Assessing and comparing relative farm-level sustainability of smallholder shrimp farms in two Sri Lankan provinces using indices developed from two methodological frameworks

As shrimp farming can be an important means of income generation, particularly among Sri Lanka’s rural communities, it is important that this industry grows in a sustainable manner, starting at the farm level. The objectives of this study were to; 1) create baseline farm-level sustainability indices for smallholder shrimp farms in Sri Lanka using both content-based and system-based frameworks adapted from agriculture; 2) determine whether arranging indicators within both content- and system-based sustainability frameworks would provide additional insight into relative farm sustainability (rather than using just one framework); and 3) seek differences between the North Western Province (NWP) and the Eastern Province (EP) in sustainability index, sub-index, or indicator scores that might be used to create province-specific policies and education programs designed to potentially improve sustainable practices at the farm level. Since little has been published on the development of practical indicators and evaluation of farm-level sustainability in aquaculture, this study adapted two types of frameworks used for measuring sustainability in agriculture: content- and system-based. Using both frameworks, along with expert opinion, indicators of farm level sustainability were developed into a questionnaire and measured on 225 farms in two provinces of Sri Lanka. Indicators primarily included modifiable practices that farmers could influence to improve the chances of their farms’ survival. The farm indicators were normalized using “min-max” normalization, where scores of zero and one were assigned for the least and most sustainable options, respectively. Farm indicators in each province were then aggregated into sub-indices as well an overall aggregated sustainability index score. Similar themes were gleaned from both the content-based and system-based sustainability frameworks, and there was no significant difference between mean overall sustainability scores for the two different frameworks. Farms in the NWP scored significantly higher on the overall sustainability indices of both models despite the NWP’s history of severe disease outbreaks while the EP farms had no disease. Possible reasons for this difference were explored with an in-depth analysis of sub-indices as well as individual indicators. An overall aggregated sustainability index score was a useful baseline measure for monitoring changes in sustainability over time; however, its use was limited when attempting to identify gaps in sustainable management practices and provide practical information for farmers and stakeholders to improve farm-level sustainability. It was important to evaluate individual indicators in addition to sub-indices and overall index scores when making recommendations or identifying gaps in sustainable practices at the farm level.     

Deriving sustainability measures using statistical data: A case study from the Eisenwurzen, Austria

Within the past two decades sustainability has become a key term in emphasizing and understanding relationships between economic progress and the protection of the environment. One key difficulty is in the definition of sustainability indicators based on information at different spatial and temporal scales. In this paper we formalize statistical models for the assessment of sustainability impact indicators using a public data source provided by the Austrian government. Our application example is the Eisenwurzen region in Austria, an old and famous mining area within the Alps. The total area covers 5.743 km² and includes 99 municipalities. In our study we define 15 impact indicators covering economic, social and environmental impacts. For each of the impact indicators we develop response functions using the available public data sources. The results suggest that the available data are an important source for deriving sustainable impact indicators within specific regions. The presented approach may serve as diagnostic tool to provide insights into the regional drivers for assessing sustainability indicators.     

Developing an indicator system for local governments to evaluate transport sustainability strategies

This study proposed an indicator system for measuring and monitoring transport sustainability at the county (or city) level. Twenty-one indicators were grouped into economy, environment, society, and energy aspects. A committee comprised of government officials from Taipei City and New Taipei City proposed transport solutions to improve the transport sustainability of the Taipei metropolitan area. Ten key indicators were selected to measure the sustainable transport strategies. This study applied Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to construct the cause–effect relationships between these key indicators and to evaluate sustainable transport strategies. The evaluation results showed that the strategy of expanding mass rapid transit (MRT) lines was predicted to produce the most significant improvements; the strategy of integrating bus exclusive lanes would provide the least improvement; and the strategies of promoting cleaner vehicles and integrating Fu-Kang bus resources would perform similarly to each other in improving transport sustainability.     

A PCA-based method for construction of composite sustainability indicators

Purpose

Sustainable manufacturing is practiced globally as a comprehensive strategy for improving the sustainability performance of the manufacturing industry. While sustainability is characterized into such three dimensions as economic, environmental, and social, currently, there is no quantitative method yet to measure the so-called ??sustainability?? in the manufacturing industry. The objective of this research is to develop a comprehensive and effective quantitative method to measure the overall sustainability performance of manufacturing companies.

Methods

In this paper, an integrated methodology is presented for the development of composite sustainability indicators based on principal component analysis (PCA). In developing this integrated approach, both industry and academia surveys are conducted to identify what sustainability indicators are favored by the sustainable manufacturing community. A unique index is then generated to measure the overall sustainability performance of industrial practices. The methodology can be used for benchmarking the overall sustainability performance of various manufacturing companies.

Results

A case study is conducted on a total of 11 global electronic manufacturing companies. The overall sustainability performance of these companies are measured, benchmarked, and ranked. The results showed that PCA is an effective approach for constructing composite sustainability indicators across environmental, economic, and social dimensions.

Conclusions

From this research, it is found that industry and academia have different views on the sustainability measurement, evidenced by different weights put on the same indicator in industry and academia. The case study demonstrated that the methodology presented in this paper is an effective tool for comprehensive measurement of sustainability performance of manufacturing companies. Strengths and weaknesses of each company can be identified. Then, the recommended improvements can be suggested based on the study of each of the individual indicators.     

Meta-performance evaluation of sustainability indicators

There are many different kinds of frameworks for evaluating environmental and sustainability performance at the organizational level (profit or not-for-profit, private or public), sectoral level (e.g. industry, transport, agriculture and tourism), and local, regional or country levels. Despite the diversity of methods and tools to measure sustainable development, indicators are one of the approaches most used. However, these tools do not usually include evaluation of the performance measurement instrument itself. The main objective of this research is to develop a conceptual framework to design and assess the effectiveness of the sustainability indicators themselves. To put the proposed tool into practice, a set of key good-practice factors and meta-performance evaluation indicators is proposed for adoption in a national case study—the national sustainable development indicators system, SIDS Portugal, and the usefulness of this methodology is demonstrated. This approach aims to evaluate how appropriate a set of sustainability indicators is and allow an evaluation of overall performance-monitoring activities and results. Stakeholder involvement is an essential component of the proposed framework. The tool developed could support continuous improvement in the performance of ongoing sustainability indicator initiatives, allowing greater guidance, objectivity and transparency in sustainability assessment processes.     

Monitoring the sustainability and equity of socioeconomic development: A comparison of emergy indices using Macao, Italy and Sweden as examples

The concept of sustainability involves factors related to society, economy, and ecology. The modern context of sustainability also includes a requirement for equitable consumption of materials and energy to sustain the quality of life while still protecting the environment. To evaluate the environmental sustainability of socioeconomic activities, emergy (embodied energy) is an important tool because it can measure real wealth by accounting for both natural and socioeconomic flows using a common set of units. However, different emergy indices provide different insights, and not all are equally suitable for every situation. Using traditional emergy-based indices, an integrated environmental sustainability index (ESI), and two measures of emergy storage, we analyzed emergy flows and related indices for three typical human-influenced ecosystems: those of Macao, Italy, and Sweden. The performance of each ecosystem was compared using several emergy-based indices to assess their levels of sustainable development and demonstrate how different indices provide different insights. Based on the principle that equitability is an essential component of sustainability, we suggest that a positive and low net emergy ratio is desirable, since this means that the system does not capture excessive amounts of resources from external systems and thereby damage its external life-support systems.     

基于能值分析的生态脆弱区旅游业可持续发展研究——以甘南藏族自治州为例

旅游可持续发展现已成为世界性诉求,生态脆弱区旅游发展与生态环境保护的矛盾尤为突出,因此,评估生态脆弱区旅游可持续发展的态势对促进区域旅游经济和生态环境的协调发展具有重要意义。以甘南藏族自治州为研究区,采用旅游能值分析方法,基于调查数据、统计数据和能值转换数据,采用旅游输入能值、旅游输出能值、旅游环境负载率、旅游能值交换率和旅游可持续发展能值指数等评价模型,测度了2006—2015年甘南藏族自治州旅游可持续发展水平,旨在推进旅游可持续发展的研究方法的应用,为生态脆弱区旅游生态经济系统的综合评价及持续发展管理提供科学依据。研究表明:(1)2006—2015年,甘南藏族自治州旅游输入、旅游输出能值逐年增长,旅游餐饮、住宿能值占旅游输出能值的59%—82%,刚性需求能值输出占较高比例的能值结构不利于本区旅游业的可持续发展。(2)研究区旅游可持续发展处于不稳定的状态:2006—2008年旅游可持续发展能值指数由2.49降至0.94,大量不可更新资源的消耗造成环境压力较大,旅游系统处于不可持续状态;2008—2015年旅游可持续发展能值指数上升至7.85,为可持续发展状态,但2014—2015年旅游系统有效能值产出效率低,系统可持续性较差。     

Sustainability of Nile tilapia net-cage culture in a reservoir in a semi-arid region

Among the tools used to measure sustainability in aquaculture, sets of indicators allow a holistic view of a system in its social, environmental, and economic dimensions. Approaches that align indicators with models such as the Drivers-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework can improve understanding of this sustainability. This study evaluated the sustainability of cage production systems for Nile tilapia in the Santa Cruz Reservoir, to determine whether a set of indicators used with the DPSIR conceptual model was effective to study the sustainability of the system. The 49 indicators used were calculated from information obtained from questionnaires and from monitoring the production system. Sustainability was also modeled and compared with hypothetical scenarios, with different fish stocking densities. The results indicated that the production system is economically feasible, generating profit and distributing income. However, the income generated benefits few people and is not fixed in the community. Environmentally speaking, the system is highly dependent on inputs, especially the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus, and energy, as well as increasing sedimentation of nutrients in the reservoir. In the social dimension, the venture employs few workers. The modeling showed that the system is potentially sustainable, and that changes in stocking density decreased this sustainability. In summary, the system showed many sustainable features, whereas some others need to be modified to improve the general sustainability.     

甘肃白龙江林区森林资源可持续发展力的评价

在森林资源可持续发展理论指导下,构建了森林资源可持续发展力综合评价指标的体系．以白龙江林区为例,通过对所选择的5个策略层(中间层,B层),20个措施层(最低层,C层)指标值的计算和纠正,建立森林资源可持续发展力评价的协调度模型：DH=∑BiPi．1996年的DH=0．5320,2000年的DH=0．6100,虽然均小于其理论值0．7000,判定该林区处于非可持续发展状态。但同时表明该林区正向可持续发展目标前进．     

种养系统可持续发展指数的空间格局及其演变趋势——以山东省为例

农业生产专业化、集约化背景下,种养分离越发严重,畜禽粪便排放与环境之间矛盾日益突出,农业可持续发展面临重大挑战.本研究以山东省为例,基于1999-2015年种养系统投入产出资料,利用能值的方法,定量分析了山东省域及市域种养系统可持续发展指数的空间格局及其演变趋势.结果表明:1999-2015年,山东省种养系统的可持续性减弱.可持续发展指数呈极显著下降趋势,2015年较1999年下降了22.0%;净能值产出率和环境负载率均呈极显著增加趋势,单位经济投入获得的利益显著增加,同时种养生产对环境的压力明显加大,这主要与电力、复合肥、农业机械等工业资源投入量的增加密切相关.山东省各地市种养系统可持续发展水平具有差异.大部分地市种养系统的可持续发展指数较高,而沿海地区(威海、烟台)和工业城市(淄博)则较低.同时,各地市种养系统的可持续发展态势也具有差异.鲁中和鲁南地区可持续性逐年减弱,鲁北地区可持续性逐年增强.以2015年为本底数据进行情景分析,发现种养高度结合(100%粪便有机肥替代化肥)情景的可持续发展指数可达8.4,是种养结合现状(30%粪便有机肥替代化肥)的2.6倍.     

Assessment of sustainable development in the EU 27 using aggregated SD index

In the European Union the sustainable development is a fundamental and overarchingobjective enshrined in the Treaty and measuring progress towards sustainable development is an integral part of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy. Eurostat produce a monitoring report every two years based on the EU set of sustainable development indicators (SDIs). The main objective of this paper is to create an aggregated index of the sustainable development from EU set of SDIs for each 27 EU country based on the PCA. The headline indicator economic growth was not involved because its increase is not expressly followed by positive change in other SDIs from social, economic and environmental fields. The aggregated SD index enables to get an overall picture about the position of each of the 27 EU countries and its development in terms of the sustainability over time as assumed in the EU Sustainable Development Strategy. Sweden, Denmark, Netherland, and Great Britain have repeatedly reached the highest value of aggregated SD index. The highest positive change in the aggregated SD index has occurred in countries with the lowest value of aggregated SD index. Moreover, we put this new aggregated index in relation with economic growth and found that there is a negative correlation between aggregated SD index and the economic growth for most of the 27 EU countries.     

国家公园旅游可持续性管理评估指标体系——以西藏色林错-普若岗日冰川国家公园潜在建设区为例

当前,国内外对于国家公园旅游可持续性的定义及其评估指标尚未形成共识,已有的部分指标存在可操作性较弱、管理成本较高等问题,无法直接应用于中国国家公园旅游可持续性的管理与评估。从三条路径构建国家公园旅游可持续性管理评估指标体系：以实际需求为导向,分析国家公园所在区域对旅游可持续性管理评估指标的需求;以国际共识为导向,检验《全球可持续旅游目的地标准》在国家公园的适用性;以实践为导向,梳理世界主要国家及地区国家公园旅游可持续性的管理重点。以色林错-普若岗日冰川国家公园（简称"色-普国家公园"）潜在建设区为例,建立国家公园旅游可持续性管理评估指标体系。从经济、社会、文化、生态环境等方面明确了色-普国家公园潜在建设区对管理评估指标体系的需求。经过适用性判定,识别在色-普国家公园潜在建设区具有较强适用性的可持续旅游目的地评估指标。通过频次统计,从经济、社会、文化、生态环境、制度建设等方面遴选世界主要国家及地区国家公园旅游可持续性的重点管理指标。所建立的色-普国家公园潜在建设区旅游可持续性管理评估指标体系包括5个一级指标,15个二级指标,36个三级指标。在此基础上,建议逐步建立健全监测与统计体系,为管理评估指标体系的应用提供支撑。     

森林资源可持续状况评价方法

为了准确、快速地评估森林经营单位的森林资源可持续状况,提出了森林资源可持续状况的评价指标、评价方法和评价结果分级。森林资源可持续状况评价指标包括森林资源质量状况、森林资源利用状况和森林受干扰状况3个方面共28个评价指标。通过参照技术规定、查阅专业用表和使用经验数值等3种方法确定评价指标的基准值;根据基准值把评价指标测定值分级为"好"、"中"、"差"3个等级,并分别赋值1.0、0.62和0.38。利用专家咨询法或层次分析法,根据森林经营单位的主要经营目标和森林主导功能,确定森林资源质量状况评价指标的权重。根据评价指标的实测值、赋值和权重,计算森林资源质量状况指数、森林资源利用状况指数和森林受干扰状况指数,进而计算森林资源可持续状况指数。根据森林资源可持续状况指数值的大小,将森林经营单位的森林资源可持续状况划分为优、良、中和差四个等级。     

An overview of sustainability assessment methodologies

Sustainability indicators and composite index are increasingly recognised as a useful tool for policy making and public communication in conveying information on countries and corporate performance in fields such as environment, economy, society, or technological improvement. By visualizing phenomena and highlighting trends, sustainability indicators simplify, quantify, analyse and communicate otherwise complex and complicated information.There are number of initiatives working on indicators and frameworks for sustainable development (SD). This article provides an overview various sustainability indices applied in policy practice. The paper also compiles the information related to sustainability indices formulation strategy, scaling, normalisation, weighting and aggregation methodology.     

Development of composite sustainability performance index for steel industry

The steel companies are becoming increasingly aware about the sustainability challenges. In order to become a responsible corporate citizen, the industry has responded to these challenges through adoption of pillars of sustainability. The industry has made the beginning with identification of sustainability indicators. The indicators have been developed specifically for steel industry. Generally, it is quite difficult to evaluate the performance of company on the basis of large number of sustainability indicators. Integration of key sustainability indicators is quite essential for decision-making. Composite indicators are an innovative approach to evaluate sustainable performance. This paper presents a method for development of composite sustainability performance index (CSPI) that addresses the sustainable performance of steel industries along all the three pillars of sustainability—economic, environmental and societal. Organizational governance and technical aspects have also been considered fourth and fifth dimensions of sustainability.The objective of this paper is to introduce sustainability and to present a conceptual decision model, using analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to assist in evaluating the impact of an organization's sustainability performance. AHP has been used to determine the weights at various levels. Sub-indices have been evaluated and aggregated to form CSPI. The effectiveness of the proposed model is evaluated in a case study for a major steel company in India.     

Comparison of methods for calculation of sustainability indices for alternative sewerage systems—Theoretical and practical considerations

City planners need practical methods to assess and compare the sustainability of different alternatives for urban infrastructure. This article presents the consequences of selecting different methods to normalize the values of sustainability indicators, and the influence of selecting different indicators and different weighting techniques. Chosen indicators represent use of resources, environment, health and safety, psycho/sociological situation. Infrastructure costs are not included in the indicators, since it is more convenient to weigh them against the sustainability indices of the different systems. All indicators are aggregated into one system index. A nature-based sewerage system is compared to a conventional system. The article demonstrates that the method used to normalize the indicators, the choice of relevant indicators and the weighting technique have considerable influence on which system is found to be the more sustainable.     

基于元指标理论的庆阳区域可持续发展研究

对庆阳各县(区)1990年以来区域可持续发展的时空演变规律及特征进行了综合研究。首先基于元指标理论,构建了庆阳县域可持续发展评价指标体系及综合评价模型,对庆阳各县(区)1990年以来的区域可持续发展状况进行了综合评价及分析。之后根据评价结果,使用重心位移分析法与GIS技术,对庆阳区域可持续发展的空间结构进行了分析。结果表明:1990—2008年,庆阳的区域可持续发展综合水平总体上是在逐渐增强,但这种增强的主要拉动力是经济的快速增长与社会的迅速进步,是以牺牲资源和环境为代价的,这必将最终导致区域可持续发展状况的全面恶化,目前西峰、庆城等部分县区的区域可持续发展综合水平在2005年后已经出现了下降的趋势;1990—2008年,庆阳区域可持续发展持续性重心总体上是向南移动,区域可持续发展协调性重心与综合水平重心的波动较大,反映出各县区的区域可持续发展状况总体上不均衡、不稳定。     

Sustainable Sourcing of Global Agricultural Raw Materials: Assessing Gaps in Key Impact and Vulnerability Issues and Indicators

Understanding how to source agricultural raw materials sustainably is challenging in today’s globalized food system given the variety of issues to be considered and the multitude of suggested indicators for representing these issues. Furthermore, stakeholders in the global food system both impact these issues and are themselves vulnerable to these issues, an important duality that is often implied but not explicitly described. The attention given to these issues and conceptual frameworks varies greatly—depending largely on the stakeholder perspective—as does the set of indicators developed to measure them. To better structure these complex relationships and assess any gaps, we collate a comprehensive list of sustainability issues and a database of sustainability indicators to represent them. To assure a breadth of inclusion, the issues are pulled from the following three perspectives: major global sustainability assessments, sustainability communications from global food companies, and conceptual frameworks of sustainable livelihoods from academic publications. These terms are integrated across perspectives using a common vocabulary, classified by their relevance to impacts and vulnerabilities, and categorized into groups by economic, environmental, physical, human, social, and political characteristics. These issues are then associated with over 2,000 sustainability indicators gathered from existing sources. A gap analysis is then performed to determine if particular issues and issue groups are over or underrepresented. This process results in 44 “integrated” issues—24 impact issues and 36 vulnerability issues —that are composed of 318 “component” issues. The gap analysis shows that although every integrated issue is mentioned at least 40% of the time across perspectives, no issue is mentioned more than 70% of the time. A few issues infrequently mentioned across perspectives also have relatively few indicators available to fully represent them. Issues in the impact framework generally have fewer gaps than those in the vulnerability framework.     

Using dynamic sustainability indicators to assess environmental policy measures in Biosphere Reserves

The assessment of different policy options represents a major tool for decision-makers in Biosphere Reserves, to develop more-resilient strategies for sustainable development and to visualise unintended consequences of these policies.In this work we analyse eight measures proposed by different agents in order to meet the main objectives of environmental sustainability, included in the Action Plan of the Fuerteventura Biosphere Reserve (Spain). We quantified the effects of these measures in terms of the sustainability thresholds of 10 environmental indicators, also proposed by the Action Plan, which was integrated in the Fuerteventura Biosphere Reserve dynamic model. Their behaviours under these measures allow determination of whether the objectives will be met in the period 2012–2025. Although some indicators would improve under these measures, fitting certain objectives, some negative effects on other indicators confirm the existence of trade-offs among these objectives. For instance, grazing limitation would improve the proportion of high-quality vegetation but would negatively affect the Egyptian vulture population, which would even fall below its sustainability threshold. The definition of thresholds for each indicator allows decision-makers to establish a way to prioritise among the eight measures analysed. The results show that these measures are insufficient to meet the sustainability thresholds of four indicators (the landscape indicator, the proportion of renewable energy, the per capita primary energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions). Focusing on the remaining six indicators and following the rule “Threshold out, measure out”, seven out of the eight measures would exceed some thresholds and should be avoided. Only one option, aimed at growing fodder to feed cattle on restored traditional agricultural lands, would not exceed any of these thresholds. However, this measure also presents certain negative effects regarding indicators related to flagship species (the houbara habitat and the Egyptian vulture population), which would require compensation measures.     

Assessing regional sustainable development through an integration of nonlinear principal component analysis and Gram Schmidt orthogonalization

The regional sustainable development level (SDL), sustainability of regional development (SRD) and system coordination (SC) make up the triangular truss of regional sustainable development assessment, but it is debated how should traditional practice best weight and calculate the whole sustainable development system level. The Bohai Rim, covering three provinces and two municipalities in China, lies in a region that is sensitive to profound conflict between socioeconomic development and environment pollution in the process of sustainable development. Considering the defects of traditional models and the multidimensionality of regional sustainability issues, we proposed an integrated model of nonlinear principal component analysis and Gram Schmidt orthogonalization and presented a novel regional sustainable development assessment method and framework from three perspectives for the society–economy–environment system of the Bohai Rim region. The results show that: (a) the integration of nonlinear principal component analysis and Gram Schmidt orthogonalization can well remedy the defects of traditional methods and provide a more objective conceptual framework; (b) the sustainability of regional development and system coordination models graphically demonstrate the essence and connotation of a dynamic sustainable development system; (c) the empirical study demonstrated that the Bohai Rim region has experienced a distinct development period in which the SRD experienced a steady decline and the SDL and SC generally increased; (d) the coordination ability can be improved by a decline in the environmental sustainability, which reveals the importance of environment subsystem optimization; and (e) the weight distribution of variables demonstrates that the most significant factors affecting sustainable development are the indicators from the dimensions of people's standard of living, economic structure and environmental pollution. This study enriches the sustainable development assessment theory and methodology, and lays the foundation for further sustainable development research in the Bohai Rim region.