Sustainability assessment and indicators: Tools in a decision-making strategy for sustainable development

Tom Waas, Jean Huge, Thomas Block, Tarah Wright, Francisco Javier Benitez Capistros and Aviel Verbruggen

ULB Institutional Repository from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

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. © 2014 by the authors.

Keywords: Decision-making; Impact assessment; Sustainability assessment; Sustainability indicators; Sustainable development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
Note: SCOPUS: re.j
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (116)

Published in: Sustainability (2014) v.6 n° 9,p.5512-5534

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