Sustainability Assessment and Indicators: Tools in a Decision-Making Strategy for Sustainable Development

Tom Waas, Jean Hugé, Thomas Block, Tarah Wright, Francisco Benitez-Capistros and Aviel Verbruggen
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Tom Waas: Centre for Sustainable Development, Ghent University, Poel 16, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Jean Hugé: Centre for Sustainable Development, Ghent University, Poel 16, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Thomas Block: Centre for Sustainable Development, Ghent University, Poel 16, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Tarah Wright: Environmental Science Department, Dalhousie University, 1355 Oxford Street, P.O. Box, Halifax, NS 15000, Canada
Francisco Benitez-Capistros: Laboratory of Systems Ecology and Resource Management, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 50, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
Aviel Verbruggen: University of Antwerp, Prinsstraat 13, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

Sustainability, 2014, vol. 6, issue 9, 1-23

Abstract: Recognizing the urgent need for sustainability, we argue that to move beyond the rhetoric and to actually realize sustainable development, it must be considered as a decision-making strategy. We demonstrate that sustainability assessment and sustainability indicators can be powerful decision-supporting tools that foster sustainable development by addressing three sustainability decision-making challenges: interpretation, information-structuring, and influence. Particularly, since the 1990s many substantial and often promising sustainability assessment and sustainability indicators efforts are made. However, better practices and a broader shared understanding are still required. We aim to contribute to that objective by adopting a theoretical perspective that frames SA and SI in the context of sustainable development as a decision-making strategy and that introduces both fields along several essential aspects in a structured and comparable manner.

Keywords: sustainability assessment; sustainability indicators; decision-making; impact assessment; sustainable development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (100)

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