Sustainability metrics and indices are measures of
sustainability
Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...
, and attempt to quantify beyond the generic concept. Though there are disagreements among those from different disciplines (and influenced by different political beliefs about the nature of the good society), these disciplines and international organizations have each offered measures or
indicators
Indicator may refer to:
Biology
* Environmental indicator of environmental health (pressures, conditions and responses)
* Ecological indicator of ecosystem health (ecological processes)
* Health indicator, which is used to describe the health o ...
of how to measure the concept.
While sustainability indicators, indices and reporting systems gained growing popularity in both the public and private sectors, their effectiveness in influencing actual policy and practices often remains limited.
Metrics and indices
Various ways of operationalizing or measuring sustainability have been developed. During the last 10 years there has been an expansion of interest in SDI systems, both in industrialized and, albeit to a lesser extent, in
developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
. SDIs are seen as useful in a wide range of settings, by a wide range of actors: international and intergovernmental bodies; national governments and government departments; economic sectors; administrators of geographic or ecological regions; communities; nongovernmental organizations; and the private sector.
SDI processes are underpinned and driven by the increasing need for improved quality and regularly produced information with better spatial and temporal resolution. Accompanying this need is the requirement, brought in part by the information revolution, to better differentiate between information that matters in any given policy context versus information that is of secondary importance or irrelevant.
A large and still growing number of attempts to create aggregate measures of various aspects of sustainability created a stable of indices that provide a more nuanced perspective on development than economic aggregates such as GDP. Some of the most prominent of these include the
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, whi ...
(HDI) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); the
Ecological footprint
The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...
of
Global Footprint Network and its partner organizations; the
Environmental Sustainability Index
A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...
(ESI) and the pilot
Environmental Performance Index
A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scal ...
(EPI) reported under the
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
(WEF); or the
Genuine Progress Index (GPI) calculated at the national or sub-national level. Parallel to these initiatives, political interest in producing a
green GDP that would take at least the cost of pollution and
natural capital
Natural capital is the world's stock of natural resources, which includes geology, soils, air, water and all living organisms. Some natural capital assets provide people with free goods and services, often called ecosystem services. All of t ...
depletion into account has grown, even if implementation is held back by the reluctance of policymakers and statistical services arising mostly from a concern about conceptual and technical challenges.
At the heart of the debate over different indicators are not only different disciplinary approaches but also different views of
development
Development or developing may refer to:
Arts
*Development hell, when a project is stuck in development
*Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting
*Development (music), the process thematic material is reshaped
* Photograph ...
. Some indicators reflect the ideology of
globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
and
urbanization
Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
that seek to define and measure progress on whether different countries or cultures agree to accept industrial technologies in their eco-systems. Other approaches, like those that start from international treaties on cultural rights of indigenous peoples to maintain traditional cultures, measure the ability of those cultures to maintain their traditions within their eco-systems at whatever level of productivity they choose.
The Lempert-Nguyen indicator, devised in 2008 for practitioners, starts with the standards for sustainable development that have been agreed upon by the international community and then looks at whether intergovernmental organizations such as the UNDP and other development actors are applying these principles in their projects and work as a whole.
In using sustainability indicators, it is important to distinguish between three types of sustainability that are often mentioned in international development:
* Sustainability of a culture (human system) within its resources and environment;
* Sustainability of a specific stream of benefits or productivity (usually just an economic measure); and
* Sustainability of a particular institution or project without additional assistance (
institutionalization
In sociology, institutionalisation (or institutionalization) is the process of embedding some conception (for example a belief, norm, social role, particular value or mode of behavior) within an organization, social system, or society as a who ...
of an input).
The following list is not exhaustive but contains the major points of view:
"Daly Rules" approach
University of Maryland School of Public Policy professor and former Chief Economist for the World Bank Herman E. Daly (working from theory initially developed by Romanian economist
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (born Nicolae Georgescu, 4 February 1906 – 30 October 1994) was a Romanian mathematician, statistician and economist. He is best known today for his 1971 ''The Entropy Law and the Economic Process'', in which he argu ...
and laid out in his 1971 opus "The Entropy Law and the Economic Process") suggests the following three operational rules defining the condition of ecological (thermodynamic) sustainability:
#Renewable resources such as fish, soil, and groundwater must be used no faster than the rate at which they regenerate.
#Nonrenewable resources such as minerals and fossil fuels must be used no faster than renewable substitutes for them can be put into place.
#Pollution and wastes must be emitted no faster than natural systems can absorb them, recycle them, or render them harmless.
Some commentators have argued that the "Daly Rules", being based on
ecological theory
Theoretical ecology is the scientific discipline devoted to the study of ecological systems using theoretical methods such as simple conceptual models, mathematical models, computational simulations, and advanced data analysis. Effective models im ...
and the
Laws of Thermodynamics
The laws of thermodynamics are a set of scientific laws which define a group of physical quantities, such as temperature, energy, and entropy, that characterize thermodynamic systems in thermodynamic equilibrium. The laws also use various paramet ...
, should perhaps be considered implicit or foundational for the many other systems that are advocated, and are thus the most straightforward system for operationalization of the Bruntland Definition. In this view, the Bruntland Definition and the Daly Rules can be seen as complementary—Bruntland provides the ethical goal of non-depletion of natural capital, Daly details parsimoniously how this ethic is operationalized in physical terms. The system is rationally complete, and in agreement with physical laws. Other definitions may thus be superfluous, or mere glosses on the immutable thermodynamic reality.
There are numerous other definitions and systems of operationalization for sustainability, and there has been competition for influence between them, with the unfortunate result that, in the minds of some observers at least, sustainability has no agreed-upon definition.
Natural Step approach
Following the
Brundtland Commission
The Brundtland Commission, formerly the World Commission on Environment and Development, was a sub-organization of the United Nations (UN) that aimed to unite countries in pursuit of sustainable development. It was founded in 1983 when Javier Pér ...
's report, one of the first initiatives to bring scientific principles to the assessment of sustainability was by Swedish cancer scientist
Karl-Henrik Robèrt
Karl-Henrik Robèrt, M.D., Ph.D. (born 1947), is a Swedish cancer scientist and an important figure in the worldwide sustainability movement. He is known for the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development - also known as The Natural Step Frame ...
. Robèrt coordinated a consensus process to define and operationalize sustainability. At the core of the process lies a consensus on what Robèrt came to call the natural step framework. The framework is based on a definition of sustainability, described as
the system conditions of sustainability (as derived from
System theory
Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
). In the natural step framework, a sustainable society does not systematically increase concentrations of ''substances extracted from the Earth's crust'', or ''substances produced by society''; that ''does not degrade the
environment
Environment most often refers to:
__NOTOC__
* Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally
* Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...
'' and in which people have the ''capacity to meet their needs worldwide.''
Ecological footprint approach
Ecological footprint accounting, based on the biological concept of
carrying capacity
The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as t ...
, tracks the amount of land and water area a human population demands for producing the biological resources the population consumes, for absorbing its waste, and for accommodating its built infrastructure, all under prevailing technology. This amount then is compared to available
biocapacity
The biocapacity or biological capacity of an ecosystem is an estimate of its production of certain biological materials such as natural resources, and its absorption and filtering of other materials such as carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Bio ...
, in the world or in that region. The biocapacity represents the area able to regenerate resources and assimilate waste.
Global Footprint Network publishes every year
results
A result is the outcome of an event.
Result or Results may also refer to: Music
* Results (album), ''Results'' (album), a 1989 album by Liza Minnelli
* ''Results'', a 2012 album by Murder Construct
* "The Result", a single by The Upsetters
* "The ...
for all nations captured in UN statistics.
The algorithms of ecological footprint accounts have been used in combination with the
emergy
Emergy is the amount of energy consumed in direct and indirect transformations to make a product or service. Emergy is a measure of quality differences between different forms of energy. Emergy is an expression of all the energy used in the work pr ...
methodology (S. Zhao, Z. Li and W. Li 2005), and a
sustainability index has been derived from the latter. They have also been combined with a measure of
quality of life
Quality of life (QOL) is defined by the World Health Organization as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards ...
, for instance through the "
Happy Planet Index
The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index of human well-being and environmental impact that was introduced by the New Economics Foundation in 2006. Each country's HPI value is a function of its average subjective life satisfaction, life expectan ...
" (HPI) calculated for 178 nations (Marks et al., 2006). The Happy Planet Index calculates how many happy life years each country is able to generate per
global hectare
The global hectare (gha) is a measurement unit for the ecological footprint of people or activities and the biocapacity of the Earth or its regions. One global hectare is the world's annual amount of biological production for human use and human wa ...
of ecological footprint.
One of the striking conclusions to emerge from ecological footprint accounting is that it would be necessary to have 4 or 5 back-up planets engaged in nothing but agriculture for all those alive today to live a western lifestyle. The Footprint analysis is closely related to the
I = PAT equation that, itself, can be considered a metric.
Anthropological-cultural approach
Though sustainable development has become a concept that biologists and ecologists have measured from an eco-system point of view and that the business community has measured from a perspective of energy and resource efficiencies and consumption, the discipline of
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
is itself founded on the concept of sustainability of human groups within ecological systems. At the basis of the definition of
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
is whether a human group is able to transmit its values and continue several aspects of that lifestyle for at least three generations. The measurement of culture, by anthropologists, is itself a measure of sustainability and it is also one that has been codified by international agreements and treaties like the
Rio Declaration
The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, often shortened to Rio Declaration, was a short document produced at the 1992 United Nations "Conference on Environment and Development" (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit. The Rio Decl ...
of 1992 and the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP or DOTROIP) is a legally non-binding resolution passed by the United Nations in 2007. It delineates and defines the individual and collective rights of Indigenous peoples, including th ...
to maintain a cultural group's choice of lifestyles within their lands and ecosystems.
Terralingua
Terralingua is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization under U.S. tax law (#38–3291259) and a registered non-profit society in Canada based on Salt Spring Island in Vancouver, British Columbia whose mission is to support the integrated protection, ma ...
, an organization of anthropologists and linguists working to protect
biocultural diversity, with a focus on language, has devised a sert of measures with
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
for measuring the survivability of languages and cultures in given eco-systems.
The Lempert–Nguyen indicator of sustainable development, developed in 2008 by
David Lempert
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
and Hue Nhu Nguyen, is one that incorporates and integrates these cultural principles with international law.
Circles of Sustainability approach
A number of agencies including the
UN Global Compact
The United Nations Global Compact is a non-binding United Nations pact to encourage businesses and firms worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and to report on their implementation. The UN Global Compact is a princi ...
Cities Programme,
World Vision
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
and Metropolis have since 2010 begun using the
Circles of Sustainability
Circles of Sustainability is a method for understanding and assessing sustainability, and for project management directed towards socially sustainable outcomes. It is intended to handle 'seemingly intractable problems' such as outlined in ...
approach that sets up a four-domain framework for choosing appropriate indicators. Rather than designating the indicators that have to be used like most other approaches, it provides a framework to guide decision-making on what indicators are most useful. The framework is arranged around four domains - economics, ecology, politics and culture - which are then subdivided into seven analytically derived sub-domains for each domain. Indicators are linked to each sub-domain. By choosing culture as one of its key domains, the approach takes into account the emphasis of the 'Anthropological' approach (above), but retains a comprehensive sense of sustainability. The approach can be used to map any other sustainability indicator set. This is foundationally different from the Global Reporting Initiative Index (below) which uses a triple-bottom-line organizing framework, and is most relevant to corporate reporting.
Global Reporting Initiative Index
In 1997 the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) was started as a multi-stakeholder process and independent institution whose mission has been "to develop and disseminate globally applicable Sustainability Reporting Guidelines". The GRI uses ecological footprint analysis and became independent in 2002. It is an official collaborating centre of the
United Nations Environment Programme
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on th ...
(UNEP) and during the tenure of
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan (; 8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder ...
, it cooperated with the
UN Secretary-General
The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.
The role of the secretary-ge ...
's Global Compact.
Energy, Emergy and Sustainability Index
In 1956 Dr.
Howard T. Odum
Howard Thomas Odum (September 1, 1924 – September 11, 2002), usually cited as H. T. Odum, was an American ecologist. He is known for his pioneering work on ecosystem ecology, and for his provocative proposals for additional laws of thermod ...
of the University of Florida coined the term
Emergy
Emergy is the amount of energy consumed in direct and indirect transformations to make a product or service. Emergy is a measure of quality differences between different forms of energy. Emergy is an expression of all the energy used in the work pr ...
and devised the accounting system of embodied energy.
In 1997,
systems ecologists M.T. Brown and S. Ulgiati published their formulation of a quantitative Sustainability Index (SI) as a ratio of the
emergy
Emergy is the amount of energy consumed in direct and indirect transformations to make a product or service. Emergy is a measure of quality differences between different forms of energy. Emergy is an expression of all the energy used in the work pr ...
(spelled with an "m", i.e. "
embodied energy
Embodied energy is the sum of all the energy required to produce any goods or services, considered as if that energy was incorporated or 'embodied' in the product itself. The concept can be useful in determining the effectiveness of energy-produ ...
", not simply "energy") yield ratio (EYR) to the environmental loading ratio (ELR). Brown and Ulgiati also called the sustainability index the "Emergy Sustainability Index" (ESI), "an index that accounts for yield, renewability, and environmental load. It is the incremental emergy yield compared to the environmental load".
::: Sustainability Index = =
* NOTE: The numerator is called "emergy" and is spelled with an "m". It is an abbreviation of the term, "embodied energy". The numerator is NOT "energy yield ratio", which is a different concept.
Writers like Leone (2005) and Yi et al. have also recently suggested that the emergy sustainability index has significant utility. In particular, Leone notes that while the GRI measures behavior, it fails to calculate supply constraints the emergy methodology aims to calculate.
Environmental Sustainability Index
In 2004, a joint initiative of the
Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy The Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy is a joint initiative between the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the Yale Law School.
Mission
The Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy seeks to advance fresh thinking and a ...
(YCELP) and the
Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) of
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, in collaboration with the
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
and the
also attempted to construct an Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI).
This was formally released in
Davos
, neighboring_municipalities= Arosa, Bergün/Bravuogn, Klosters-Serneus, Langwies, S-chanf, Susch
, twintowns =
}
Davos (, ; or ; rm, ; archaic it, Tavate) is an Alpine resort town and a municipality in the Prättigau/Davos R ...
, Switzerland, at the annual meeting of the
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
(WEF) on 28 January 2005. The report on this index made a comparison of the WEF ESI to other sustainability indicators such as the
Ecological footprint
The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...
Index. However, there was no mention of the emergy sustainability index.
IISD Sample Policy Framework
In 1996 the
International Institute for Sustainable Development
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is an independent think tank founded in 1990 working to shape and inform international policy on sustainable development governance. The institute has three offices in Canada - Win ...
(IISD) developed a ''Sample Policy Framework'', which proposed that a sustainability index "...would give decision-makers tools to rate policies and programs against each other" (1996, p. 9). Ravi Jain (2005) argued that, "The ability to analyze different alternatives or to assess progress towards sustainability will then depend on establishing measurable entities or metrics used for sustainability."
Sustainability dashboard
Th
International Institute for Sustainable Developmenthas produced a
Dashboard of Sustainability, "a free, non-commercial software package that illustrates the complex relationships among economic, social and environmental issues". This is based o
Sustainable Development IndicatorsPrepared for the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development (UN-DSD)DECEMBER 2005.
WBCSD approach
The
World Business Council for Sustainable Development
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a CEO-led organization of over 200 international companies. The Council is also connected to 60 national and regional business councils and partner organizations.
Its origins d ...
(WBCSD), founded in 1995, has formulated the business case for sustainable development and argues that "sustainable development is good for
business
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...
and business is good for sustainable development". This view is also maintained by proponents of the concept of
industrial ecology
Industrial ecology (IE) is the study of material and energy flows through industrial systems. The global industrial economy can be modelled as a network of industrial processes that extract resources from the Earth and transform those resource ...
. The theory of industrial ecology declares that industry should be viewed as a series of interlocking man-made ecosystems interfacing with the natural
global ecosystem.
According to some economists, it is possible for the concepts of sustainable development and competitiveness to merge if enacted wisely, so that there is not an inevitable trade-off. This merger is motivated by the following six observations (Hargroves & Smith 2005):
#Throughout the economy there are widespread untapped potential
resource productivity Resource productivity is the quantity of good or service (outcome) that is obtained through the expenditure of unit resource.Weizsäcker, E, and Jesinghaus, J. 1992. ''Ecological Tax Reform, Chapter 2: Increasing the Productivity of Natural Resource ...
improvements to be made to be coupled with effective design.
#There has been a significant shift in understanding over the last three decades of what creates lasting competitiveness of a firm.
#There is now a critical mass of enabling technologies in eco-innovations that make integrated approaches to sustainable development economically viable.
#Since many of the costs of what economists call ‘environmental externalities’ are passed on to governments, in the long-term sustainable development strategies can provide multiple benefits to the tax payer.
#There is a growing understanding of the multiple benefits of valuing social and natural capital, for both moral and economic reasons, and including them in measures of national well-being.
#There is mounting evidence to show that a transition to a sustainable economy, if done wisely, may not harm economic growth significantly, in fact it could even help it. Recent research by ex-
Wuppertal Institute
The Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy (official German name: ) is a German research institution for sustainability research focusing on impacts and practical application. It explores and develops models, strategies and in ...
member Joachim Spangenberg, working with neo-classical economists, shows that the transition, if focused on improving resource productivity, leads to higher economic growth than business as usual, while at the same time reducing pressures on the environment and enhancing
employment
Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any othe ...
.
Life-cycle assessment
Life-cycle assessment is a "composite measure of sustainability." It analyses the environmental performance of products and services through all phases of their life cycle: extracting and processing raw materials; manufacturing, transportation and distribution; use, re-use, maintenance; recycling, and final disposal.
Sustainable enterprise approach
Building on the work of the
World Business Council for Sustainable Development
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a CEO-led organization of over 200 international companies. The Council is also connected to 60 national and regional business councils and partner organizations.
Its origins d ...
, businesses began to see the needs of environmental and social systems as opportunities for business development and contribution to stakeholder value. This approach has manifested itself in three key areas of strategic intent: 'sustainable innovation',
human development Human development may refer to:
* Development of the human body
* Developmental psychology
* Human development (economics)
* Human Development Index, an index used to rank countries by level of human development
* Human evolution, the prehistoric ...
, and '
bottom of the pyramid
The bottom of the pyramid, bottom of the wealth pyramid or the bottom of the income pyramid is the largest, but poorest socio-economic group. In global terms, this is the 2.7 billion people who live on less than $2.50 a day.
Management schol ...
' business strategies. Now, as businesses have begun the shift toward sustainable enterprise, many business schools are leading the research and education of the next generation of business leaders. Companies have introduced key development indicators to set targets and track progress on sustainable development. Some key players are:
*
Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise The Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise (CSGE) is a center of applied research, learning and practice in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management (Johnson) at Cornell University.
History
In 2002, motivated by his desire to see t ...
, Cornell University
*
Center for Sustainable Enterprise The Center for Sustainable Enterprise (CSE) is one of four academic and research centers at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) Stuart School of Business (SSB) in the city of Chicago. The CSE has created a platform to convene the many discip ...
,
Stuart School of Business
The Stuart School of Business (often just Stuart or Stuart School) is an academic unit of the Illinois Institute of Technology, a private Ph.D.-granting technological university.
Stuart offers bachelor's, master's, doctoral, and non-degree prog ...
, Illinois Institute of Technology
*Erb Institute,
Ross School of Business
The Stephen M. Ross School of Business, also known as Michigan Ross, is the business school of the University of Michigan, a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1924, the school is ranked among the best business schools i ...
, University of Michigan
*
William Davidson Institute
The Stephen M. Ross School of Business, also known as Michigan Ross, is the business school of the University of Michigan, a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1924, the school is ranked among the best business schools ...
, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan
*Center for Sustainable Enterprise, University of North Carolina, Chapel-Hill
*Community Enterprise System, NABARD–XIMB Sustainability Trust, Center for Case Research,
Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar
Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) is a premier Business School located in Bhubaneswar, the capital of the eastern Indian state of Odisha featuring regularly among the top 20 bschools in India. Established in the year 1987, XIMB ...
Sustainable livelihoods approach
Another application of the term sustainability has been in the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach, developed from conceptual work by
Amartya Sen
Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher, who since 1972 has taught and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States. Sen has made contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, econom ...
, and the UK's Institute for Development Studies. This was championed by the UK's
Department for International Development
, type = Department
, logo = DfID.svg
, logo_width = 180px
, logo_caption =
, picture = File:Admiralty Screen (411824276).jpg
, picture_width = 180px
, picture_caption = Department for International Development (London office) (far right ...
(DFID),
UNDP
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...
,
Food and Agriculture Organization
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...
(FAO) as well as
NGOs
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
such as
CARE,
OXFAM
Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International.
History
Founded at 17 Broad Street, Oxford, as the Oxford Co ...
and the African Institute for Community-Driven Development, Khanya-aicdd. Key concepts include the Sustainable Livelihoods (SL) Framework, a holistic way of understanding livelihoods, the SL principles, as well as six governance issues developed by Khanya-aicdd. A wide range of information resources on Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches can be found at Livelihoods Connect.
Some analysts view this measure with caution because they believe that it has a tendency to take one part of the footprint analysis and I = PAT equation (productivity) and to focus on the sustainability of economic returns to an economic sector rather than on the sustainability of the entire population or culture.
FAO types of sustainability
The United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organization
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...
(FAO) has identified considerations for technical cooperation that affect three types of sustainability:
* Institutional sustainability. Can a strengthened institutional structure continue to deliver the results of technical cooperation to end users? The results may not be sustainable if, for example, the planning authority that depends on the technical cooperation loses access to top management, or is not provided with adequate resources after the technical cooperation ends. Institutional sustainability can also be linked to the concept of social sustainability, which asks how the interventions can be sustained by social structures and institutions;
* Economic and financial sustainability. Can the results of technical cooperation continue to yield an economic benefit after the technical cooperation is withdrawn? For example, the benefits from the introduction of new crops may not be sustained if the constraints to marketing the crops are not resolved. Similarly, economic, as distinct from financial, sustainability may be at risk if the end users continue to depend on heavily
subsidized
A subsidy or government incentive is a form of financial aid or support extended to an economic sector (business, or individual) generally with the aim of promoting economic and social policy. Although commonly extended from the government, the ter ...
activities and inputs.
* Ecological sustainability. Are the benefits to be generated by the technical cooperation likely to lead to a deterioration in the physical environment, thus indirectly contributing to a fall in production, or well-being of the groups targeted and their society?
Some ecologists have emphasised a fourth type of sustainability:
* Energetic sustainability. This type of sustainability is often concerned with the production of energy and mineral resources. Some researchers have pointed to trends they say document the limits of production. See
Hubbert peak
The Hubbert peak theory says that for any given geographical area, from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum production tends to follow a bell-shaped curve. It is one of the primary theories on peak ...
for example.
"Development sustainability" approaches
Sustainability is relevant to international development projects. One definition of development sustainability is "the continuation of benefits after major assistance from the donor has been completed" (Australian Agency for International Development 2000). Ensuring that development projects are sustainable can reduce the likelihood of them collapsing after they have just finished; it also reduces the financial cost of development projects and the subsequent social problems, such as dependence of the stakeholders on external donors and their resources. All development assistance, apart from temporary emergency and humanitarian relief efforts, should be designed and implemented with the aim of achieving sustainable benefits. There are ten key factors that influence development sustainability.
#Participation and ownership. Get the stakeholders (men and women) to genuinely participate in design and implementation. Build on their initiatives and demands. Get them to monitor the project and periodically evaluate it for results.
#Capacity building and training. Training stakeholders to take over should begin from the start of any project and continue throughout. The right approach should both motivate and transfer skills to people.
#Government policies. Development projects should be aligned with local government policies.
#Financial. In some countries and sectors, financial sustainability is difficult in the medium term. Training in local fundraising is a possibility, as is identifying links with the private sector, charging for use, and encouraging policy reforms.
#Management and organization. Activities that integrate with or add to local structures may have better prospects for sustainability than those that establish new or parallel structures.
#Social, gender and culture. The introduction of new ideas, technologies and skills requires an understanding of local decision-making systems, gender divisions and cultural preferences.
#Technology. All outside equipment must be selected with careful consideration given to the local finance available for maintenance and replacement. Cultural acceptability and the local capacity to maintain equipment and buy spare parts are vital.
#Environment. Poor rural communities that depend on natural resources should be involved in identifying and managing environmental risks. Urban communities should identify and manage waste disposal and pollution risks.
#External political and economic factors. In a weak economy, projects should not be too complicated, ambitious or expensive.
#Realistic duration. A short project may be inadequate for solving entrenched problems in a sustainable way, particularly when behavioural and institutional changes are intended. A long project, may on the other hand, promote dependence.
The definition of sustainability as "the continuation of benefits after major assistance from the donor has been completed" (Australian Agency for International Development 2000) is echoed by other definitions (World Bank, USAID). The concept has however evolved as it has become of interest to non grant-making institutions. Sustainability in development refers to ''processes'' and ''relative'' increases in local capacity and performance while foreign assistance decreases or shifts (not necessarily disappears). The objective of sustainable development is open to various interpretations.
See also
*
Geographic information science
*
Geographic information systems
A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with software tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing those data. In a br ...
*
Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia
The Infrastructure Sustainability Council is a company limited by guarantee which was formed by a group of industry professionals from engineering, environmental, planning, legal, financial and construction backgrounds working in both private an ...
, developer of an infrastructure sustainability rating system
*
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...
*
Land footprint
*
Representation theory
Representation theory is a branch of mathematics that studies abstract algebraic structures by ''representing'' their elements as linear transformations of vector spaces, and studies modules over these abstract algebraic structures. In essen ...
* ''
Stern Review
The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is a 700-page report released for the Government of the United Kingdom on 30 October 2006 by economist Nicholas Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environm ...
''
References
{{Social accountability
Development economics