Indicators of Sustainability

A dear friend and colleague, Claudia Ten Have (JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow at UNU-IAS, Yokohama), just whisked a link my way to a UNESCO/SCOPE Policy Brief on "Indicators of Sustainability: Reliable Tools for Decision making" [pdf, 1.7MB]. Its a good introductory document. It serves as a good example in terms of communication, at least. Of course our interest is Education for Sustainable Development but certainly some of the points raised are more generic. For example, p. 4 states:

"Since most of the legitimacy of indicators comes from their framing and conceptualization, stakeholders must be involved from the outset"

and from p.2:

"Making decisions without reliable indicators is like driving without road signs".

Claudias much-appreciated gesture also partially exonerates my decision to blog this foray...thanks Claudia.