Sustainable Remediation Forum (SuRF) Australia

Sustainable remediation is a rapidly developing research and environmental management topic within Australia and internationally.

To help promote the use of sustainable practices within Australia, in terms of environmental, economic and social indicators, during the remediation and development of contaminated land, an initiative to set up a collaborative forum of industry, regulatory, academic and consultancy members has been instigated.

This group, to be called Sustainable Remediation Forum Australia (SuRF Australia) will provide consultative open forums that can effectively promote Sustainable Remediation options and frameworks, and whose members seek to further develop the understanding and methods for sustainable remediation principles that are relevant in an Australian context.


What is Sustainable Remediation?
Sustainable remediation can be defined as the practise of demonstrating, in terms of environmental, economic and social indicators, that an acceptable balance exists between the effects of undertaking the remediation activities and the benefits the same activities will deliver.

What are the objectives of SuRF Australia?
The first objective of SuRF Australia is to deliver a framework that will assist assessors take account of relevant sustainable development criteria in selecting the optimum land-use design, determining remedial objectives for contaminated land and groundwater, and in selecting optimum remediation strategies.

The proposed framework, available to download form this page, recognises that there are two main stages where sustainable remediation decision-making is applied: Firstly at the project/plan design stage when some of the most influential decisions about the remediation solution can be embedded into a sustainable project design; and secondly at the point of remediation selection and implementation when the decision is about selecting the optimum remedial strategy or technique.

SuRF Australia will hold open forums to further refine the Framework and to promote Sustainable Remediation options and frameworks to the Australian remediation industry.