Justice in sustainability indicators and indexes

Fredericks, Sarah E.

doi:10.1080/13504509.2012.714807

Cited by 30 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The outcome of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, Agenda 21, calls for SDIs to "provide solid bases for decision-making at all levels and to contribute to a self-regulating sustainability of integrated environment and development system" (4). Over 900 SDI initiatives have been undertaken to date (5), in recognition of the fact that indicators provide a quantitative and rational basis for decision making (6), simplify a complex reality to a manageable level (7), create a body of knowledge and comparable data for policy applications, measure progress (8), and allow the public to evaluate society and its leaders (9). Individual indices, such as the Human Development Index and the Ecological Footprint, have been used to compare countries, and sustainability frameworks, such as Ostrom's framework for social-ecological systems (10) and the "ecosystems approach" adopted by the UNCBD (11), have been developed to better understand the relationships between social and ecological systems.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracking sustainable development with a national barometer for South Africa using a downscaled “safe and just space” framework

Cole

Bailey

New

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

119

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Nations in the 21st century face a complex mix of environmental and social challenges, as highlighted by the on-going Sustainable Development Goals process. The “planetary boundaries” concept [Rockström J, et al. (2009) Nature 461(7263):472–475], and its extension through the addition of social well-being indicators to create a framework for “safe and just” inclusive sustainable development [Raworth K (2012) Nature Climate Change 2(4):225–226], have received considerable attention in science and policy circles. As the chief aim of this framework is to influence public policy, and this happens largely at the national level, we assess whether it can be used at the national scale, using South Africa as a test case. We developed a decision-based methodology for downscaling the framework and created a national “barometer” for South Africa, combining 20 indicators and boundaries for environmental stress and social deprivation. We find that it is possible to maintain the original design and concept of the framework while making it meaningful in the national context, raising new questions and identifying priority areas for action. Our results show that South Africa has exceeded its environmental boundaries for biodiversity loss, marine harvesting, freshwater use, and climate change, and social deprivation is most severe in the areas of safety, income, and employment. Trends since 1994 show improvement in nearly all social indicators, but progression toward or over boundaries for most environmental indicators. The barometer shows that achieving inclusive sustainable development in South Africa requires national and global action on multiple fronts, and careful consideration of the interplay between different environmental domains and development strategies.

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confidence: 99%

Tracking sustainable development with a national barometer for South Africa using a downscaled “safe and just space” framework

Cole

Bailey

New

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

119

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Skouloudis et. al., 2016;Wilson and Wu, 2016;Wilson and Jianguo, 2016;Shaker and Zubalsky, 2015;Jain and Jain, 2014;Kaivooja et al, 2014;Fredericks, 2012;Skouloudis and Evangelinos, 2012) indicates the need for further aggregated approaches. We aim to contribute to this gap by proposing a global self-sustainability index for countries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mitigating the Davos dilemma: towards a global self-sustainability index

Dsouli

Khan

Kakabadse

et al. 2017

International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ec

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The' Davos dilemma' posits a sustainability crisis, provoked by rising human population and intense competitive behaviours, in terms of control and access to depleting natural resources. More broadly understood as an ecological problem, rather than just socio-economic behavioural deficiencies, it calls for better integrated social, natural and business indexed reporting within planetary boundaries. This poses challenges for nationally governed societies to equitably account for self-sustainability performance and their successive government agendas to re-orientate policies and industry investments as innovation towards achieving this in the longer term. We propose and test a Global self-sustainability index for countries across four metrics: economic, environmental, social and innovation. Our tentative findings from a cross-country analysis of twenty-seven countries during 2007-2010 illustrates the approach for wider systematic analysis and as a basis for future large-scale assessments on selfsustainability within and between countries.

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“…While the previous studies analyse efficiency solely from the environmental and economic perspectives, the current research assesses efficiency including rural poverty as an inalienable pillar of sustainability in emerging markets (Fredericks 2012;Hansmann et al 2012;Ali 2013;Cosyns et al 2013;Lyytimäki et al 2013). The set of workable indicators shows that the method can be an interesting alternative to operationalize the concept of sustainability and can be used to support the formulation of policies consistent with the maximization of social welfare in developing countries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A measure of sustainability of Brazilian agribusiness using directional distance functions and data envelopment analysis

Peña

Guarnieri

Sobreiro

et al. 2014

International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ec

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The social and environmental impacts caused by the modernization of Brazilian agribusiness have evoked a growing interest in the search of balance between social-economics development and the adequate use of natural resources, driving the country to sustainable development. Therefore, the main aim of this article is to estimate a set of indicators of relative efficiency in the Brazilian agricultural sector, which satisfy the concept of Pareto optimality, potentiates simultaneously both economic, ecological dimensions and social functions. To reach this purpose, the method of directional distance functions and data envelopment analysis was applied. These indicators confirm, in different ways, the hypothesis that it is possible to perform consistent productive strategies with the maximization of social welfare, despite the apparent antagonism among these three dimensions. In addition, it is shown that efficient Brazilian states tend to combine the three dimensions in different ways. Hence, it can be concluded that several equilibrium taken sustainable can be achieved through different actions on poverty and environmental impact reduction without necessarily generating productive inefficiencies. This result can be considered of prominent importance for sustainable development in Brazil and can also serve as a reference in the definition of goals of the plan 'Brazil without Misery' and international commitments to reduce Greenhouse Gas -GHGin Brazil, especially for the 17 inefficient Brazilian states.

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Justice in sustainability indicators and indexes

Cited by 30 publications

References 19 publications

Tracking sustainable development with a national barometer for South Africa using a downscaled “safe and just space” framework

Tracking sustainable development with a national barometer for South Africa using a downscaled “safe and just space” framework

Mitigating the Davos dilemma: towards a global self-sustainability index

A measure of sustainability of Brazilian agribusiness using directional distance functions and data envelopment analysis

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