Environmental sustainability indicators

Government of Canada. 2006. Canadian environmental sustainability indicators 2006 report. Environment Canada. Ottawa (Ontario). 

Development of Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indices (ESI) for Energetic Contaminants at Military Ranges... 

As mentioned in Section 12.5, series of generic risk-based Environmental Sustainability Indices (ESI) values for MC in soil have been calculated using the CCME approach [57,59], Because the use of the standard CCME industrial scenario would not be protective for wildlife (birds and mammals) present on Canadian DND testing... 

Limdin, M., Morrison, G.M., 2002. A life cycle assessment based procedure for development of environmental sustainability indicators for urban water systems. Urban Water 4,145-152. 

Behrens A (2004) Environmental policy instruments for dematerialisation of the European Union. SERI Background Papers, No 7. Sustainable Europe Research Institute, Vienna EUROSTAT (2001) Economy-wide material flow accounts and derived indicators. A methodological guide. Statistical Office of the European Union, Luxembourg Giljum S (2006) Material flow-based indicators for evaluation of eco-efficiency and dematerialisation policies. In Lawn P (ed) Sustainability indicators in Ecological Economics. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham... 

Carruthers, G. and Tinning, G. 2003. Where, and how, do monitoring and sustainability indicators fit into environmental management systems Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture 43(3) 307-323. 

Harmsen GJ. Sustainable process design. In Weijnen MPC, Herder, PM, eds. Environmental Performance Indicators in Process Design and Operation. Proceedings of EFCE Event 616. Delft Delft University Press, 1999 59-68. 

Table 2.1. 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index building blocks, indicators, and variables. From ESI (2005).

In Section 6.2.4, Societal Costs , we learn that societal costs constitute an important element of the costs of environmental impacts from industrial activities, although they often fall outside the private calculation of costs and benefits to a company. This entry gives a perspective on the importance to a company of considering these externalities as a sustainability indicator in both management decision-making and facility design and optimization. 

Measurable indicators of sustainability reputation include a company s regulatory compliance record, third-party recognition and awards, participation in environmental/sustainability consortia, and extent of community development and philanthropic support. 

Sustainability is important in the context of industry sectors, products, process technologies, and individual process plants. In assessing performance achievement in sustainability, there is a need for suitable sustainability indicators to measure progress in environmental, economic, and social performance. 

Composite indicators (CIs) are valuable instruments to monitor performance and time trends of objects (e.g., countries, regions, economic sectors, universities, etc.) in several fields (e.g., technological innovation, environmental sustainability, competitiveness, governance, etc.). Media largely use composite indicators to draw attention of policy-makers and the public upon phenomena of interest for society. Guidelines for the development of composite indicators have recently been issued by the OECD and the JRC (Nardo et al 2008). 

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