This paper argues that the need for a core -fourth pillar‖ of sustainability/sustainable development, as demanded in multiple arenas, can no longer be ignored on the grounds of intangibility. Different approaches to this vital but missing pillar (cultural-aesthetic, religious-spiritual, and political-institutional) find common ground in the area of ethical values. While values and aspects based on them are widely assumed to be intangible and immeasurable, we illustrate that it is possible to operationalize them in terms of measurable indicators when they are intersubjectively conceptualized within clearly defined practical contexts. The processes require contextual localization of items, which can nonetheless fit into a generalizable framework. This allows useful measurements to be made, and removes OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2013, 5 3036 barriers to studying, tracking, comparing, evaluating and correlating values-related dimensions of sustainability. It is advocated that those involved in operationalizing sustainability (especially in the context of creating post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals), should explore the potential for developing indicators to capture some of its less tangible aspects, especially those concerned with ethical values.

There have been recent calls for a shift to an evidence-based paradigm in environmental management, grounded in systematic monitoring and evaluation, but achieving this will be complex and difficult. Evaluating the educational components of environmental initiatives presents particular challenges, because these programs often have multiple concurrent goals and may value 'human outcomes', such as value change, which are intangible and difficult to quantify. This paper describes a fresh approach based on co-creating an entirely new values-based assessment framework with expert practitioners worldwide. We first discuss the development of a generic framework of 'Proto-Indicators' (reference criteria constituting prototypes for measurable indicators), and then demonstrate its application within a reforestation project in Mexico where indicators and assessment tools were localized to enhance context-relevance. Rigorously derived using unitary validity, with an emphasis on relevance, practicability and logical consistency from user perspectives, this framework represents a step-wise advance in the evaluation of non-formal EE/ESD programs. This article also highlights three important principles with broader implications for evaluation, valuation and assessment processes within environmental management: namely peer-elicitation, localizability, and an explicit focus on ethical values. We discuss these principles in relation to the development of sustainability indicators at local and global levels, especially in relation to post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.

A collaborative partnership is developing a values-based indicator framework for use by civil society organizations (CSOs). A key sub-study on the relevance and usability of such indicators was carried out through an action research process with a CSO and it was found that: 1) it was, indeed, possible to develop useful and relevant indicators for the presence of CSO values; 2) it was not useful to tie each indicator to only one value; 3) the indicators were more 'universal' than the values for which they had been derived; 4) these indicators were not considered valid by the user CSO without being 'localized'; 5) the use of our values-based framework caused substantive transformational learning within this CSO. The importance of these findings to studies on values and to design issues central to formal values-based measurement work, such as face validity and catalytic validity, is drawn out. The principles of emancipatory action research used are shown to be key to the results, which themselves form foundational elements

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This descriptive report outlines an innovative project in which Earth Charter International is actively involved. The project aims to develop approaches, indicators and tools for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to be able to measure values-based aspects and impacts of their work at the project level.Dimity Podger is Research Fellow at the University of Brighton, UK.