A composite indicator for measuring the environmental performance of water, wastewater, and solid waste utilities

Efficiency benchmarking of wastewater service providers: An analysis based on the Portuguese case

“…The obtained TP typology results are in accordance with the ones obtained by Henriques et al (2020) for the Portuguese WW SP in 2018. On the other hand, the results found by Mergoni et al (2022), although seemingly contradicting the current results…”

“…Indeed, Byrnes et al (2009), Walker et al (2021) and Pereira and Marques (2022) had already found economies of scale for SP up to an 'optimal' size, and (dis)economies of scale thereafter, which also applies to the Portuguese reality (Carvalho and Marques, 2014, 2015Caldas et al, 2019;Henriques et al, 2020;Mergoni et al, 2022). Byrnes et al (2009) and Molinos-Senante and Maziotis (2021) also highlighted the positive relevance of the collectors' grid and connections to efficiency.…”

“…These authors found that larger scale, investment subsidies and energy production, alongside a concession model and urban typology, improve the quality of service for retail SP. Expanding the previous work, Mergoni et al (2022) benchmarked the environmental performance of 149 Portuguese utilities jointly active in the water supply, WW collection and solid waste management sectors by an analog methodology. Their results highlighted existing improvement potential especially for small and very large units, mostly operating in urban areas.…”

Developing the Overall Performance Index for Water Supply Systems based on Fair Benchmarking and Strong Sustainability

“…KPIs and CIs are used to discuss the state of water and environmental sustainability at academic and organizational levels. CI was utilized in assessment and benchmarking the environmental performance of companies based on water supply, wastewater collection, and solid waste management (Mergoni, D'Inverno, & Carosi, 2022) and to measure the quality of water supply including six aspects of network quality, water quality, water price, complaints, obstacles created by network upgrade, and service continuity(José Antonio, Vicent, & Ramón, 2022). In addition, comparing the sustainability of four wastewater management options with a CI including total annual costs, carbon emission intensity, eutrophication, and flexibility was developed by applying the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method (Sun et al, 2020).…”

Drivers of water utilities’ operational performance – An analysis from the Portuguese case

“…• Size of the SP, with several authors (Byrnes et al, 2009;Romano and Guerrini, 2011;Martins et al, 2012;Carvalho and Marques, 2014, 2016Pinto et al, 2017;Molinos-Senante and Guzman, 2018;Caldas et al, 2019;Henriques et al, 2020;Walker et al, 2021;Pereira and Marques, 2022) finding economies of scale up to a certain SP dimension; • Ownership structure (Romano and Guerrini, 2011;Marques, 2015, 2016;Pinto et al, 2017;Sala-Garrido et al, 2021;Walker et al, 2021) addressing vertical integration and economies of scope between DW and WW, although Carvalho and Marques (2014) found also diseconomies of scope; • Governance model (Byrnes et al, 2009;Pinto et al, 2017;Molinos-Senante and Guzman, 2018;Caldas et al, 2019;Marques and Simões, 2020;Henriques et al, 2020;Molinos-Senante and Maziotis, 2022) mainly favoring private and/or concession management, although some studies (Cruz et al, 2012;Sala-Garrido et al, 2019;Mocholi-Arce et al, 2022;Pereira and Marques, 2022) do not back this conclusion; • Geographical location (Romano and Guerrini, 2011;Marques et al, 2014;Pereira and Marques, 2022); • Customer density and treatment plant (TP) typology (Marques et al, 2014;Marques, 2015, 2016;Henriques et al, 2020;Sala-Garrido et al, 2021;Mergoni et al, 2022) favoring economies of output density, although Molinos-Senante and found otherwise...…”