In Search of a Methodology to Assess Sustainability for Mining & Mineral Sector

Assessing the sustainability of the mining and mineral sector has proved to be a challenge due to its-positive and negative externalities arising from it. Sustainability Assessment, which employs tools like Envirnomental Impact Assesment (EIA) and extensions of Input-Output analysis, is one of the many approaches towards this purpose. However due to some inherent limitations these tools have not been able to deliver conclusive results. A major reason for this is the ambiguity that exists in the concepts, principles and criteria of sustainability especially when it is applied to the mining and mineral sector. This paper is an attempt sort out these limitations and ambiguities by building a model based on fuzzy logic. It is an attempt to aid the monitoring of the sector and to enable the estimation of the degree of sustainability of the system under examination and thus, highlight areas which need more monitoring or attention, or need a change of direction to achieve the goal of sustainable development.