapter provides a checklist to make sure your goals, objectives, and measures are consistent with the principles of sustainability and that the approach you have designed will give you the information you need. ⢠Chapter 8: Examples of Practice in Sustainability Measurement â This chapter gives an overview of the variety of work other agencies have under way and gives links to other examples. ⢠Chapter 9: Summary and Additional Resources â This chapter summarizes what has been presented in the guidebook, lists other resources, and gives an overview of material incorporated as appendices.