SuRF-UK: A Framework for Assessing the Sustainability of Soil and Groundwater Remediation

This framework represents a valuable addition to best practice guidance available in the UK on risk management of land contamination. It sets out, for the first time, the essential link between the principles of sustainable development and the criteria (environmental, social and economic) for selecting optimum land use design with sustainable remediation strategies and treatments.

The SuRF-UK Steering Group has successfully engaged with a wide range of stakeholders across a broad range of organisations working in contaminated land and brownfield management. Through its series of open forums and consultations it has ensured that a wide number of parties have had a chance to engage with, and contribute to, the development of this framework. The resulting framework highlights the importance of considering sustainability issues associated with remediation right from the outset of a project and identifies opportunities for considering sustainability at a number of key points in a site’s (re)development or risk management process. We encourage inclusion of sustainability issues in planning development strategies, project planning, design of remediation strategies, options appraisal, implementation and verification.

Surf Indicator Report 01/06/09

Part of the work of developing a SuRF-UK framework has been the consideration of how sustainability can be assessed for soil and groundwater remediation projects. Over six weeks in February and March 2009 over 100 documents describing sustainability indicators (for a wide variety of purposes) were identified and reviewed, in part based on an existing database held by r3. The aim was to determine the range of factors considered by different sets of sustainability indicators, and identify if any existing data sets could be used for sustainability appraisal of remediation work, or if not how a UK sustainable remediation indicator set could be developed. Also included in this work was the assessment of a number of possible indicators made by delegates at a SuRF-UK Open Forum meeting in London, which took place on 18 November 2008. These were mapped against 18 different overarching (or “headline”) categories, six for each element of sustainability: environmental, economic and social.

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Supplementary Report 1 of the SuRF-UK Framework: A General Approach to Sustainability Assessment for Use in Achieving Sustainable Remediation (2020) provides general guidance on how to carry out a sustainability assessment.