Abstract
The purpose of this study was the development of a sustainability measurement
framework for a water utility in the South African context. The important features of
sustainability from the literature review were identified and used in this study. The
literature review has identified sustainability as a latent construct because sustainability
is not directly measured. Sustainability involves many different areas across many issues.
The South African experts in the selected case were identified to validate the developed
theoretical framework for measuring sustainability for water companies to achieve the
goals set by the United Nations.
The study begins with the literature review, using peer-reviewed academic sources
relating to the subject matter. The case study research used mixed data collection
techniques for an in-depth exploration of the interviewed participants' views. The case
study research process included research context, case selection, data collection and
analysis.
Following the rigorous case study research procedures, the key findings illustrate that the
developed theoretical framework and considerations on the selection of indicators for the
performance system to measure sustainability were widely agreed to by all participants.
The participants agreed that the selection process should identify indicators that are
capable of explaining accurate progress towards or away from sustainability. The findings
showed that the developed framework was simple and concise, in transforming a complex
engineering problem from a water utility into a simple problem.
The limitations of this study was the inability to generalize the findings to other water
utilities. However, this study could serve as the foundation for future work, which will
involve further development of the theoretical framework through feedback from a few
other local water utilities in the country. The finalized framework should guide the creation
of further processes to quantify and measure sustainability, such as grouping of
sustainability indicators, weighting of dimensions and calculations of indicators.
Keywords: sustainability measurement framework, water utility, sustainability indicators,
weighting of dimensions, calculations of indicators