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This study examines the sustainability and green banking performance of Indonesian banking sectors from their disclosures in sustainability reports covering a period of nine consecutive years. The findings elucidate that sustainability and green-banking disclosures are still dynamic year to year. Economic disclosures are the most widely disclosed information, while environmental disclosures are the lowest. Applying a content analysis method, this study uses the sustainability disclosure guidelines from the global reporting initiatives (GRI) and Measuring Green Banking Practices guidelines developed by Shaumya and Arulrajah (2016). Combining these two measurements provided a more comprehensive disclosure list as guidance. This study is important, as it will contribute to the literature on green banking, which is scarce in the extant literature. Given the lack of standardization in sustainability, this study develops an indicator database to advance research on sustainability measurement and reporting in relation to green banking. The managerial implications for banks implementing sustainability they require sustainability governance as a platform to evaluate and monitor the sustainable finance action plan and build a sustainability strategy. This will enable banks to manage not only economic, but also environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risk.

Self-help groups are informal associations that use social capital to overcome resource constraints and act as a catalyst for rural development, women, and social empowerment. This study tries to identify the factors that affect the sustainability of self-help groups in natural disaster-affected communities. Natural calamities in the form of droughts, floods, or cyclones pose major challenges to livelihood in disaster-prone regions. The study is based on survey data from two different disaster-prone locations: the cyclone- and flood-prone Sundarbans, and drought-prone Bankura in West Bengal, India. Applying principal component analysis to the responses of 143 self-help group members, the study identifies four factors responsible for the sustainability of these self-help groups. This study shows that managerial functions, trust, fund utilization, and easy financing are the factors that matter the most. The findings suggest that policymakers and local governments can focus on these aspects to ensure the effectiveness of self-help groups in meeting their social objectives.

This work considers a general common-weights network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model which is applicable to most network systems, except those with feedbacks and cycles. The principle of compromise, of the technique for order preference by similarity ideal solution (TOPSIS), is employed to find the common set of weights in the general network DEA model. The proposed method is applied to assess the environmental sustainability performance of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Our results show that most countries have a large difference in the rank of efficiencies between the eco-efficiency and production efficiency stages, which reveals the source that causes the low environmental sustainability scores of the whole process.

Nowadays sustainability improvement is one of the most important duties of each system and organization. A sustainable system first needs to measure the current condition of sustainability precisely and then tends to apply modifications for the sake of enhancing the quality of performance. Regarding the existence of unreliability in data, and while sustainability measurement always deals with calculations, practitioners and experts are not commonly able to obtain an accurate status for sustainability in associated systems. In light of this exigency, the fuzzy sets have been incorporated with sustainability evaluations in several studies to handle uncertainty and vagueness conditions. Meanwhile, the reliability of the data was still intact. This study aims at satisfying this constraint by adopting the concept of Z-numbers through sustainability appraisals. By using the proposed model, the unreliable data can be transformed into possibilistic fuzzy sets to remove the mathematical sophistications. The Z-number-based approach also can be transferred into conventional fuzzy sets when experts are fully confident about deterministic inputs. The proposed model then is applied to a freight transportation sustainability evaluation as an illustrative case to elucidate the application of the proposed model in real-world cases. The elaborated approach is validated by both conventional fuzzy sets and crisp approach, and the superiority of the model is demonstrated by more reasonable results and wide applications. Note that this approach can be used as a benchmark for evaluating sustainability in diverse systems in light of time.

This study presents a new optimization model for quantitative sustainability measurement in net present value estimation process of corporate investments. Proposed model presents an innovative perspective for the transformation of the logic behind traditional investment project selection practices to the sustainable project selection in corporations. By using the proposed model, it is possible that investors' can find positive sustainability trade‐offs without harming returns on investment. A case study is presented to illustrate the applicability of the proposed model in project selection decision‐making processes. Expected net present value is employed to calculate the return of the project investment for project selection decision‐stage. In order to identify stakeholder value trade‐off gaps, proposed model with sustainability involvement is evaluated in contrast to the traditional net value method estimations of the model. Based on optimization results, comparative analysis of proposed sustainability cost involvement in net present value estimation with traditional net present value estimation in project selection practices restore positive trade‐offs verifying the efficiency of proposed methodology.

This study aims to establish the link of key Islamic banking sustainability indicators with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) as a policy recommendation for sustainable development and to mitigate the distressing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit). To identify the key Islamic banking sustainability indicators, the authors selected the most cited sustainability measurement indexes in Islamic banking. Initially, the indexes were divided into 10 broader themes, and then the key Islamic banking sustainability indicators were shortlisted from each theme based on their high-frequency distribution. The shortlisted sustainability indicators were then ratified to be in line with Islamic philosophy based on “Maqasid al-Shariah” (objectives of Shariah) and were subsequently grouped into the three dimensions of economic, environmental, and social sustainability based on the axial coding method. Finally, the categorized sustainability indicators were aligned with the relevant UN SDGs through the axial coding method for policy formulation, and respectively 12 propositions were developed for policy formulation. This study labeled the methodological process of this study as the ECA method (exploration, categorization, alignment). The new ECA method offers a reverse extension in the “SDG compass” developed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) for aligning business policies with the UN SDGs. The process of aligning Islamic banking sustainability indicators with the UN SDGs will provide a roadmap to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of economic, environmental, and social issues. Due to the diversity of the UN SDG framework, it covers multiples aspects for sustainable development. Therefore, considering the UN SDGs in terms of various banking instruments will mitigate the multiple distressing impacts of COVID-19 on the triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit), it will also promote a sustainable development agenda. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The concept of sustainable development (SD) is aimed at ensuring public well-being for the present and future generations. Hundreds of methods have been proposed for assessing and comparing the sustainable development of countries and analyzing their contribution to the future of the world. When applied to resource-based economies (RBEs), assessment tools do not take into account the value and impact of mineral resources on SD indicators. The purpose of the study is to reveal the limitations of applying some tools by taking into consideration the specific features of RBEs. Research methods include a correlation analysis between gross national income (GNI) per capita and aggregated indices (the Sustainable Society Index (SSI), the Human Development Index (HDI), and the Environmental Performance Index (EPI)), a comparative analysis of these indices and mining companies&rsquo, performance indicators. Object Eurasian RBEs were selected, but Norway was analyzed separately from the sample. The results of the study show that correlations between GNI per capita and SD indicators are heterogeneous. There is no statistically significant correlation between GNI per capita and SSI, a strong correlation with HDI, and a weak correlation with EPI. The EPI and SSI structures do not reflect the specific features of RBEs.

Sustainability is a multidisciplinary discipline posing a difficult problem as a result of its integrated assessment. From a broad perspective, it considers the impact of human activities (using different resources) and natural conditions on local environments. Urban development has been identified as one of the most important reasons for environmental and social degradation. To address the complexity of sustainability and its impact, policymakers need to be equipped with the right toolkit to foresee the integrated effect of projects and plans on urban sustainability more effectively in their policy design. In this paper, we propose a tool to assess the sustainable performance of urban areas through a common framework of indicators which provides an integrated measurement based on the relative efficiency of key input variables on desirable and undesirable outputs. Using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), we propose a procedure for determining the relative efficiency of relevant urban areas, proposing this method as a candidate for integrated sustainability measurement. The selection of variables is based on dimensions which can be addressed from a political perspective for achieving more desirable outputs, or reducing the undesirable ones, controlling for key resources as much as possible. Our analysis takes a comprehensive scope including an environmental and socioeconomic perspective. This will be useful to identify weaknesses and strengths to improve the integrated performance of cities. Our array of indicators, based on standardized key performance indicators (KPIs) will enable policymakers to gather an insightful impact of their proposals in urban sustainability carrying out a global sustainability impact assessment through DEA. The main goal is to gather the urban experience of transforming cities into smarter cities and putting technological progress at the service of their societies.

Non-technical abstract Wealth commonly refers to the measure of the value of all assets or capital owned by an individual, community, company or nation. Sustainable development requires that the per capita productive base or comprehensive wealth of an economy should at least not decline over a period of time. We present here a comprehensive assessment of cross-country productivity over a study period of 1990–2010 for 140 countries. We used the concept of inclusive wealth introduced by the United Nations to assess the social value, rather than dollar price, of all each country's assets, including produced, human and natural capital.

Productivity, profitability and sustainability have become the essence of business survival; thus, modern industrial establishments are turning into frameworks consistent with environmental objectives by adopting cleaner technologies, green practices have ultimately resulting in generation of fewer pollutants. Urbanization and burgeoning technological advancement in different sector within India have brought the concept of green supply chain management, to highlight the importance of responsible consumption and production to maintain environmental quality, reduce wastage and bring out economic growth. This paper aims to segregate the sustainable and competitive performers from the average ones in the Indian manufacturing sector and to understand the degree of the impact of green practices of supply chain management based on their contribution towards sustainable environment. Using survey method, data are collected from 54 manufacturing organizations from Pune Nashik area, and a comprehensive framework of sustainability measurement is developed through successive applications of Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detector analysis, CHAID analysis. This paper is unique as it has applied the concept of CHAID analysis for first time to identify green logistics as main driver to achieve a reduction of ecological damage and improve business performance.

Modifying the traditional production system and the culture of consumption is necessary to achieve a sustainable society. The product-service system (PSS) business model allows companies to progres...

Sustainability analysis practice has so far proved that measurement of the level of sustainable development (SD) is associated with a large number of methodological difficulties and limitations, related mainly to the selection of indicators, data processing and interpretation of the results. This study is based on an assumption that SD should be measured in ways that depend on the level of development of the country, i.e., it is highly recommended to develop separate sets of indicators to be used for highly developed, medium-developed and poor countries. To that end, we carried out the study on a sample of 13 Southeast European (SEE) countries, and Germany and the Russian Federation for comparison—which are at different levels of development and overall political and socio-economic ambients. The research includes analysis by three different approaches to SD, each based on different sets of indicators: a “GDP approach” which is traditional, and in which economic and GDP-based indicators hold the dominant role; a “Beyond-GDP approach” that reduces the use of economic indicators while increasing the share of social indicators and those based on natural resources; and an “SDG-based approach” that is mainly using indicators of quality of life as defined by the United Nations (UN) SDG. The analysis was performed using the method of composite indicators. Groups of 20 indicators were selected according to their suitability to each of the 3 above-described approaches. The study objective leads to examining ways for measuring development, to suggest new ones, recommend approaches to sustainability planning for the considered SEE countries and beyond, to contribute to the analysis methodology (by assessing usability and reliability of certain indicators and of linkages between them), as well as to rank the countries’ levels of SD under these approaches. Some of the main conclusions are: (a) the indicators having the highest potential impact on the level of SD were foreign direct investments, public debt, energy imports, total natural resources rents, terrestrial and marine protected areas, vulnerable employment, and the Corruption Index; (b) use of the Inclusive Wealth Index is encouraged, so it is important to advance proper methodologies for its measurement; (c) Slovenia and Hungary were the highest-ranked SEE countries under all three approaches, just under Germany; and (d) the ranking order under the SDG-based approach could be used to identify the prioritization of development effort and funding that countries should apply and receive for meeting the SDG. Recommendations for further sustainability measurement were made based on the study’s findings.

Ratings are an increasingly popular part of urban sustainability governance and are widely understood as tools to guide policy and ensure transparency. This understanding is part of a more general shift in governance towards “New Public Management” that emphasizes public accountability and the accuracy of quantitative metrics and technical knowledge in policy evaluation. But critics have assessed ratings as broader mechanisms of governmentality, through which authorities shape, instrumentalize, and control conduct, and promote particular urban trajectories, in politicized ways. This paper examines STAR Communities, a recently developed urban sustainability rating system in the USA, to understand how such ratings behave at the interface of knowledge and policy, and how seeking transparency through ratings can produce unexpected outcomes that evade sustainability. This paper is not a critique of a specific rating system or set of indicators, but does yield a critique of the kinds of unexpected outcomes that are possible when we privilege quantitative measures of achievement. The study finds: 1) ratings are often used as labels rather than as policy inputs; 2) ratings can exacerbate existing inequalities and create new inequalities within and between municipalities because, while ratings can bring financial benefits, certification demands significant financial and political resources; and, 3) ratings can incentivize the realignment of governance priorities, as cities ‘grab’ points by pursuing quickly implemented, uncontroversial, and politically ‘safe’ policies and programs. The study also finds that sustainability managers continue to pursue quantitative sustainability measurement because of dominant assumptions that ‘counting is what counts’.

There are various processes which can be used for wastewater treatment (WT), and the selection of the most sustainable one among different processes is a hard task. This study aims at helping the decision-makers (DM) to address this by developing an intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS) theory based group multi-attribute decision analysis (MADA) method. Ten criteria in environment, economy, society-politic, and technology dimensions were employed to achieve sustainability measurement (SM) of WT processes. The multi-criteria sustainability assessment method developed in this study allow different experts to attend the SM, and enable the participants to employ the natural language/words to depict their intuitionistic opinions. Accordingly, the proposed method can achieve group SM under uncertainties. An illustrative case including four processes for wastewater treatment, namely Anaerobic-Anoxic-Oxic (AAO) process, Triple Oxidation Ditch (TOD) process, Anaerobic single-ditch oxidation (ASD) process, and Sequencing batch reactor activated sludge process (SBR), has been studied, and the results reveal that this method can determine sustainability sequence of different WT processes.

Unresilient and fragile regions need methods and data able to make policy-makers acknowledge the specific criticalities by which they are affected, so as to build effective development strategies and policies. This research explores whether and to what extent well-being and sustainability measurement frameworks are able to recognize crisis areas. We identified Taranto (Italy), declared as both a National Priority Contaminated Site and a Complex Industrial Crisis area, as a paradigmatic and extreme case of crisis areas and adopted the single case approach to address our research question. After reviewing several frameworks able to measure well-being at local level, we focused on Benessere Equo e Sostenibile dei Territori (Equitable and Sustainable Territorial Well-being, BESdT). We used two aggregate indexes to analyze data, namely the Adjusted Mazziotta-Pareto Index and the Adjusted Differences Mean Index. The study shows that, although BESdT does detect some criticalities of the examined area, it seems not able to adequately frame the multifaceted crisis that affects the area of Taranto. Even in presence of a full-blown crisis, the problematic situation does not always reflect into lower territorial performance, neither at the level of single indicators nor at the level of entire domains. Such discrepancy appears to be particularly evident within the economic domain. The paper ends with a discussion on the research and policy implications and some proposals for further research.

The development and use of indicators is common practice in efforts to promote sustainable development of water use systems. Building on the balanced network structure derived from the analysis of ecological information, in this study, we proposed a conceptual model and the network structure index (NSI), a new indicator that includes network efficiency and resilience. Furthermore, considering the need to cover measures of the state of water use systems, we combined the NSI with conventional multi-dimensional indicators including economic, social, and environmental factors to form an aggregated index for a more thorough and practical sustainability measurement. Based on the proposed new indicators, we used the four sub-basins of China’s Huaihe River as case studies. The goal of this study is to develop a new metric incorporating whole-system attributes for assessing the sustainability of water use systems. It represents the first attempt to provide a more reliable methodological tool to advance current assessments of sustainable water use.

Purpose – Sustainability is in vogue nowadays. It is a new concept and it has yet to be studied in more depth and rigor to create a stronger understanding. There are several lines of research and development in this area, each one using a specific template for measuring sustainability what poses even greater difficulties to those interested in the subject. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and compare current models for measuring organizational sustainability. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a literature review identifying six models that have synergies in their structures and methods for measuring sustainability. It also analyzes each model highlighting key individual features identifying similarities and differences. Findings – Results indicates it is necessary to improve existing models and gathering positive features of each model may be the starting point for obtaining a measurement model of sustainability. Research limitations/implications – This work is restricted to perform a critical analysis of models for measuring intra-organizational sustainability. Originality/value – This is one of the first studies to investigate models that assess sustainability from the intra-organizational perspective.

peer-reviewed Urban areas are increasingly associated with negative environmental impacts due to concentrated resource consumption; however urban areas also offer economies of scale in terms of service provision. There is no accepted mechanism to aid decision-makers in policy selection to determine where to promote population growth or how to select settlement specific policies to improve sustainability of urban areas. There is strong political desire for methods assessing policy implementation impact on overall sustainability targets, but this has proved challenging, as views on the meaning of sustainability vary, and methods developed satisfying scientists' needs for rigor are deemed too complex and inadequately transparent by decision-makers. Sustainability measurement is vital to check whether a new policy, decision or technical innovation is helpful in enhancing sustainability. By 2055 estimates indicate that 75 percent of the world population will live in urban areas, highlighting the importance of promoting low cost policy decisions providing greatest environmental benefit, with short implementation timescale. This paper describes an evidence-based method developed and piloted to address these drivers and provide a decision support system for planners and policy-makers developed for Irish settlements with population range 500-20,000, which may have application elsewhere. PUBLISHED peer-reviewed

This article presents a study of the interrelationships between the different dimensions of sustainability as measured by the sustainable society index framework. We examine the statistical relationships between the four indices making up the sustainable society index framework. The analysis uses the complete existing data set provided by Sustainable Society Foundation for the years 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012 and for 151 countries. While the time period where data are available is quite short, we can make some preliminary observations about the apparent trends in the interrelationships of the different dimensions of sustainability. This study shows that the three dimensions of sustainability are far from all being synergic and positively correlated. There is a strong negative correlation between human well-being and environmental well-being. This is problematic from the point of view of the Brundtland Commission’s three-pillar definition of sustainability. However, the trade-off relationship between econom...

As the global environment is getting more competitive, sustainability is increasingly becoming an important assessment tool. An exponential distribution stochastic model is developed for the purpose of assessing and measuring the sustainability of healthcare system. The aim of this study is to provide a sustainability measuring model that is driven by the actual distribution status of the sustainability indicators. In this paper, the notions of the &ldquo, Triple Bottom Line&rdquo, (TBL) are followed in deriving the sustainability challenge and capacity indicators for the environmental, social, and economic indicators. Since basic challenges and capacities depend on the modes of the organization, the study proposes an exponentially distributed stochastic model for measuring sustainability. A numerical illustration of Iranian healthcare is presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed model. In the results obtained, sustainability index for environmental, economic, and social are 54.40%, 48.80%, and 66.80% respectively. It indicates the healthcare achieved some sustainability through the social aspect, therefore, improving the environmental and economic aspect of the TBL is necessary. The proposed model can be used as a panoramic tool for effective measurement of the sustainability level of any healthcare system.

This paper analyses sustainability perceptions in Romanian non-profits by investigating 81 non-profits managers and board members. Using a multidimensional sustainability measurement framework, Success Factor Analysis, as a conceptual model, we measured perceptions on 5 critical sustainability factors: People, Business Model, Operations, Strategy and Culture and concluded that there are significant differences in the perceptions of sustainability depending on respondents’ previous failure experiences. While those which previously experienced failure adopt a long-term approach based on marketization, clear accountability standards and rely on strategy, while the others prefer a short-term approach, focused more on non-profits operations and focus on human resources.

This paper investigates the relationships between settlement size, functionality, geographic location and sustainable development. Analysis was carried out on a sample of 79 Irish settlements, located in three regional clusters. Two methods were selected to model the level of sustainability achieved in settlements, namely, Metabolism Accounting and Modelling of Material and Energy Flows (MA) and Sustainable Development Index Modelling. MA is a systematic assessment of the flows and stocks of material within a system defined in space and time. The metabolism of most settlements is essentially linear, with resources flowing through the urban system. The objective of this research on material and energy flows was to provide information that might aid in the development of a more circular pattern of urban metabolism, vital to sustainable development. In addition to MA, a set of forty indicators were identified and developed. These target important aspects of sustainable development: transport, environmental quality, equity and quality of life issues. Sustainability indices were derived through aggregation of indicators to measure dimensions of sustainable development. Similar relationships between settlement attributes and sustainability were found following both methods, and these were subsequently integrated to provide a single measure. Analysis identified those attributes of settlements preventing, impeding or promoting progress towards sustainability.

Due to the high accent put on sustainable development of communities and on the role played by cultural organisations in this development process, this research starts from the hypothesis that quality may represent a path through which museums can achieve a higher level of sustainability. This hypothesis was tested through semi-structured interviews with experts from museums. The qualitative research showed that museums sustainability has to be measured through quantitative indicators but also through some quality-related indicators. Despite the fact that all experts pointed out a connection between sustainability measurement and quality, they argued that very few Romanian museums are carrying out such studies. Often, museums see quality measurement as something expensive, and thus unaffordable. Based on these facts, the second part of the paper seeks to highlight that quality is a much simpler tool than it is considered and museums can use this tool for improving their sustainability. Thus, the concept of museum quality is clarified by presenting the factors influencing it and some practical models which can be used by museums for measuring quality. By combining empirical and theoretical research, this paper may be of interest for other scholars studying museums sustainability and quality, but also for people working in museums. Keywords: museum quality; sustainability; development; improvement; SERVQUAL; HISTOQUAL JEL classification: M10; Q01

SUMMARY Sustainable development, as a multi-dimensional concept, is difficult to measure. Some efforts using indicators and indices have appeared in recent years, but most were developed on a national scale. Use of sustainability indicators has proven valuable for attaining better management of the environment by minimizing information gaps and maximizing community capabilities in terms of economic, social, environmental, and institutional sustainability dimensions. However, at least in the case of developing countries, the potential exists that national sustainability measures, based on national level indicators, may mask problems in sub-national zones with highly unsustainable conditions. This paper proposes a methodology to evaluate sustainable development at a local level, the use of which could be helpful in comparing different regions within a country or even among different countries. National sustainability indicators should result from a combination (whether additive or proportional) of regional ...

International audience; According to the concept of sustainable development, available natural resources are limited and disproportionately exploited. The growing depletion of these resources is leading to intergenerational disparities, as it systematically deprives future generations of a standard of living even remotely comparable to the current one. Sustainability is an integrative and dynamic concept, composed of issues that have often been described as crossroads of interests and social initiatives, both economic and environmental. Being such a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, sustainability is thus very difficult to explore through traditional measurement approaches. The objective of this study is to define the research questions that subtend the concept of sustainability. In particular, the complexity of sustainability measurement in food security contexts and the approaches used for incorporating its economic, environmental and social facets will be analyzed.

‘‘Sustainability’’ is an issue attracting a lot of attention. Just a quick search on 25 February 2015 in SCOPUS \www. scopus.com[ has shown 96,290 publications containing this word. However, looking for both ‘‘Sustainability’’ and ‘‘Assessment’’ in the title and keywords brought just 1,648 papers and the search for ‘‘Sustainability’’ and ‘‘Measurement’’ revealed even less—105 papers dealing with both issues. It means that just 1.7 % of the papers related to sustainability deal with ‘‘Sustainability and Assessment’’ and only 0.1 % with ‘‘Sustainability and Measurement’’. This has been underlining the importance of the extended effort facilitating works and projects dealing with ‘‘Sustainability’’, but not only, the research results, which combine also ‘‘Sustainability’’ with ‘‘Assessment’’ and especially ‘‘Sustainability’’ with ‘‘Measurement’’ and of crucial importance. Various questions have been coming up in relation to sustainability measurement and assessment

The purpose of this research was to identify the factors upon which museum sustainability depends and the way in which this can be measured. Methodologically, we applied a qualitative research approach, using semi-structured interviews with experts from the Romanian museum sector, complemented by an in-depth study of the literature in this field. Results indicated that any objective measuring of sustainability must take into account the size of a museum’s collections and its organizational structure. It was also found that museum type can affect sustainability via its competitive advantage. However, the sustainability of a museum is not strictly determined by these factors, but also by the management and marketing strategies applied. Based on analysis of literature- and respondent-based factors influencing sustainability, this article proposes a set of 33 indicators that can be used by museums to measure their sustainability, as well as a model that enables evaluation of the sustainability levels of various museums comparatively, regardless of their type, size or importance (e.g., national, regional and local). The results obtained are useful both from a theoretical point of view, given that there are few writings on this topic, and from a practical point of view, as they provide a basis for a clear, objective model of museum sustainability measurement.

Ülengin, Füsun (Dogus Author) Sustainable development is the concept that plays an important role for the countries in macro as well as micro perspective. In this paper, a fuzzy logic based assessment framework is proposed to measure the sustainable development level of the countries. The proposed model is constructed by analyzing the shortages and favorable parts of existing sustainability measurement approaches. Contrary to existing approaches that divide sustainable development (SD) into hierarchical parts, it evaluates SD at indicator level. The model uses fuzzy logic due to its capacity to handling vague situations. The proposed framework consists of four steps. The initial step determines the indicators to measure the sustainability. Subsequently, a factor analysis is conducted to reduce the number of indicators and obtain mutually exclusive groups of indicator. In the second step, the weights of the previously formed indicator groups are determined in accordance with the opinions of the experts. In the third step, performance scores of the countries are measured from the indicator values. In the fourth step, the countries are compared according to their performance scores and to the weights of indicators. The proposed model is applied to evaluate the relative position of Turkey in SD perspective. The effects of improvements in some SD dimensions on the position of three countries selected are also investigated. Developed as such, the model will guide the policy makers in identifying and prioritizing the most urgent problems that need to be solved in order to obtain improvement in the relative positions of the countries.

A systems approach has been applied to the examination of sustainable development in the coastal zone. This complex system is envisaged as comprising three sub-systems: environment and resources, economic development and society. A sustainability indicator system based on these three sub-systems has been set up to evaluate the nature of development in the coastal zone. The administrative regions of the Municipality of Shanghai and Chong Ming Island (in the Yangtze Estuary) have been selected as two coastal zones in which to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the approach. The approach indicated that the development process in Shanghai is one of weak sustainability with relatively rapid social and economic development at the cost of environment and resource degradation. In contrast, social and economic development in Chong Ming County has been limited to protect the regional environment and resources indicating a more sustainable approach to development.

A atividade turística está intimamente relacionada com o uso do espaço físico, com a interação dos atores sociais locais e ainda mantém uma forte relação com a preservação da natureza. O desenvolvimento sustentável mostra-se como uma alternativa plausível para se alcançar a sustentabilidade, e a atividade turística pode contribuir para este fim de modo eficaz. Este artigo, apresenta uma discussão teórica com objetivo mostrar a interação das dimensões econômica, ambiental, sócio-cultural e institucional da sustentabilidade e o desenvolvimento do turismo. São apresentados conceitos de turismo sustentável e metodologias para mensuração e análise da sustentabilidade. Considerando a importância do setor turístico e seu impacto nas localidades em que está iserido, esta discussão teórica indica que o planejamento do turismo passa necessariamente pela consideração de seu impacto econômico, ambiental, espacial e sócio-cultural, para que se torne sustentável. Palavras-chave: Dimensões da Sustentabilidade. Métodos de Mensuração da Sustentabilidade. Turismo Abstract The tourist activity is closely related to the use of physical space, with the interaction of local social actors. It still maintains a strong relationship with nature preservation. Sustainable development is shown as an alternative for achieving sustainability, and tourism can contribute to this goal effectively. This article presents a theoretical discussion with the intent to show the interaction of economic, environmental, socio-cultural and institutional dimensions of sustainability and the development of tourism. It also presents concepts concerning sustainable tourism and methodologies for measurement and analysis of sustainability. Considering the importance of the tourism sector and its impact in the local communities, this theoretical discussion indicates that the tourism planning necessarily involves consideration of its economic, environmental, spatial and socio-cultural impacts, thus becoming sustainable. Keywords:Sustainability Dimensions. Sustainability Measurement Methodologies. Tourism

Composite indicators are very common in economic and business statistics for benchmarking the relative progress of countries in a variety of policy domains such as industrial competitiveness, sustainable development, globalisation and innovation. This article provides an analysis of the key uncertainties underlying the mathematical modelling used to construct composite indicators within the broader context of sustainability measurement. A case study of the Environmental Sustainability Index illustrates how these uncertainties can be modelled and estimated.

Developing tools for measuring progress toward sustainability has proven a challenging task. Indicators offer an excellent means to explore the success or otherwise of management strategies. They also allow reporting social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainability. To ensure that the tools developed are effective in measuring the progress toward sustainable futures, an evaluation of the methods and the indicators used must be undertaken so that with progress there is learning and with the new knowledge methods can be redesigned to better advance sustainability. This paper discusses a study carried out in the south west region of Victoria, Australia, using indicators as the basis for developing a tool to measure progress toward sustainability. By evaluating the methods and indicators used in the study this paper provides an insight into the challenges encountered and the lessons learned. Issues explored include selecting indicators, collating data, integrating social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainability and using an adaptive approach.

This paper presents the sustainability evaluation of the Austrian economy using the Sustainable Economy Indices (SEI) and the respective accounting system designed for it. In the first part of the paper, the backgrounds and the theoretical basis for the measuring system are outlined. Differences from existing methods of sustainability measurement and accounting are analysed. The second part of the paper shows the SEI calculation for Austria. Following the SEI method, not only ecological sustainability but also aspects of provision of consumption, monetary exchange and eco-efficiency of trade flows are assessed. Finally, based on a novel classification of economic activities, the structure of the Austrian economy from a sustainability viewpoint is further discussed.

Sustainable transportation plays a key role in social participation and climate change. However, no universally accepted set of criteria for tracking the progress of urban sustainable transportation projects currently exists; one reason for this is the absence of a standardized lexicon for sustainability measurement elements. Therefore, this paper conducts a systematic literature review and analysis of sustainable transportation criteria using 21 papers from journals listed in the German rating system JOURQUAL3 (JQ3) and published between 2010 and 2020. The paper thus develops a unified vocabulary for sustainability measurement elements that is structured into a hierarchy. The goal (sustainable transportation) presides over the following three sustainability dimensions: objectives (e.g., minimization of traffic clogging), criteria (e.g., congestion), and indicators (e.g., cost of traffic congestion). Within the hierarchy, the main criteria for urban multimodal sustainable transportation are identified as follows: 13 social, 11 economic, and 9 environmental main criteria are determined. The three main criteria used most in the literature exclusively concern the environment. Future research is recommended to assess the interrelations between the criteria as their assignment to sustainability dimensions is ambiguous in the existing literature. This paper helps mobility managers to make decisions about urban transportation concepts and while overseeing projects.