Sustainability Indicators

In order to assess the sustainability of a particular setting or process, sustainability indicators are constantly being developed. You have probably heard these being mentioned in the news. Let’s look at this term a bit more closely.

What are indicators?

“An indicator is something that helps you understand where you are, which way you are going and how far you are from where you want to be. A good indicator alerts you to a problem before it gets too bad and helps you recognize what needs to be done to fix the problem.”

What are indicators of sustainability?

The UN document Agenda 21 encourages the use of indicators of sustainability which describe the current state of the economy, environment and society. Indicators can help to monitor progress towards sustainable development, and identify where improvements need to be made.

To look at a concrete example we can consider sustainability indicators for a manufacturing company. The indicators will depend upon what the company is producing, but in general indicators of sustainable production would:

Measure the types of material being used (percent renewable versus nonrenewable, percent recycled versus percent not recycled) and the rate at which it is being used (can’t be using renewable resources faster than they can be renewed) includes energy being used both in production and in transporting workers, raw materials and finished products.

Measure the amount and type of emissions being generated and the rate at which they are being emitted compared to the ability of the surrounding ecosystems to absorb them without harm.

Measure the rate at which workers are allowed or encouraged to develop new skills.

Measure the amount to which the facility benefits the community around it, the community around the source of its raw materials and the community that is the destination for the product and for the disposal of the product Hart, M. Sustainable Measures. Available at (

An important point is that the usefulness of indicators depends on their relevance, so that different sets of indicators are generally required for different places. For instance, kilometres of train journeys made per citizen per year may be a good indicator of environment-friendly transportation for France, but not so good for Malta where trains do not exist.

One can say that indicators are a way of seeing sustainability in action. International organizations and research institutions are constantly trying to compile lists of sustainability indicators. They also try to find and share examples of ‘best practice’ when it comes to different personal, household, community or industrial production and consumption practices.

There are also lists of best practices in Education for Sustainable Development linked to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) [1].

[1] UNESCO. Education for Sustainable Development. Good Practices in the UNECE region. Available at http://portal.unesco.org/education/... Accessed December 23, 2008