Evaluating Sustainability: Controversies, Challenges, and Opportunities

Abstract

Sustainability has long been a concern with regard to overpopulation and resource shortages. The concept became used in evaluation because of the observations that many programs have difficulties being sustained after initial start‐up funding expired. Now sustainability is a central concern due to the crisis of climate change. This chapter provides a foundation for this issue on evaluating sustainability by reviewing the evolving understandings of “sustainability” as it relates to evaluation, developing the argument that sustainability, and evaluating sustainability, is better viewed in process versus outcome terms, and summarizing some of the challenges and opportunities that wait to be addressed.

Moving Upstream: An Intersectoral Collaboration to Build Sustainable Planning Capacity in Rural and Appalachian Communities

“…They no longer simply award grants, but instead make investments in initiatives, organizations, and communities that carry a desired "return on grantmaking" (McCracken & Firesheets, 2010, p. 55). Philanthropy also has moved toward making longer-term, multiyear investments in recognition that evidence-based prevention strategies need sufficient time to impact public health concerns (Julnes, 2019;Schell et al, 2013;Bartczak, 2013). Multiyear investments often include expectations of grantees to produce positive community outcomes, which means they need community-level data to track and report those outcomes.…”

Editor’s Notes: Coordinating Evaluation Efforts in Support of a Sustainable World

“…With these early warnings proving prescient, past decades have witnessed many national and international efforts to act on our understandings. Notable efforts in support of global sustainability include the 1987 UN World Commission on the Environment and Development and the UN Conference on Environment and Development, or “Earth Summit,” in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (Julnes, 2019a). Building on these efforts, the 2000 UN Millennium Declaration established eight interdependent Millennium Development Goals for poverty, health, equality, and environmental sustainability; the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, revolving around 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), followed in 2015 to guide sustainable development planning (Kanie & Biermann, 2017).…”

Exploring the knowledge structure and potential research areas of sustainable tourism in sustainable development: Based on text mining and semantic network analysis

“…Since then, interest in the environment for sustainable development has begun to increase (Hallin et al, 2021; Michael, 2008; Wickens et al, 2015). According to the Bruntland report, sustainable development pursues a life in which humans and nature can coexist to solve problems such as population growth, soil pollution, and biodiversity caused by economic development (Imran et al, 2014; Julnes, 2019; Pearce & Atkinson, 1998; WCED, 1987). Specifically, sustainable development represents a dynamic concept and process in which people's perceptions change along with social development (Cottrell et al, 2013).…”