This document discusses sustainability measurement and indicators. It defines sustainability indicators as tools that inform public policy by providing information on the interplay between the environment and socio-economic activities. Popular frameworks for organizing indicators include the DPSIR system, which breaks environmental impact into driving forces, pressures, states, impacts, and responses. At the global scale, the UN has developed extensive sustainability measurement tools and indicators related to sustainable development. There are also many quantitative metrics and indices used to assess sustainability at various levels of organization.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability_measuremen
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Sustainability indicators and their function[edit]
The principal objective of sustainability indicators is to inform public policy-making as part of the
process of sustainability governance.[5] Sustainability indicators can provide information on any
aspect of the interplay between the environment and socio-economic activities.[6] Building strategic
indicator sets generally deals with just a few simple questions: what is happening? (descriptive
indicators), does it matter and are we reaching targets? (performance indicators), are we improving?
(efficiency indicators), are measures working? (policy effectiveness indicators), and are we generally
better off? (total welfare indicators). One popular general framework used by The European
Environment Agency uses a slight modification of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development DPSIR system.[7] This breaks up environmental impact into five stages. Social and
economic developments (consumption and production) (D)rive or initiate
environmental (P)ressures which, in turn, produces a change in the (S)tate of the environment which
leads to (I)mpacts of various kinds. Societal (R)esponses (policy guided by sustainability indicators)
can be introduced at any stage of this sequence of events.
Metrics at the global scale[edit]
United Nations Indicators[edit]
The United Nations has developed extensive sustainability measurement tools in relation to
sustainable development [8] as well as a System of Integrated Environmental and Economic
Accounting.[9]
Benchmarks,indicators,indexes,auditing etc.[edit]
In the last couple of decades there has arisen a crowded toolbox of quantitative methods used to
assess sustainability — including measures of resource use like life cycle assessment, measures of
consumption like the ecological footprint and measurements of quality of environmental governance
like the Environmental Performance Index. The following is a list of quantitative "tools" used by
sustainability scientists - the different categories are for convenience only as defining criteria will
intergrade. It would be too difficult to list all those methods available at different levels of
organisation so those listed here are at for the global level only.
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
 Benchmarks

2. A benchmark is a point of reference for a measurement. Once a benchmark is established it
is possible to assess trends and measure progress. Baseline global data on a range of
sustainability parameters is available at list of global sustainability statistics
2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership
 Indices
A sustainability index is an aggregate sustainability indicator that combines multiple sources
of data. There is a Consultative Group on Sustainable Development Indices[10]
Air Quality Index
Child Development Index
Corruption Perceptions Index
Democracy Index
Environmental Performance Index
Emergy Sustainability Index
Education Index
Environmental Sustainability Index
Environmental Vulnerability Index
GDP per capita
Gini coefficient
Gender Parity Index
Gender-related Development In
Gender Empowerment Measure
Gross national happiness
Genuine Progress Indicator
(formerly Index of Sustainable E
Gross National Product
 Metrics
Sustainable Development
Indicators of sustainable development
Published: October 22, 2013, 12:10 am
Author:Peter Bartelmus
TopicEditor: Graham Douglas
Topics: Sustainable
Development
Environmental
Indicators
Society &
Environment

3. Wellbeing Index: barometer of sustainability. (Source: Prescott-Allen (2001))
Introduction: terms and definitions
Indicators and indices
Indicators attempt to convey a broader image than the underlying statistics would suggest. For
instance, the average life expectancy of an infant is usually taken to indicate the public health of
a population. The purpose of selecting one or more indicators for describing a broader subject is
to reduce informationoverload for data users. The strength and weakness of indicators lie in their
selection, which facilitates decision-making but also opens the door to data manipulation.
The alternative is aggregation of statistics and indicators into compound indices. Aggregation
methods include the calculation of weighted or unweighted averages, summation in accounts and
balances and mathematical reduction of correlated indicators by factor analysis.
Indicators for and of sustainable development
Indicator lists of varying length seek to capture the different – economic, environmental, social
and institutional – dimensions of sustainable development. They are indicators for (the
assessment of) sustainable development. They differ in the particular selection of ‘representative’
indicators of these dimensions and related sustainability concerns. Indicators of sustainable
development are more in the nature of indices that reflect the state of overall concepts or social
goals such as human development, sustainable development, the quality of life or socioeconomic
welfare.

4. Environmental and sustainable development indicators proliferated in the wake of the Rio Earth
Summit’s call for indicators of sustainable development (United Nations 1994, Agenda 21, ch.
40). The vagueness of the popular human-needs based Brundtland definition of sustainable
development as development that meets the needs of the current and future generations might
have contributed to the large variety of proposed indicator sets taken up. Physical and
monetary greened national accounts assess more operational definitions of ecological
sustainability as dematerialization of the economy and economic sustainability ascapital
maintenance.
Indicators for sustainable development
Statistical systems and indicator frameworks
Figure 1. International statisticalsystems.(Source:Bartelmus (1997),p.115.)
The variety of indicator proposals makes it necessary to evaluate their scope, coverage,
definition and statistical validity. This can be done transparently by placing them in a consistent
system or framework. Existing international statistical systems provide the starting point. Figure
1 specifies the three main statistical systems and frameworks that provide concepts and data for
indicator definition and compilation. Economic, socio-demographic and environmental data are
organized and aggregated in the United Nations systems of national accounts (SNA) social

5. and demographic statistics (later changed into a framework) (SSDS), and a framework for
the development of environment Statistics (FDES).
Figure 2. Pressure-state-response framework (PSRF).(Source: OECD)
All these systems overlap. Their interaction is particularly relevant for the integrative concept of
sustainable development. Green accounting systems (MFA, SEEA) and indicator frameworks
such as the PSRF or DPSRF capture this interaction as indicated in Figure 1. The FDES of the
United Nations (1984) has become better known under its OECD version of PSRF when used for
the compilation of environmental indicators. The DSRF is a derived framework for indicators of
sustainable development; governmental experts, who could only agree on selected ‘themes’
rather than a comprehensive framework, later abandoned the framework. Figure 2 shows the
commonly applied FDES/PSRF rationale of organizing statistics and indicators under
information categories of human activities, their impacts on the state of the environment, and
governmental and individual response to these impacts.
Compilation and publication of indicators
It is hardly possible to give a reasonable overview of the large variety of national and
international programs of compiling and publishing social, environmental and sustainable
development indicators. In general these programs include some or all of the following topics:
 population (growth, migration, refugees)
 human needs (health, food, housing, education, equity, security, etc.)

6.  renewable and non-renewable natural resources
 environmental quality (air, water, land)
 ecosystems (acidification, eutrophication, biodiversity)
 economic sectors (and their impacts, including emissions, natural resource use, production and
consumption patterns, technologies)
 natural and man-made disasters
 global environmental problems (climate change, ozone layer depletion)
 globalization
 institutions.
Table 1. Environmental indicators ofthe European Union.(Source: EEA Signals 2004)
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) maintains an online directory of
“sustainable development indicators initiatives”; in March 2004, the directory included about
600 initiatives at national and international levels by governments, non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) and individuals.

7. International organizations reached some consensus on indicator sets for their particular
constituencies. The United Nations advanced the above-mentioned DSRF and a set of 134
indicators of sustainable development in response to the call by the Rio Earth Summit. Country
case studies and further discussion in the Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD)
led to the rejection of a framework in lieu of “themes” and a corresponding “core set” of 54
indicators. At present, however, the Millennium Development Indicators of the United Nations
seem to be more popular than the narrowly definedenvironmental and sustainable development
indicators. In the field of environment the OECD also limited its own “core indicators” to 40-50
indicators and reduced these further to 10-13 “key” indicators as “signals to policy makers”. The
European Environment Agency (EEA) publishes “environmental issues” and “environmental
headline” indicators; the “environmental signals” reports (Table 1) provide a short indicator list
designed to give an “environmental perspective … in the context of sustainability”.
Indicators of sustainable development
Aggregation of indicators
The problem of more or less lengthy indicator lists is comparability and aggregation. Integrative
concepts of sustainable development or the state and trend of the environment require evaluation
or combination of indicators capturing the ‘gist’ of these concepts. One method of evaluating
indicator sets is summarizing the impression of their results in icons such as smiling faces (Table
1) or traffic lights of red alert, yellow wait and see, and green o.k. Of course such evaluation is
judgmental, and even more so when attempting an overall judgment: what is actually Europe’s
state of the environment as conveyed by Table 1?
Among different aggregation methods, green accounting in a common physical or monetary unit
and averaging indicators are most commonly applied. Green accounting of material flows and
environmental cost is described elsewhere. Here the focus is on popular ad-hoc calculations of
compound indices and their use and usefulness.
Selected indices of sustainable development

8. Figure 3. Genuine Progress
Indicator, USA. (Source: Friends of theEarth)
The final-consumption-based Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) is still related to
the national accounts; it was later renamed Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) after some
modification. The idea is to value and add or subtract positive and negative welfare effects,
which are not measured by gross domestic product (GDP), to or from private consumption. The
scissor movement of the GPI appears to confirm Max Neef’s threshold hypothesis of declining
human quality of life at a certain level of economic growth (Fig. 3).
Non-monetary indicators are usually combined in (unweighted) averages that give equal weight
to each indicator. In this they follow the popular Human Development Index (HDI), which,
however, does not cover environmental concerns. Among others that do are the Environmental
Sustainability Index (ESI), the Sustainable Development Index (SDI) and the Wellbeing Index
(WI). The ESI includes, besides indicators of environmental pressure and quality, indicators of
the capability of private and public agents to deal with environmental concerns. In this sense, it is
an index of potential environmental sustainability of a country. The SDI covers all dimensions of
sustainable development, including political (human rights) issues. The WI seeks to be a
“barometer of sustainability”, combining human and ecosystem wellbeing in a two-dimensional
chart (Fig. 4).

9. Figure 4. Wellbeing Index: barometer of
sustainability.(Source: Prescott-Allen (2001))
The Ecological Footprint (EF) is an additive measure using area equivalents of natural resource
use and absorption of pollutants as the common measuring rod. It focuses on thecarrying
capacity of a country, region or city, which is a defining criterion of ecological sustainability.
Contrary to the other indices, the EF does not incorporate economic indicators but assumes that
human economic activity is responsible for exceeding the world’s “biocapacity”.
Use and usefulness of indicators and indices
Indicators provide early warning about non-sustainable trends of economic activity and
environmental deterioration. They can also support policy formulation and evaluation. Policy use
requires the setting of targets or benchmarks against which progress or failure can be assessed.
The political negotiations of the UNCSD could not agree on common targets and had to
be content with listing goals and standards in an annex. The MDG indicators were more
successful in connecting with time-bound targets. The OECD confronts national environmental
indicators with national and international standards and targets.
Compound indices usually serve early warning and advocacy for urgent action on looming
environmental problems. They are the ‘nutshell’ indicators favored by policy makers. However,
they suffer in most cases from:
 limited and subjective indicator selection, conducive to supporting more or less transparent
agendas
 equal weighting of unequal environmental hazards

10.  inter-correlation of indicators, mixing of damage and mitigation cost valuations, and opaque
units of measurement (e.g. tons or area equivalents for pollutants), distorting further the relative
contribution of indicators to the index goal
 data gaps filled by rough estimates.
In general, both indicators and indices are not very specific about their overall goals and the
extent the chosen indicators can capture the essence of the goals. The SDI claims to show
“progress towards sustainable development”; the WI equates sustainable development with the
“good life”, which in turn represents “high levels of human and ecosystem wellbeing”; the
authors of the ESI consider their index “the most effective metric for gauging the prospects for
long-term environmental sustainability”; and the EFfeatures the “conceptual simplicity and
intuitive appeal” of using land area in an (inverse) measure ofcarrying capacity.
Further Reading
Cited references
 Bartelmus, P., 1997. ‘Measuring sustainability: data linkage and integration’, in: Moldan, B., S.
Billharz and R. Matravers (1997). Sustainability Indicators: A Report on Indicators of
Sustainable Development, Chichester and others: Wiley. ISBN: 0471973521
 Cobb, C., T. Halstead and J. Rowe, 1995. ‘If the GDP is up, why is America down?’, The
Atlantic Monthly, October, 59-78.
 Daly, H.E. and J.B. Cobb, Jr., 1989. For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Towards
Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future, Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press. ISBN:
0807047058
 Nováek, P. and P. Mederly, 2002. Global Partnership for Development, Sustainable
Development Index, Olomouc, Czech Republic: Palacky University (for: American Council for
the United Nations University).
 Prescott-Allen, R., 2001. The Wellbeing of Nations: A Country-by-country Index of Quality of
Life and the Environment, Washington, D.C.: Island Press. ISBN: 1559638311
 United Nations, 1984. A Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics, New York:
United Nations (sales no. E.84.XVII.12). ISBN: 9211612071
 United Nations, 1994. Earth Summit, Agenda 21, the United Nations Programme of Action from
Rio, New York: United Nations (sales no. E.93.I.11). ISBN: 9211005094
 United Nations, 1996. Indicators of Sustainable Development, Frameworks and Methodologies,
New York: United Nations (sales no. E.96.II.A.16). ISBN: 9211044707
 United Nations, 2001. Indicators of Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Methodologies,
New York: United Nations (sales no. E.01.II.A.6). ISBN: 9211045061

11.  World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), 1987. Our Common Future,
Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN: 019282080X
General references
 Bartelmus, P. (forthcoming). Quantitative Eco-Nomics (critical review of indicators and green
accounts for sustainability measurement and analysis).
 International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), 2004. Compendium of Sustainable
Development Indicators Initiatives (website for national and international indicator programs and
projects).
 Moldan, B., S. Billharz and R. Matravers, 1997. Sustainability Indicators: A Report on Indicators
of Sustainable Development, Chichester and others: Wiley (overview of national and
international approaches to indicators and index calculations).
 Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center. Environmental Sustainability Index
 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1993. OECD Core Set of Indicators
for Environmental Performance Reviews
 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2003. OECD Environmental
Indicators: Development, Measurement and Use.
 United Nations. Millennium Development Goals Indicators
 United Nations Development Programme, 2005. Human Development Report 2005: Human
Development Indicators.
 United Nations Statistics Division
 Wellbeing Index
http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/153802/