Measuring Sustainability

Author : Simon Bell
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136561331
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Measuring Sustainability written by Simon Bell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ' Measuring the sustainability of development is crucial to achieving it, and is one of the most actively studied issues in the area. To date, most studies of measurements or indicators have been largely theoretical. However, this book, a follow-on to Bell and Morse's highly influential Sustainability Indicators (1999), presents valuable practical advice on how to develop measurements that will work in real-life development contexts. It describes and analyses how to derive, validate and apply indicators in the course of an actual development project - in this case the Mediterranean Action Plan in Malta. The authors explain the trade-offs and constraints involved and how it is possible to combine the open-ended and flexible perspectives of sustainability with the more linear processes and fixed targets of specific projects through the use of pragmatic and reflective methodologies.

Author : Jiří Jaromír Klemeš
Publisher : Butterworth-Heinemann
ISBN 13 : 0128022337
Total Pages : 608 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Assessing and Measuring Environmental Impact and Sustainability written by Jiří Jaromír Klemeš and published by Butterworth-Heinemann. This book was released on 2015-01-20 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assessing and Measuring Environmental Impact and Sustainability answers the question “what are the available methodologies to assess the environmental sustainability of a product, system or process?” Multiple well-known authors share their expertise in order to give a broad perspective of this issue from a chemical and environmental engineering perspective. This mathematical, quantitative book includes many case studies to assist with the practical application of environmental and sustainability methods. Readers learn how to efficiently assess and use these methods. This book summarizes all relevant environmental methodologies to assess the sustainability of a product and tools, in order to develop more green products or processes. With life cycle assessment as its main methodology, this book speaks to engineers interested in environmental impact and sustainability. Helps engineers to assess, evaluate, and measure sustainability in industry Provides workable approaches to environmental and sustainability assessment Readers learn tools to assess the sustainability of a process or product and to design it in an environmentally friendly way

Author : Adam Lindgreen
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1315401886
Total Pages : 503 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Measuring and Controlling Sustainability written by Adam Lindgreen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Efforts to establish the measurement and control of sustainability have produced notable tools, but those instruments lack applicability in practice. Increasing the level of standardization of such tools also seems difficult to achieve, because the contexts surrounding the focal organizations differ considerably. Therefore, what we need is a systematic, interdisciplinary assessment of how to measure and control sustainability, so that we can establish an essential definition and up-to-date picture of the field. Measuring and Controlling Sustainability attempts to provide such an assessment in 17 chapters, organized into four main topic sections: (a) organizations and social value creation: concepts, responsibilities, and barriers; (b) accounting, measurement, performance, and diffusion of social value; (c) practical and managerial insights from real-life cases; and (d) choices, incentives, guidance, and ethics. This research anthology provides a comprehensive collection of cutting-edge theories and research that will further the development and advancement of measuring and controlling sustainable efforts in theory and managerial practice.

Author : Simon Bell
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 113655601X
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sustainability Indicators written by Simon Bell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-04 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for the first edition: 'This book should be of interest to anyone interested in sustainable development, and especially sustainability indicators. Bell and Morse easily succeed in exposing the fundamental paradoxes of these concepts and, more importantly, they offer us a way forward. Readers ... will find their practical recommendations for those attempting to do sustainability analysis in the field most welcome, which is also the book's greatest strength.' Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability 'This book makes a valuable contribution to the theory and practice of using indicators for sustainability. It introduces systems ideas and a range of tools and techniques that have the potential to broaden and deepen our understanding of a whole range of complex situations. Well worth a closer look.' Christine Blackmore, Open University 'This is a book that explores new ways of thinking about how to measure sustainability... It offers stimulating food for thought for environmental educators and researchers.' Environmental Education Research 'This book tells me, as an SI 'practitioner', where I have been and why, and more importantly how I should be thinking in order to effectively present to and empower the local community in the years ahead.' David Ellis, Principal Pollution Monitoring Officer, Norwich City Council 'A practical guide to the development of sustainability indicators which offers a systemic and participative way to use them at local scale. Our preliminary results are highly positive and the approach is applicable in many contexts.' Elisabeth Coudert, Programme Officer Prospective and Regional Development, Blue Plan The groundbreaking first edition of Sustainability Indicators reviewed the development and value of sustainability indicators and discussed the advantage of taking a holistic and qualitative approach rather than focusing on strictly quantitative measures. In the new edition the authors bring the literature up to date and show that the basic requirement for a systemic approach is now well grounded in the evidence. They examine the origins and development of Systemic Sustainability Analysis (SSA) as a theoretical approach to sustainability which has been developed in practice in a number of countries on an array of projects since the first edition. They look at how SSA has evolved into the practical approaches of Systemic Prospective Sustainability Analysis (SPSA) and IMAGINE, and, in particular, how a wide range of participatory methodologies have been adopted over the years. They also provide an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of projects that undertake work in the general field of sustainable development.

Author : Dale W. Jorgenson
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022612147X
Total Pages : 672 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Measuring Economic Sustainability and Progress written by Dale W. Jorgenson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-10-17 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Great Depression, researchers and statisticians have recognized the need for more extensive methods for measuring economic growth and sustainability. The recent recession renewed commitments to closing long-standing gaps in economic measurement, including those related to sustainability and well-being. The latest in the NBER’s influential Studies in Income and Wealth series, which has played a key role in the development of national account statistics in the United States and other nations, this volume explores collaborative solutions between academics, policy researchers, and official statisticians to some of today’s most important economic measurement challenges. Contributors to this volume extend past research on the integration and extension of national accounts to establish an even more comprehensive understanding of the distribution of economic growth and its impact on well-being, including health, human capital, and the environment. The research contributions assess, among other topics, specific conceptual and empirical proposals for extending national accounts.

Author : Joseph E. Stiglitz
Publisher : The New Press
ISBN 13 : 1620975726
Total Pages : 450 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book For Good Measure written by Joseph E. Stiglitz and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today's leading economists weigh in with a new "dashboard" of metrics for measuring our economic and social health "What we measure affects what we do. If we focus only on material well-being—on, say, the production of goods, rather than on health, education, and the environment—we become distorted in the same way that these measures are distorted." —Joseph E. Stiglitz A consensus has emerged among key experts that our conventional economic measures are out of sync with how most people live their lives. GDP, they argue, is a poor and outmoded measure of our well-being. The global movement to move beyond GDP has attracted some of the world's leading economists, statisticians, and social thinkers who have worked collectively to articulate new approaches to measuring economic well-being and social progress. In the decade since the 2008 economic crisis, these experts have come together to determine what indicators can actually tell us about people's lives. In the first book of its kind, leading economists from around the world, including Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Elizabeth Beasely, Jacob Hacker, François Bourguignon, Nora Lustig, Alan B. Krueger, and Joseph E. Stiglitz, describe a range of fascinating metrics—from economic insecurity and environmental sustainability to inequality of opportunity and levels of trust and resilience—that can be used to supplement the simplistic measure of gross domestic product, providing a far more nuanced and accurate account of societal health and well-being. This groundbreaking volume is sure to provide a major source of ideas and inspiration for one of the most important intellectual movements of our time.

Author : Marc Fleurbaey
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199346917
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Beyond GDP written by Marc Fleurbaey and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-11 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In spite of recurrent criticism and an impressive production of alternative indicators by scholars and NGOs, GDP remains the central indicator of countries' success. This book revisits the foundations of indicators of social welfare, and critically examines the four main alternatives to GDP that have been proposed: composite indicators, subjective well-being indexes, capabilities (the underlying philosophy of the Human Development Index), and equivalent incomes. Its provocative thesis is that the problem with GDP is not that it uses a monetary metric but that it focuses on a narrow set of aspects of individual lives. It is actually possible to build an alternative, more comprehensive, monetary indicator that takes income as its first benchmark and adds or subtracts corrections that represent the benefit or cost of non-market aspects of individual lives. Such a measure can respect the values and preferences of the people and give as much weight as they do to the non-market dimensions. A further provocative idea is that, in contrast, most of the currently available alternative indicators, including subjective well-being indexes, are not as respectful of people's values because, like GDP, they are too narrow and give specific weights to the various dimensions of life in a more uniform way, without taking account of the diversity of views on life in the population. The popular attraction that such alternative indicators derive from being non-monetary is therefore based on equivocation. Moreover, it is argued in this book that "greening" GDP and relative indicators is not the proper way to incorporate sustainability concerns. Sustainability involves predicting possible future paths, therefore different indicators than those assessing the current situation. While various indicators have been popular (adjusted net savings, ecological footprint), none of them involves the necessary forecasting effort that a proper evaluation of possible futures requires.

Author : Sten Thore
Publisher : Elsevier
ISBN 13 : 0323902693
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Measuring Sustainable Development Goals Performance written by Sten Thore and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2021-11-27 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Measuring Sustainable Development Goals Performance provides a quantitative and analytical framework for evaluating social, economic, and environmental policies aiming at the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). Continuing their earlier work on multidimensional analysis, the authors demonstrate how nations can be ranked in terms of their performance in meeting a given set of SDGs, providing numerical calculation of SDGs deficit. Their calculations show that even before the arrival of the COVID-19 virus, there existed in several large Western nations undetected pockets of SDG deficits, such as in the care for the elderly, personal safety, and hygiene. Extending the calculations to cover COVID-19 data for 2020, it turns out that the same deficit nations also suffered excess death rates caused by the virus.This book offers a balanced and holistic paradigm for evaluating progress of the SDGs, assisting the convergence of national and international efforts toward economic development, social progress, and environmental protection. 2023 PROSE Awards - Winner: Category: Single and Multivolume Reference and Textbooks in Social Sciences: Association of American Publishers Includes novel tools, procedures, diagnostics, and metrics for evaluating the entire spectrum of SDGs in a wide variety of settings Ranks nations according to their social and economic performance, based on each nation's unique resource and output indicators Examines international efforts toward shaping a new Social Contract between global partners Delivers a new Calculus of Consent: Logical foundation for forging Geneva Consensus for Sustainable Development

Author : Nordic Council of Ministers
Publisher : Nordic Council of Ministers
ISBN 13 : 9289314109
Total Pages : 72 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Measuring Sustainability and Decoupling written by Nordic Council of Ministers and published by Nordic Council of Ministers. This book was released on 2006 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is growing interest among policymakers for the prospects of decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation, in order to achieve improved environmental quality without compromising economic growth. However, whilst decoupling indicators give a reasonably good measure for potential or progress towards sustainability, decoupling is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for sustainability. Decoupling indicators, unlike many other statistical efforts related to the environment, are not meant to summarise the general state of the environment, but rather to measure countries' progress towards mitigating or alleviating particular environmental pressures from relevant driving forces.

Author : Sarah E. Fredericks
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135045666
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.61/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Measuring and Evaluating Sustainability written by Sarah E. Fredericks and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The indexes used by local, national, and international governments to monitor progress toward sustainability do not adequately align with their ethical priorities and have a limited ability to monitor and promote sustainability. This book gives a theoretical and practical demonstration of how ethics and technical considerations can aid the development of sustainability indexes to overcome this division in the literature and aid sustainability initiatives. Measuring and Evaluating Sustainability develops and illustrates methods of linking technical and normative concerns during the development of sustainability indexes. Specifically, guidelines for index development are combined with a pragmatic theory of ethics that enables ethical collaboration among people of diverse ethical systems. Using the resulting method of index development, the book takes a unique applied turn as it ethically evaluates multiple sustainability indexes developed and used by the European Commission, researchers, and local communities and suggests ways to improve the indexes. The book emphasizes justice as it is the most prevalent ethical principle in the sustainability literature and most neglected in index development. In addition to the ethical principles common to international sustainability initiatives, the book also employs a variety of religious and philosophical traditions to ensure that the ethical evaluations performed in the text align with the ideals of the communities using the indexes and foster cross-cultural ethical dialogue. This volume is an invaluable resource for students, researchers and professionals working on sustainability indicators and sustainability policy-making as well as interdisciplinary areas including environmental ethics; environmental philosophy; environmental or social justice; ecological economics; businesses sustainability programs; international development and environmental policy-making.