Sustainable Development Evaluation for Mining Sectors in Japan and Vietnam

This paper (1) studies the adverse impacts on environmental and social aspects of the mining sectors beside its economic contribution, to emphasize an urgent task of sustainable assessment in APEC countries with two preventatives, Vietnam and Japan; (2) clarifies the strong points and drawbacks in sustainability assessment of fuzzy analytical hierarchy process; and (3) provides an evaluation for the mining sectors of Vietnam and Japan, based on the data obtained from APEC project in 2010. The results appropriately reflect the actual environmental, social, and economic situations of the industries. Both the economic performances have been toward sustainable development. The main factors for economic sustainability are export earning, the contribution of the mining sectors to GDP, FDI inflows, and the funds for mine close and reclamation. The environmental performances of Vietnamese mining sector have been gradually toward sustainable development. Japanese mining sector has been assessed as the good case study regarding environmental and social sustainability, while Vietnamese social one has been backward. The social sustainability has mainly depended on fatality variation. Both the mining sectors have been toward sustainable development based on the composite sustainability evaluations.