Invited Talk: Green and Sustainable Remediation of Contaminated Groundwater: Links to Sustainable Development Goals

In recent years, the concept of ‘Green and Sustainable Remediation’ (GSR) has emerged. It has provided a specific context for wiser decision making in groundwater remediation, with an emphasis placed on the overall Net Environmental Benefit (NEB) of remediation. GSR provides a framework where waste materials are granted greater value than virgin materials, which typically present greater cost in a life cycle. For the same reasons, in situ is valued above ex situ remediation, and low cost is valued above high cost remediation, so that the world’s limited resources can be put to best use. The advancement of GSR principles bring about an incentive to promote new remediation technologies, with the aim in mind of enhancing NEB. This departs from the traditional driving incentive, which, historically, has been to develop the best available technology (in terms of the reduction of risk from groundwater contaminants) not entailing excessive costs. As such, the growth of GSR in the remediation industry should proceed hand-in-hand with the production of new technologies. We further discuss how the GSR movement in the remediation industry is linking sustainable development goals (SDGs) for health (e.g., Goal 3) with socio-economic goals (e.g., Goal 8).