EU sustainable development indicators: An overview

Abstract

The European Union's commitment to sustainable development at the 1992 Earth Summit resulted in an EU‐wide sustainable development strategy, adopted in Gothenburg in 2001. This article presents an overview of the set of sustainable development indicators (SDIs) recently adopted by the European Commission to monitor, assess and revise the strategy. It provides a critical assessment of the current status of the indicator set, and reviews the main policy trends in the areas of the strategy through a brief analysis of headline indicators, placing energy and climate change issues in a broader perspective. Finally, the article compares the energy SDIs to the recent inter‐agency energy indicators for sustainable development (EISD), underlining their similarities as well as their different priorities and objectives. The article concludes that further research is needed to improve the SDI set and further explore the linkages between themes.

A Model for Incorporated Measurement of Sustainable Development Comprising Remote Sensing Data and Using the Concept of Biodiversity

“…social sustainability), and (3) the interest in an intact natural environment that is capable of supporting the needs of future generations (i.e. ecological sustainability) (Sartorius, 2006;Ledoux et al, 2005). First order state reflects only economic, social, or environmental issues separately.…”

“…Further, what are the criteria of sustainability, or the critical thresholds, that could be applied across these dimensions to facilitate judgments as to whether development is sustainable or not (Ekins et al, 2008). De Kruijf and Van Vuuren (1998); Ravetz (2000); ; The Energy & Biodiversity Initiative (2002); Yuan and James (2002); Ledoux et al (2005) have developed a number of additional criteria to determine the quality of indicators selected or proposed. Indicators, according to these criteria should furthermore be: independent, i.e.…”

Using Index to Measure and Monitor Progress on Sustainable Development

“…The SDI not only reflected an integrated measure of overall sustainability for the BCS region, but also was helpful for developing policies and strategies to obtain better sustainable development conditions. Ledoux et al presented an overview of a set of sustainable development indicators recently adopted by the European Commission to monitor, assess and revise the sustainable development strategy adopted in Gothenburg in 2001 (Ledoux et al, 2005). It introduced a hierarchical theme framework based of the policy priorities of the sustainable development strategy to contribute to efficient choosing of indicators, and placed energy and climate change issues in a broader perspective.…”

“…Some SDI measuring models cover all three kinds of factors (e.g. Ledoux et al, 2005), most models integrate at least two kinds (e.g. EPA Project Team, 2008) and a few models specialize in only one aspect (e.g.…”

Sustainability in the Turkish retailing industry

“…They conclude that there are various approaches that have been used to measure, monitor and assess a company's progress towards sustainability. Ledoux et al (2005) Present the overview of the set of sustainable development indicators recently adopted by European commission to monitor, assess and revise the sustainability strategy. Halme et al (2004) Argue that there is a need for the concept of sustainable services and suggest a way to assess sustainability.…”