Resilience Engineering is a paradigm that attempts to focus on learning from what works well rather than from
failures. There have been few studies focusing on the quantitative evaluation of Resilience Engineering and none
have been conducted for the Municipal Solid Waste sector. Composite indicators are a useful analytical tool for
making decisions involving complex, multi-dimensional social phenomena, and we have used this approach to
design a model to assess the level of implementation of Resilience Engineering in Municipal Solid Waste companies.
Designed as a Composite Leading Indicator, based on the model created by Wreathall and Shirali et al., its
weighting was defined by 22 Spanish and Italian Delphi experts. The results show a high level of consensus. With
regard to the principle Top Management Commitment, a high value was assigned to raising awareness over the
need to halt production when there is a safety risk. In connection with Culture of Learning, the experts emphasised
the importance of establishing mechanisms to clearly define the person responsible for safety in each of
the activities carried out in the company. In the area of Flexibility, they agreed on the importance of convincing
workers that if they encounter a problem, the criterion to follow is to sacrifice production rather than safety to
maintain the system.
