Societal efficiencies may be divided into three sub-spheres: capacity building and equity issues as well as long-term social sustainable issues.

Capacity building and equity issues

This refers to the efficiency of the proposed technologies as far as the following social parameters are concerned:

•  Equitable access to benefits and opportunities to redress socio-economic and gender imbalances;
•  Opportunity for capacity building and skills transfer;
•  Optimal use of local resources over the life-span of the technology;
•  Potential for development of entrepreneurial skills; and
•  Real beneficiaries.

Longer term societal sustainability issues

Environmental and societal effects associated with technology adoption, implementation, use and maintenance are often time delayed and appear only years later. Societies are dynamic.

Value systems change over time, while societies also change and develop. The critical issues are twofold: the long-term effects that should be anticipated and the most probable scenario for the state of the broader society over the longer term. Longer-term effects include impacts such as wastes generated and disposal, use, storage and disposal of persistent toxic substances.

The most probable case for the future state of society is important for two reasons. The first is to assess the extent to which social conditions will be stable enough to sustain the technology over its projected life span. The second deals with sustained acceptability of the chosen technology or of alternatives in the light of changes and developments in attitudes, preferences and demands.

It may be necessary to identify social performance indicators (SPIs) in order to develop scenarios on the future state of society. Some SPIs may include:

• Changes in value systems and attitudes;
• Extent of open, transparent and participatory decision making processes;
• Changes in gender issues;
• Access to information;
• Empowerment of civil society to interact with local authorities as far as quality of life issues is concerned;
• Educational levels;
• Role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs);
• Role of donors and aid organizations, and extent of public-private partnerships;
• Changes in demographic, economic behavioral profiles of communities; and
• Long term social forecasting, an appropriate technique for the scenario development technique, where three scenarios are normally developed: the first scenario is a future much like the present; the second is a worst case and the third is a best case. The sustainability of the technology is then reviewed against these three scenarios.

Institutional capacity refers to the capacity of the local authority to manage all aspects related to the proposed adoption, implementation and use of technologies. It does not only refer to technical operational and maintenance capacity, but also to issues related to capacity in sustainable service delivery such as:

• Administration and record keeping;
• Financial management such as budgeting, bookkeeping, billing and payment of wages etc.
• Stability of the macro and micro political frameworks; and
• Inter-and intra-governmental relationships, i.e. between national, provincial and other (adjacent) local governments.

Other indicators of sustainable institutional capacity include:

• The nature of policy- and decision making processes;
• Interaction with residents and other interested and affected parties as far as decision making and planning is concerned;
• Potential for public/private partnerships;
• Planning capacity and procedures; and
• Service Delivery.

The output of Box 4 is a profile of the various technologies under review that addresses their relative performances in terms of the sustainability issues identified above.

Box 5: Identification of decision makers and decision making processes

It is important to identify decision makers as well as decision making processes associated with the adoption, implementation, and use of the proposed technology or technologies throughout the project life cycle. An understanding of the decision-making pathways and the various decision makers associated with technology adoption, implementation and use enhances the project planning process by reducing time delays.

The outcome of this analysis should be an understanding of all the decision-makers and decision making pathways. Decision-makers include all stakeholders such as the political and administrative spheres of local authorities, national and regional governments, funding institutions or donors, civil society, as well as elements of the private sector such as suppliers and contractors.

The minimum outcome of this exercise should be a list of all authorizations required as well as an action plan of who should be contacted, when and for what reason.

Box 6: Identification of impacts or changes

Once the need for a technology, the various options or alternatives, performance in efficiencies and the various role players or decision makers associated with the technology or technologies are understood, it is possible to identify and evaluate impacts or changes. Impacts or changes refer to direct and indirect, short-term vs long term, or residual impacts, as well as cumulative impacts.

It is important to remember that EnTA is a strategic level decision-making tool. The intent is not to use rigorous impact identification and evaluation methodologies. More participative techniques such as brainstorming or other group techniques may be used during this phase.

The output of this exercise is a list of all issues that are associated with the entire technology lifecycle.

Box 7: Impact or risk evaluation

The objective of this exercise is to identify and rate issues, rather than to develop a defensible register of evaluated impacts. Methods and techniques used during more conventional assessment tools such as environmental impact assessment, social impact assessment or environmental risk assessment may be used to evaluate impacts or risks.

The output of this exercise is a list of all the significant or critical impacts, changes or risks that are associated with all the issues identified above.