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Sustainability Indicators: A Scientific Assessment. SCOPE 67
Abstract
While the concept of sustainability has been widely embraced, it has been only vaguely defined and is exceedingly difficult to measure. Sustainability indicators are critical to making the broad concept of sustainability operational by providing specific measures by which decision makers and the public can judge progress. Sustainability Indicators defines the present state of the art in indicator development. It presents a comprehensive assessment of the science behind various indicators, while placing special emphasis on their use as communications tools. The contributors draw on their experience as academics and practitioners to describe the conceptual challenges to measuring something as complex as sustainability at local, regional, national, and global scales. The book also reviews existing indicators to assess how they could be better employed, considering which indicators are overused and which have been underutilized. Sustainability Indicators will help planners and policy makers find indicators that are ready for application and relevant to their needs, and will help researchers identify the unresolved issues where progress is most urgently needed. All readers will find advice as to the most effective ways to use indicators to support decision making.
... Para viabilizar a sustentabilidade é necessário o uso de ferramentas de avaliação (indicadores), conforme Van Bellen (2006), e para mensurar a sustentabilidade abordando questões sociais, econômicas ou ambientais (HAK et al., 2007). Esses são instrumentos essenciais para guiar ações, e subsidiar o acompanhamento e avaliação do progresso alcançado (IBGE, 2015), na qual, a utilização pelos gestores públicos é relevante para apresentar as intervenções necessárias a fim de corrigir problemas, viabilizando o desenvolvimento de forma a atingir a sustentabilidade efetiva (REZENDE E FAGUNDES, 2017). ...
... Salienta-se que indicadores e índices captam a realidade complexa (HAK et al., 2007), sendo que o indicador fornece informações sobre um determinado fenômeno (OECD, 1993), enquanto um índice apresenta o estado do sistema ou fenômeno (SHELDFS et. al, 2002 A principal contribuição científica dessa pesquisa foi desenvolver ferramenta útil aos administradores de serviços de saneamento que possibilite o monitoramento de aspectos de saúde pública, bem como possa ser útil à análise temporal dos serviços realizados em escala municipal ou regional. ...
The management of services for environmental health can be achieved through the use of indicators as a practice to improve urban infrastructure. The goal was to analyze the sanitary and environmental conditions in 14 municipalities in the Baixo Pardo/Grande watershed. The following steps were carried out: i) identification of indicators, ii) structuring of an evaluation model on a scale from 0 (zero) to 100, iii) consultation with specialists using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, iv) elaboration of the index in georeferenced maps in QGIS, version 3.22. The model generated 18 sub-indicators grouped into 7 indicators. The index ranged from 21.55 to 66.72%, with 8 municipalities deemed medium health level, 5 deemed low and 1 unhealthy. In most municipalities, solid waste indicators stood out with high condition, while vegetation cover and urban drainage reached the lowest values. It is essential to establish measures and public policies to guarantee the evolution of these indicators in the basin.
... Quantifying sustainability helps to implement good governance and sustainabilitydriven urban planning practices because it contributes to understanding the monitored system in a holistic approach and then anticipate the impact of managers' decisions in the urban scenario (Leach et al., 2016;Meijering et al., 2018). The sustainability indicators (SI) are essential tools that help measure and monitor actions taken toward established objectives (Hiremath et al., 2013) regarding social, environmental, and economic aspects, determining the best processes for maintaining and perpetuating this system over time (Hák et al., 2007). In addition, the SI plays as a basis for evaluating the performance of adopted policies, pointing out changes to be made, and designing future actions to make cities more sustainable through trend analysis and continuous learning (Chatziioannou et al., 2023;Ghosh et al., 2006;Hjorth & Bagheri, 2006). ...
Socio-economic-environmental performance indicators constitute an important tool for monitoring and decision-making in the management of cities in favor of a more sustainable urban development. This article presents the SITIUS method (Sustainability Indexes based on Thematic Indicators for Urban Systems), a tool developed for calculating the sustainability indices, and illustrates its application on a local scale to the standardized set of indicators recommended by ISO 37120 and well-accepted worldwide. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to analyze the sustainability parameters from the calculation of indices to the three axes of sustainability such as economic, social, and environmental, obtained from the application of the SITIUS Method. First, the thematic indexes were created based on the primary indicators and validated through Cluster Analysis following ISO 37120 standard. Afterward, different weights were established for the indices for the pillars of sustainability based on the correlation among the indices previously mentioned, and the validation took place by comparing these with reference indices already consolidated for the economic, social, and environmental aspects. We aim that our results can contribute to a holistic approach to urban sustainability, working as a management tool that allows balanced and standardized decision-making, measuring different aspects, and benchmarking with other elements.
¿Qué es la economía ecológica (EE), cuáles son sus orígenes y evolución, cuáles sus bases conceptuales, cuáles sus herramientas metodológicas, cuáles sus campos de investigación, cuál es su utilidad para América Latina y el Caribe (ALC) y qué marco de políticas se pueden aplicar para la región? Estas son las preguntas que responde este capítulo. El documento está estructurado como sigue: introducción, antecedentes, marco conceptual, temas y problemas de investigación, debate entre sostenibilidad débil y sostenibilidad fuerte, enfoques metodológicos y herramientas. Se remata con los lineamientos de política pública de la EE orientados hacia la sostenibilidad de las relaciones sociedad-naturaleza en América Latina y el Caribe.
Water security is a global concern sharpened by the biggest humanity challenge of climatic crisis. With the end of designing and implementing efficient and sustainable water management strategies, it is necessary to recognize the interdependence and coevolution between natural and social systems and understand how the double way relationships between these systems shape sustainability. The socio‐ecological systems (SES) sustainability approach is an alternative to this end. Conceptual challenges have been identified in the analysis of the sustainability of SES. These challenges include (i) A lack of clarity in the definition of SES sustainability, (ii) the non‐inclusion of some inherent SES characteristics that determine critical thresholds, and (iii) a lack of conceptual frameworks for analyzing the sustainability of SES and water security‐related ecosystem services. This study proposes a conceptual framework, based on a strong sustainability approach, for analyzing SES sustainability focusing on water security and addressing the above‐mentioned challenges. This conceptual development includes three elements: (i) the key thresholds to ensure ecological functionality; (ii) the benefits that society derives from ecological functioning and; (iii) the two‐way relationship between natural capital and social systems. Analyzing these three elements helps identification of different sustainability states of SESs, focusing on water security, in the presence of endogenous or exogenous drivers of change. The conceptualization and operationalization of SES sustainability focusing on water security allows the analysis of the trajectories of change and provides insights into the required water management strategies in the target territory.
In this paper, the authors present the results of a survey conducted on the European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH), whose goal was to evaluate how sustainable development is progressing from various perspectives, i.e. environmental, social, clients’ and partners’ perspectives. The study confirms that heritage authenticity is a key resource that builds the core of such cultural tourism sites. An observation was also made that only a few facilities within the ERIH association developed a sustainability agenda and that having such a document in place impacts how a site affects its environment and how it manages other developmental issues. In general, the majority of the researched sites does not consciously tackle sustainability problems (this is reflected in the managerial approach), but at the same time, their attitude towards the local society, as well as the clients and partners, is mostly aligned with sustainability goals.
According to the Chartered Institute of Marketing, “Marketing is the management function which organises and directs all those business activities involved in assessing customer needs and converting customer purchasing power into effective demand for a specific product or service, and in moving that product or service to the final consumer or user so as to achieve the profit target or other objective set by the company or other organisation”. In other words “marketing is about anticipating demand, recognizing it, stimulating it and finally satisfying it. It is understanding what can be sold, to whom, when, where and in what quantities”. All marketing strategies need to be complaint with the Unfair Commercial Practices Regulation.
This paper presents a systematic method for calculating regional level Environmental sustainability by using the sustainable value approach. The quest for achieving sustainability has led to the development of various tools and measures for structuring and conducting sustainable development policy analyses and the metrics used for the measurement of sustainability are still evolving. Sustainable Value approach is another simple tool for measuring sustainability performance. In general, Sustainable Value integrates the three dimensions of sustainability: the economic development, environmental sustainability and social development. This paper uses the principles of the sustainable value approach to calculate the environmental sustainability of the regions of the Czech Republic.
Access to justice has been recognized as an essential component of peace, sustainable
development and conflict resolution. The international community acknowledged this
significance with the 2015 adoption of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development and, in particular, Sustainable Development Goal 16- Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. Due to the many distinctive characteristics of post-conflict settings, attempting to measure access to justice in post-conflict environments remains challenging. In order to develop a conceptual measurement framework for use in post-conflict situations, this qualitative study reviews and analyzes the literature on access to justice, existing measurement tools designed to measure the concept, and data gathered through consultations with 10 subject matter experts in San Jose, Costa Rica. The resulting conceptual measurement framework accounts for the unique and varied ways that access to justice is experienced in post-conflict environments and suggests
feasible options for implementation in the field.
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