Environmental indicators for sustainability: a strategic analysis for the sugarcane ethanol context in Brazil

Abstract

Sugarcane ethanol is considered a renewable energy source and has emerged as a potential alternative to reduce dependency on fossil fuels, particularly in Brazil. However, there are some questions about how sustainable this energy source is, given the impacts from its production and use on a larger scale. To understand and achieve sustainability, it is essential to build tools that can assess an integrated conception and help decision-makers to establish public policies for a sustainable development. The indicators appear as such tools by capturing the complexity without reducing the significance of each system's component. The environmental indicators such as water quality indicator represent the level of water pollution, considering several parameters. The importance of the development, selection and validation of environmental indicators through a structured and cohesive process becomes essential. In the State of São Paulo, in Brazil, the environmental indicators, as well as policies based on them, are defined by the Environmental Secretariat (SMA/SP). This article presents an environmental indicator's evaluation method and reports based on the discussions about sustainability for the ethanol sugarcane context in the State of São Paulo. The method consists of interviews and an expert's workshop which pointed out a set of benchmarks for the evaluation of environmental indicators. The procedures were applied to an indicator used by the SMA/SP to illustrate the method's effectiveness. The results show that a strategic analysis framework can improve the environmental indicators required for the discussion on sustainability, providing a better guide to decision-makers.

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“…There are gladness and sadness criticisms from both sugar mills entrepreneurs and capitalism lovers versus poorer workers at cane plantations, respectively. Let us emphasize the thoughts and opinions from the closer national teacher and researcher on environmental sciences, recalled his graduation title as a social scientist, too-Prof. Dr. Valdir Fernandes [10]. His comments and Strengths, Weaknesses Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) guidelines were built in a partnership with other three other publication colleagues and was summarized below:…”