Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
according to their quality of life/living. These organisations vary in nature
and interests and thus in focus and methodology. Mercer, a private company,
is the global leader for trusted human resources and related financial advice,
products and services. Their aim is to enhance the financial and retirement
security, health, and productivity and employment relationships of the
global workforce. The EIU is the business information arm of The Economist
Group, publisher of The Economist . For more than six decades, the unit has
been delivering impartial business intelligence to clients, equipping deci-
sion makers with insight they can trust. Another attempt independently
rates nations according to quality of life. The Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) has a different focus. Currently,
34 countries are building on its successor, the Organisation for European
Economic Cooperation (OEEC).* Today, its members regularly work together
to identify, discuss and analyse problems and to promote policies.
The objective approach can be detected in the measurement of quality of
living performed by Mercer consultants, while the subjective approach can
be detected in OECD's measurements of quality of life [13]. Another possibil-
ity for combining objective and subjective approaches to measuring over-
all well-being is Happy Life Years (HLY) suggested by Veenhoven, where
the subjective indicator called 'life satisfaction' is combined with objec-
tive length of life and is expressed in the number of 'happy life years' [12],
which depends on the fit between environmental conditions and personal
capabilities.
1.4 Ecological Footprint and Human Development Index
In the development realm, there are a number of indices used to measure or
to quantify progress. The ecological footprint (EF) developed by Wackernagel
and Rees is considered one of the most important indices used to quantify the
impact of development [36]. It translates various types of consumption into the
common metric: total area of productive land and water ecosystems required
to produce the resources that the population consumes and to assimilate the
wastes that the population produces, wherever on Earth that land and water
may be located [37].
The shortcoming of EF is its limited ability to provide positive policies that
enable cities to solve their local and global problems. In this stream, Newman
emphasises the importance of a sustainability assessment approach for cities
that take environmental impact seriously, while simultaneously asserting the
value of social and economic progress [38]. On the other hand as mentioned
before, one of the more widely used indices is HDI.
* OEEC was established in 1947 to run the US-financed Marshall Plan for reconstruction of
a continent ravaged by war.
 
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