Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
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Economic
: For example, wages and benefits, labour productivity, job creation,
expenditures on research and development, and investments in training and
other forms of human capital.
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Environmental
: For example, impacts of processes, products and services on air,
water, land, biodiversity and human health.
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Social
: For example, workplace health and safety, employee retention, labour
rights, human rights, and wages and working conditions in outsourced operations.
Data gathering and ecological frameworks
In a careful consideration of the relationship between measuring progress (performance
management) in sustainable development and numerical data, Hardi and DeSouza-
Huletey (2000) suggest that accurate econometric and statistical analysis is essential
for long-term planning, monitoring and reporting. Effective performance measurement
and meaningful data interpretation depend on the interrelationship between the
empirical (the real-world context) and numerical models (the transformation of
sustainable development issues into measurable entities). Hardi and DeSouza-Huletey
offer a number of recommendations which they argue will improve data collection
and interpretation, for example:
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Data assessment should be carried out before the final selection of indicators.
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A mechanism should be designed for local authorities to collect and monitor
their own data. Each data-collection method should use the kind of information
needed for the study since there is no single method that is superior to others.
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Data analysis based on statistical and econometric techniques should be applied
to all models.
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The definition of the geographic scale and time range for a study should depend
on the context and accessibility of data.
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Linking different data sources and creating a database to archive all existing
sources of sustainable development data will provide a new opportunity for a
historical perspective on the systematic review of existing work.
Finally, Becker (2005: 88) suggests that 'educating stakeholders about the process
of achieving sustainable development may be the most important result of the indicator
selection process' and that education should not be divorced from communication
and dissemination. Bell and Morse (1999) apply a soft systems approach as a way
of understanding the progress being made by sustainable development activities and
projects. They suggest a pictorial presentation of sustainability progress, the
'AMOEBA' (a Dutch acronym meaning 'general method for ecosystem description
and assessment'), as being an appropriate way of developing in a participatory fashion
and fully comprehending a sustainability project (Bell and Morse, 2003). Others,
notably Clayton and Radcliffe (1996), have written of the advisability of adapting
Sustainability Assessment Maps that similarly represent in pictorial form progress
towards sustainability along a number of selected ordinal axes. With due recognition
given to weightings and the value of given indicators, Bell and Morse suggest that
the closer the AMOEBA is to a perfect circle, the more balanced and so more
sustainable the activity is.
