Benchmarking-Initiativen und ihre Eignung für die Anwendung in der Deutschen Wasserwirtschaft

Due to recent legislation, Benchmarking in the German water and sewerage sector will be introduced as widely as possible. Under certain conditions this decision by the German Bundestag might help to improve the efficiency of the industry. I will define two sets of conditions. First, a useful benchmarking initiative should fulfil certain criteria outlined in the paper. One is the coordination of the national system with an international one in order to allow international comparisons in the future. Second, a German benchmarking system should be as flexible as possible. A system which is comparable to the English solution of collecting, defining and comparing data would either make it easier to completely switch to the English regulatory approach or solely use certain interesting benchmarking elements which are presented here. On the basis of these two sets of conditions I analyse if a practicable benchmarking approach does already exist in Germany. I show that those German benchmarking systems which are interrelated with the system of the International Water System are especially applicable and should therefore be fostered.