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Assessing Sustainability: Frameworks and Indices (White Paper #3)

Guo, Dong; DeFrancia, Kelsie; Chen, Meiyi; Filiatraut, Brian; Zhang, ChengHang

The ability to accurately assess and track sustainability is crucial for achieving sustainable development goals at every level. There are many types of tools for sustainability assessment, at the core of which are indicators and indices. By presenting a number of common sustainability frameworks and outlining the underlying steps for constructing sustainability indices, this paper aims to contribute to the overview and discussion of sustainability measurement, which is often inconsistent and confusing. This paper also analyzes how sustainability frameworks can assist in the selection of indicators, which is often the most important yet most inconsistent step in constructing an index, and points out the need for future research to develop a dynamic and objective process of indicator selection for both frameworks and composite indices.

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More About This Work

Academic Units
Earth Institute
Series
Sustainability Metrics White Paper Series, 3
Published Here
June 5, 2015