Sustainability Indicators for Environment Management

Dear Colleagues,

Achieving sustainability, a problem resulting from the interdependence between economic and ecological systems, faces challenges, such as an increasing world population and associated (also increasing) material demands. In addition, since the 1970s, when sustainability concerns began to appear in international policy agendas, a large number of definitions of sustainability have been created with no universal agreement on which one should be used. For instance, the sustainability concept has been interpreted in terms of sustainable development, sustained development, and survivable development. Additionally, there is a debate in the literature about whether natural capital and man-made capital can be substituted (weak sustainability) or not (strong sustainability); and although, generally, sustainability can be thought of as a global issue, it can also be seen as a smaller-scale issue in cases where the interdependence between the economic and ecological systems analyzed is relevant at a smaller scale (e.g., sustainability of an industry, sustainability of a national economy). Although the lack of agreement on what sustainability means has led to different sustainability paths and policy recommendations, there is value in continuing to pursue a better understanding of how to achieve the different interpretations of sustainability. For this, the concept of sustainability, and its different interpretations and scales, require of well-defined measures that can be used as tools for environmental management. Consequently, sustainable indicators have been developed and used by academics to analyze global sustainability and environmental management at different industries (e.g., agricultural farms) and at different spatial levels (e.g., local, national, international) and continue to do so.

We are interested in articles that:

• develop novel sustainability indicators for environmental management at local, regional, or national level.
• apply the use of sustainability indicators to a relevant industry at local, regional, or national level.
• incorporate spatial aspects into sustainability indicators for environmental management.
• deal with uncertainty and limitations of sustainability indicators.
• include a managerial and/or policy angle.

Further suggestions are welcome.

Dr. Francisco Areal
Guest Editor

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