scholarly journals Sustainability Assessment Methodologies: Implications and Challenges for SIDS

Ecologies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-304
Author(s):  
Pierre Olivier St Flour ◽  
Chandradeo Bokhoree
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Measurement Techniques ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Research Direction ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Sustainability Assessment Tools

Over the past years, an increasing number of initiatives was considered to address emerging global sustainability issues. Sustainability assessment tools were the most commonly applied methodologies towards measuring sustainability performance. There are a number of assessment tools and techniques for sustainable development. This article aims at identifying the various sustainability assessment tools at country level taking into consideration the integration of environmental, economic, and social dimensions. The target of this paper is to compare the various sustainability measurement techniques and their characteristics using evaluation criteria. The outcome of this analysis is used to direct and clarify researchers and practitioners on sustainability assessment at country level, more specifically in developing countries. The focus of the paper rests on the Brundtland Report definition of sustainable development. The work was carried out using a bibliometric analysis approach based on Web of Science platform from the period 2000 to 2020. There was tremendous works which were conducted on sustainability assessment during the last two decades. The comparative analyses show the research gap among the various tools with respect to the criteria they satisfied. The research discussion suggests that a sustainability assessment framework for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) is identified as a future research direction.

scholarly journals National Baselines for Integrated Implementation of an Environmental Sustainable Development Goal Assessed in a New Integrated SDG Index

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (17) ◽  
pp. 6955
Author(s):  
David Horan
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Sustainable Use ◽  
International Study ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Traffic Light ◽  
Island States ◽  
Country Level ◽  
New Family ◽  
Starting Point

Most indicator-based assessments of progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) focus on identifying priorities for implementation. However, once priorities are established, policymakers are called to implement them in an integrated way which requires progress not just on a Goal’s targets (siloed approach) but also progress in interrelated policy areas. To assess baselines for integrated implementation, this article introduces a new family of SDG index based on a Goal’s targets and first-order interrelations with other goals that divides targets linked to the prioritized or focal SDG into pressure, impact, and response components. Focusing on an application to SDG14, the conservation and sustainable use of marine resources, an important priority for many small island developing states, the article develops an integrated SDG14 (I-SDG14) index based on an international study of SDG14 interlinkages with indicators selected from SDSN’s global indicator set for all island states with sufficient data available for the year 2018. While all island states assessed face challenges on SDG14, top-performers in terms of I-SDG14 (United Kingdom, New Zealand, Japan, Ireland and Iceland) tend to face greater challenges on pressures, primarily reflecting their performance on targets related to SDGs 2, 12, 13 and 15, whereas bottom-performers (Timor-Leste, Vanuatu, Haiti, Jamaica and Comoros) tend to face greater challenges on responses, i.e., country capacities to influence SDG14, owing to their status on targets related to SDGs 4, 9, 16 and 17. In particular, country scoreboards, “traffic-light” visual representation of performance, and radar-diagrams are used to investigate country-level strengths and challenges for integrated implementation. The proposed index offers a useful starting point to frame discussions with different stakeholders around integrated approaches to implementation and can be flexibly applied to other SDGs and contexts. The article concludes with several suggestions for future research aimed at improving integrated assessments for the SDGs.

scholarly journals Assessing the Impacts of Higher Education Institutions on Sustainable Development—An Analysis of Tools and Indicators

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Findler ◽  
Norma Schönherr ◽  
Rodrigo Lozano ◽  
Barbara Stacherl
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Organizational Boundaries ◽  
System A ◽  
Sustainability Assessment Tools

Many higher education institutions (HEIs) have started to incorporate sustainable development (SD) into their system. A variety of sustainability assessment tools (SATs) have been developed to support HEIs to systematically measure, audit, benchmark, and communicate SD efforts. In recent years, stakeholders have increasingly asked HEIs to demonstrate their impacts on SD. These impacts are the direct and indirect effects an HEI has outside of its organizational boundaries on society, the natural environment, and the economy. This study analyzes to what extent SATs are capable of measuring the impacts that HEIs have on SD. A mixed-method approach, using descriptive statistics and an inductive content analysis, was used to examine 1134 indicators for sustainability assessment derived from 19 SATs explicitly designed for application by HEIs. The findings reveal that SATs largely neglect the impacts HEIs have outside their organizational boundaries. SATs primarily use proxy indicators based on internally available data to assess impacts and thus tend to focus on themes concerning the natural environment and the contribution to the local economy. Updating existing SATs and developing new ones may enable HEIs to fully realize their potential to contribute to SD.

scholarly journals Coverage Analysis of Indonesia Sustainability Assessment Tools: Similarity in Dimension and Assessment Results

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2.34) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Rahmat Nurcahyo ◽  
Komang Tattya Lokhita A.K ◽  
Djoko Sihono Gabriel
Keyword(s):  
Manufacturing Industry ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Sustainability Performance ◽  
Coverage Analysis ◽  
Sustainability Assessment Tools ◽  
Sustainability Assessments ◽  
Assessment Results

The number of sustainability assessment tools in Indonesia is growing rapidly, concerns are raised on whether the assessment results of different tools present similar and valid conclusion about the sustainability performance in manufacturing industry. In this paper, we analyze dimensions of sustainability assessment tools and compare the structures of sustainability tools in Indonesia. Using a coverage analysis to demonstrate the similarity and differences between two sustainability assessments in Indonesia (PROPER and Industri Hijau) we then compare the results of both and analyze it. This study shows that two sustainability assessment tools in Indonesia which are PROPER and Industri Hijau have high variations in their structures, indicators, criteria, and sub-themes despite their similar dimension and purpose.  Consequently,  these sustainability assessment  tools  show  differences  in  assessment results  and  conclusions  on  the  sustainability  performance  of firms. Future research may propose a new integrated sustainability assessment tool so there will be only one sustainability assessment tool in Indonesia.  

scholarly journals Sustainability Assessment and Agricultural Supply Chains Evidence-Based Multidimensional Analyses as Tools for Strategic Decision-Making—The Case of the Pineapple Supply Chain in Benin

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2060
Author(s):  
Doriane Desclee ◽  
David Sohinto ◽  
Freddy Padonou
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Agricultural Supply

Contributing to Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030 is a shared objective of all institutions and people. The challenges differ according to the characteristics of every context. In developing countries, strongly dependent on the agricultural sector, agricultural supply chains are recognized as crucial for economic growth and enablers for livelihood improvement. Moreover, sustainable development issues are correlated and can meet in agricultural supply chains. For several decades, parallel to decision-makers, the research community has elaborated sustainability assessment tools. Such tools evolved to fit with actuality, but it is challenging to find decision-making support tools for sustainable development adequate in agricultural supply chains and developing countries contexts. There is a necessity to define evidence-based tools and exhaustive analytical frameworks according to sustainability multidimensionality and strategical tradeoffs necessity. The VCA4D method aims to go beyond the limits of previous methods. It proposes a combination of multidisciplinary analytical tools applied empirically to analyze agricultural supply chains in their context. It provides evidence-based analytical results allowing to identify enablers for strategic sustainable and inclusive interventions. However, to even better meet contextual exhaustiveness’s expectations and indicators’ robustness to lead to relevant interventions, we should insist on a stricter framing of contextual data collection processes.

scholarly journals Social criteria to develop an in use holistic urban sustainable assessment tool: UHU2SAT

2021 ◽  
Vol 237 ◽  
pp. 04031
Author(s):  
Antonio Sánchez Cordero ◽  
Marta Videras Rodríguez ◽  
Sergio Gómez Melgar ◽  
José Manuel Andujar Márquez
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Urban Mobility ◽  
Human Comfort ◽  
Operation And Maintenance ◽  
Holistic Assessment ◽  
Sustainability Assessment Tools

Recently, several urban sustainability assessment tools (USAT) have appeared to reduce the human impact provided by the built environment. Few of them focus on the assessment of urban spaces like squares, streets, and parks, etc., but they don’t operation and maintenance (OM) phase is not considered. It would be necessary to develop an in use holistic urban sustainable assessment tool (UHU2SAT) to specifically assess urban spaces under OM phase. This paper provides a qualitative research among 188 studies, with the aim to classify them according to the impacts they pursue: environmental (ENV), social (SOC) economic (ECO) and Others. Finally, the SOC criteria are reduced up to 21 and arranged into 4 different groups: Human comfort, Urban mobility, SOC Cohesion, and Health & safety. These SOC criteria have been discussed and revised according to the literature review to identify the most suitable indicators for the UHU2SAT. Finally, it can be concluded that this methodology could also be useful to obtain ENV and ECO criteria to provide a holistic assessment of the sustainability.

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