An Overview of Sustainability Assessment Methodologies

Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind
An overview of sustainability assessment methodologies

Rajesh Kumar Singh a , H.R. Murty b , S.K. Gupta c , A.K. Dikshit c
a
b
c
PE Sustainability Solutions, Bhilai, India

Bhilai Steel Plant, SAIL, Bhilai, India
Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, India
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 3 January 2010
Received in revised form 12 January 2011
Accepted 16 January 2011
Keywords:
Sustainable development
Sustainability indicators
Index
Composite index
Ratings
a b s t r a c t
Sustainability indicators and composite index are gaining lot of importance and increasingly recognized
as a powerful tool for policy making and public communication in providing information on countries and
corporate performance in elds such as environment, economic, social, or technological improvement. By
conceptualizing phenomena and highlighting trends, sustainability indicators simplify, quantify, analyze
and communicate the complex and complicated information.
There are number of initiatives exist on indicators and frameworks for sustainable development. This
article provides an overview various sustainability indices applied in sustainability domain. The paper also
compiles the information related to sustainability indices formulation strategy, scaling, normalization,
weighting and aggregation methodology.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The concept of sustainable development (SD) has been an
important focal point for the decision makers in the industry.
As per the Brundtland report the sustainable development as
development that meets the needs of the present generation
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs (WCED, 1987). There are number of sustainability assessment methodologies exist in practice for evaluating
the performance of companies (Ramachandran, 2000). The World
Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD, 1997),
the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI, 2002a,b) and development of
standards (OECD, 2002) were the key driver for adoption of sustainability management in industries. Azapagic (2004) developed
a framework for sustainability indicators for the mining and minerals industry, which is also compatible to GRI. Krajnc and Glavic
(2005) collected and developed a standardized set of sustainability
indicators for companies covering all main aspects of sustainable
development.
According to KEI (2005), Indicators and composite indicators
are increasingly recognized as a useful tool for policy making
and public communication in conveying information on countries
performance in elds such as environment, economy, society, or
technological development.
Indicators arise from values (we measure what we care
about), and they create values (we care about what we measure)
DOI of original article: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2008.05.011.

E-mail address: [email protected] (R.K. Singh).
1470-160X/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.01.007
(Meadows, 1998). The indicators are adopted by countries and corporate because of its their ability to summarize, focus and condense
the enormous complexity of our dynamic environment to a manageable amount of meaningful information (Godfrey and Todd,
2001). By conceptualizing phenomena and assessing the trends
and identifying the hot-spots, indicators simplify, quantify, analyze and communicate the complex and complicated information
(Warhurst, 2002).
As per Bebbington et al. (2007), There is a widely recognized
need for individuals, organizations and societies to nd models,
metrics and tools for articulating the extent to which, and the ways
in which, current activities are unsustainable.
Bebbington et al. (2007) identies two important questions
related to evaluating sustainability:
How can todays operational systems for monitoring and reporting on environmental and social conditions be integrated or
extended to provide more useful guidance for efforts to navigate
a transition towards sustainability?
How can todays relatively independent activities of research
planning, monitoring, assessment, and decision support be better integrated into systems for adaptive management and societal
learning?
According to Ness et al. (2007) The purpose of sustainability assessment is to provide decision-makers with an evaluation
of global to local integrated naturesociety systems in short and
long term perspectives in order to assist them to determine which
actions should or should not be taken in an attempt to make society
sustainable.
282
R.K. Singh et al. / Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299
Information
Indirect pressure
Direct
Pressure
Pollutants
Human activities
Energy
Transport
Industry
Agriculture
Others
Information
State of the environment
and of natural resources
Resource
Conditions and trends
Air, water
Land, soil
Wildlife
Natural resources
Decision
Economic and
Environmental agents
Administration
Households
Enterprises
National
International
Action
Decision, Actions
Fig. 1. The pressure-state-response framework.
Source: OECD (1998).
The urgent requirement for a holistic approach to indicators definition and measurement is given more emphasis coupled with
development of robust methodologies which enables countries
and corporate to measure all important aspects of sustainability
(Bossel, 1999). It is worthwhile to dene the distinct policy goal
for achieving sustainability and then the appropriate indicators
are to be identied based on its materiality (Kates et al., 2001).
This apparently looks quite easy but leads to complicated situation once the process for selection and development of indicators
start. Alignment of goal with the identied indicators for reaching the sustainability is a challenging task and further it becomes
more difcult when it is being measured on various dimensions
and aggregated into single value (Kuik and Gilbert, 1999).
Response
Driving Forces
Impact
Pressure
State
Fig. 2. The DPSIR framework for reporting on environmental issues.

Source: Smeets and Weterings (1999).
2. Sustainable development indicators

A two-step approach for measuring the sustainability was suggested by Warhurst (2002) viz. improvement in various areas
measured through SDIs individually and assessing the overall
improvement achieved towards sustainable development by a
aggregating these individual areas with respect to their respective
dimensions. Lancker and Nijkamp (2000) emphasize upon target
values of indicators and states that, a given indicator doesnt say
anything about sustainability, unless a reference value such as
thresholds is given to it.
Some of the highlights from Lundin (2003), Berke and Manta
(1999) and Spohn (2004), SDIs can be used to:
Assess and evaluate the performance.
Provide trends on improvement as well as warning information
on declining trend for the various dimensions of sustainability i.e.
economic, environment and social aspects.
Provide information to decision makers to formulate strategies
and communicate the achievements to the stakeholders.
While developing a framework and selecting SDIs, Sp ohn (2004)
identies two distinctive main approaches:
The top-down approach, which enables experts and researchers
to dene the overall structure for achieving the sustainability and
subsequently it is broken down into set of indicators.
On the contrary, the bottom-up approach requires systematic
participation of various stakeholders to understand the framework as well as the key sustainable development indicators.
Holmberg and Karlsson (1992) developed the concept of socioecological indicators (SEIs) in order to establish the linkage between
society and environment. Another important development in this

area is the Pressure State Response (PSR) which is primarily based
on the concept of cause and effect phenomena. This framework
denes the impact of human activities which exert pressures on
the environment and results in change in the quality and the quantity of environment conditions (the state). Accordingly, society
responds to these changes through environmental, economic and
sectored policies (the societal response) for its adaptation (OECD,
1993). Response of society acts as a feedback to pressure segment through human activities (OECD, 1998). Fig. 1 illustrates this
PSR-framework of OECD.
According to Spohn (2004), The Driving Force Pressure State
Impact Response (DPSIR) model is an extension of the PSR framework and has been adopted by the European Environmental Agency
(EEA) and the European Statistical Ofce in 1997. Fig. 2 shows
those ve aspects and their connections.
Consequent to the outcome emerged in Agenda 21 on sustainable development indicators, the UN Commission on Sustainable
Development (CSD) came out with a list of about 140 indicators,
which cover various dimensions of sustainability (CSD, 2001).
For measuring sustainability with a focus on integration of
environmental and social aspects, a barometer of sustainability
has been developed (Prescott-Allen, 1995). It comprises of two
parts, namely ecosystem well-being for environmental aspects and
human well-being for social aspects, which clearly shows that
improvement in both dimensions, is equally needed for achieving
sustainable development. Another landmark achievement in sustainability assessment demonstrated through development of the
ecological footprint (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996) which measures
the total land area which is needed to maintain the food, water,
energy and waste-disposal demands per person, per product or per
283
Level 5:
Sustainable System Indicators
Level 4:
Supply Chain and Product
Life-cycle Indicators
Level 3:
Facility Effect Indicators
Level 2:
Facility Material Use and
Performance Indicators
Level 1:
Facility Compliance/
Conformance Indicators
Fig. 3. Lowell Center for sustainable production indicator framework.
Source: Spohn (2004).
city. The eco-efciency framework of the WBCSD allows assessing

the performance related to economic and environmentally sustainability using set of appropriate indicators which are important for
organization (WBCSD, 1999).
Spohn (2004) explained the LCSP framework which primarily
focuses on the environmental, health and safety aspects of sustainable production. The framework has ve step approaches for
arriving towards sustainable system indicators as depicted in Fig. 3.
In order to achieve progress in sustainability, the trend of SDIs
needs to be systematically monitored, measured, quantied and
interpreted (Zdan, 2010). Though lot of research work has been carried out in the area of sustainability metrics. There is still lot of scope
exists in this domain as sustainability context for countries or for
any organization is diverse and complex in nature (Welsch, 2005).
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in association with the United States nongovernmental organization,
Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economics (CERES)
launched the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in 1997 for improving the quality, structure and coverage of sustainability reporting
(Labuschagnea et al., 2005).
Sustainability Reporting is the focal point of the guidelines. The
GRI uses sustainability reporting on three dimensions viz. social,
economic, and environmental (Fig. 4).
The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development
(CSD) devised a framework of monitoring the various sustainability indicators for assessing the performance of government towards
sustainable development goals (Labuschagnea et al., 2005). The
structure of framework comprises four dimensions viz. social, environment, economic and institutional and it is broken down into
38 sub-indicators and 15 main indicators (Fig. 5) another set of
indicators formulated by The Institution of Chemical Engineers
(IChemE) has also formulated sustainability metrics covering three
dimensions environment, economic and social which are further
sub-divided into set of indicators (Labuschagnea et al., 2005). This
metrics was initiated to assess the sustainability performance of
process industry (Fig. 6).
The Wuppertal Institute also developed framework of sustainability by addressing the four dimensions of sustainable
development, as dened by the United Nations CSD. These four
aspects are linked through set of various indicators (Labuschagnea
et al., 2005) (Fig. 7).
Over the years, there have been consistent efforts at local,
regional, national and international level to identify appropriate
sustainability indicators as per the sustainability context and coverage. The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) has
derived a list of 58 indicators from the overall list of 134 indicators
for all countries to use.
3. Classication and evaluation of Sustainability
Assessment methodologies
Dewan (2006) elaborated two key methodologies for Sustainability Assessment viz. monetary aggregation method and
physical indicators and further explained that Monetary aggregation method is primarily used by economist, whereas physical
indicators are used by scientists and researchers. The examples of economic approaches include natural resource accounting
and modeling, sustainable growth modeling, and dening weak
and strong sustainability conditions. Dewan (2006) also classied and discussed economic frameworks such as Lindahl and
SolowHartwick framework in detail.
According to Dewan (2006) The Hicks/Lindahl requirement
for sustainable income is non-declining value of the aggregate
capital stock (per capita produced capital and per capita natural
capital) over time. Weak sustainability condition assumes perfect
substitutability between produced and natural capital and strong
sustainability condition assumes no substitutability.
According to Dewan (2006) In the SolowHartwick framework,
sustainable growth path is different from the optimal growth path,
which means that sustainability can be achieved at the cost of efciency.
Ness et al. (2007) developed a holistic framework for sustainability assessment tool which is shown in Fig. 8. Bebbington et al.
(2007) categorized these in three areas viz. (1) indicators and
indices, which are further classied into non-integrated and integrated, (2) product-related assessment tools with the major focus
on the material and/or energy ows of a product or service from a
life cycle perspective, and (3) integrated assessment.
Bohringer and Jochem (2007) discussed about three key inadequacies about SD indices which are to be systematically addressed.
First issue is the selection of appropriate indicators where in one
should have focus that themes determine the thematic aggregation method and units determine the technical aggregation
method. Further, weighting and normalization should be done in
transparent manner with proper sensitive analysis. For achieving
commensurability of input variables is the third important concern.
284
Global Reporting Initiative
Social
Environmental
Economic
Labour practices and

decent work
Environmental
Direct Economic Impacts
Human rights
Society
Product responsibility
Fig. 4. The hierarchical structure of the global reporting initiative (GRI) framework.
Source: GRI (2002a).
Core Indicators of
Sustainable
Development
Social
Environment
Economic
Institutional
Equity
Atmosphere
Economic structure
Health
Land
Consumption and
production patterns
Education
Oceans, Seas and

Coasts
Housing
Fresh water
Security
Biodiversity
Institutional
Frame work
Population
Fig. 5. The United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development (UNCSD) theme indicator framework.
Source: Labuschagnea et al. (2005).
Institutional
Capacity
285
IchemE Sustainability
Metrics
Environmental Indicators
Economic Indicators
Social Indicators
Resources usage
Profit, value and tax
Workplace
Emissions, waste and

effluents
Investments
Society
Additional items
Additional items
Additional items
Fig. 6. The Institute of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) sustainability metrics.

Environmental
indicators
instructive
Distribution of accosts to
Environmental recourses
Resource intensity of
Production, jobs, services
Companies, reports
Institutional
indicators ind.
Participation
Justice
Gender bias
Economic indicators ind.

GNP
Growth rate
Internation
Cooperation
Transport Intensity
HDI Income Disparities Longlibety, Indicators
Social indicators Ind.

Health care,
Housing,
social security
unemployment
Fig. 7. The Wuppertal sustainable development indicator framework.

The classication and evaluation of indicators can be done based

on the following general dimensions of measurement which is well
dened by Booysen (2002).
Aspects of the sustainability to be measured by indicators.

Techniques/methods/tools used for development of index like
quantitative/qualitative, subjective/objective, cardinal/ordinal,
unidimensional/multidimensional.
Whether the indicator compare the sustainability measure across
cross-section or time-series), absolute or relative manner?
Does the indicator measure sustainability in terms of input
(means) or output (ends)?
Clarity and simplicity in its content, purpose, method, comparative application and focus.
Availability of data for the various indicators.
Flexibility in the indicator for allowing change, purpose, method
and comparative application.
3.1. Guidelines for construction of indices

For constructing a composite index, policy goal has to be clearly
dened. The components and sub-components than need to be
determined based on theory, empirical analysis, pragmatism or
intuitive appeal, or some combination of these methods (Booysen,
2002). When empirical analysis is used for selection than both
bivariate and multivariate statistical techniques can be employed.
Bivariate analysis measures the correlation of the association
between all pairs of variables; multi-variate analysis assesses the
overall strength of any set of variables to measure any other variable. Bivariate analyses normally uses correlation matrices while
some of the multivariate techniques are discriminant, principal
component and factor analyses. The objective of these techniques
is to determine the number of key variables which really inuence
the composite index.
Booysen (2002) dened four ways for performing the scaling for
composite indexing purposes. Firstly, if the variables are already
286
Fig. 8. Framework of sustainability assessment tools.

Source: Ness et al. (2007).
scaled than there is no need of scaling variables. Secondly, the use

of standard scores (z and t values) can be employed for composite indexing. Thirdly, by conducting survey results, variables can be
transformed and represented in the form of ordinal response scales.
Finally, variables can be scaled on conventional linear scaling transformation (LST) method. For e.g. variables are scaled from 0 to 10
or 0 to 100 with the aid of this technique. However, this requires
target value or points of reference relative to which indicators can
be scaled. A minimum and a maximum value are required to be
identied for each of the variables.
Ebert and Welsch (2004) identied four generic classes

of scales that can be applied to variables viz. interval-scale
non-comparability (INC), interval-scale full comparability (IFC),
ratio-scale non comparability (RNC), and ratio-scale full comparability (RFC). Table 1 provides an overview of aggregation rules for
variables with respect to scale and comparability.
Table 1 provides the minimal methodological requirements to
be satised for development of any SD index. However, in many
cases, indices applied in practice typically violate these qualifying conditions: whereas the aggregation of variables measured in

Table 1
Aggregation rules for variables by Ebert and Welsch.
Interval scale
Ratio scale
287
Table 2
Methods for calculating composite indicators (CIs). Source: OECD (2002).
Non-comparability
Full comparability
Method
Equation
Dictatorial ordering
Geometric mean
Arithmetic mean
Any homothetic function
1. Sum of country rankings
CIct =
N
Rankkt
i=1
N
ratio-scale without being comparable would call for a geometric

mean, indices are often based on a (misleading) arithmetic mean
(Bohringer and Jochem, 2007).
Weighting system and method employed in aggregating component scores plays a predominant role for development of composite
index. Normally implicit weights are introduced during scaling and
explicit weights can be introduced during aggregation (Booysen,
2002). In case of explicit weights being not employed, the component and index scores are simply averages of the corresponding
variable and component scores. Multivariate techniques provide
relatively better option for weight selection. Principal component
analysis is one of the widely used multivariate analysis tool for
weighting of components based on the proportion of variance in the
original set of variables explained by the rst principal component
of that particular component. Once the weights have been assigned
to each indicator and the each indicator transformed into component score, these scores are aggregated into a composite score. The
various choices of method employed in weighting and aggregation
is nally dependent on the goal, nature, scope, type of indicators
etc. (Booysen, 2002).
Sensitivity analysis along with proper validation should be done
on composite indices (Nardo et al., 2005). Based on the validation
results, indices need to be improved and adjusted. The validation
adjustments are normally carried out at different stages viz. selection, scaling, weighting and aggregation in order to improve the
quality of the nal results. Validation is normally performed by
using either item analysis or external validation (Booysen, 2002).
There is always a requirement of demonstrating proper evidence through the reliable results while using composite index.
If the user simply does not know, or is not sure about the testing and certication of the composite, then composites quality is
low (Moldan et al., 2004). A notational system called NUSAP (an
acronym for ve categories: Numeral, Unit, Spread, Assessment,
Pedigree) can be used to characterize the quality of quantitative
information based in large part on the experience of research work
in the matured natural sciences (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1990). One
category of NUSAP, the pedigree, is an evaluative description of the
procedure used to build the composite indicator.
4. Composite indicators for sustainability
The construction of composite indicators involves selection
of various methods/tools/techniques at different stages of development process. However, this may result in various issues of
uncertainty due the selection of data, erroneous data, data imputation methods, data normalization, standardization, weighting
methods, weights values and aggregation methods.
Development of composite indicators is considered to be a
unique approach for evaluating sustainable development. Computing aggregate values is one of the common methods for
constructing indices. Composites indices can be constructed with or
without weights depending on its application. Indices are very useful in focusing attention and, often simplify the problem (Atkinson
et al., 1997).
Use of uncertainty and sensitivity analysis can assist in identifying the gaps and check the robustness of the composite indicator,
which further enhances the transparency and credibility of the
indices. Tools for sensitivity analysis should evaluate the output variation in models and also be able to apportion composite
2. Number of indicators above

the mean minus the number
below the mean
CIct =
3. Ratio or percentage
differences from the mean
CIct =
4. Percentage of annual
differences over consecutive
years
CIct
5. Standardized values

sgn

(1 + p)
EUi
i=1
N t
wt y
i=1N k ,
where ykt =
N t
wt y
k
i=1
=
,
N
where ykt =
i=1
i=1
wi
wi
N t
wt y
k
i=1
CIct =
,
N
where ykt =
N t
wt y
k
i=1
CIct =
,
N
where ykt =
i=1
6. Re-scaled values
xt
xt
i=1
wi
wi
xt
xt
EUi
xt xt1
k
xt
xt xt1
k
t
EUi
EUi
xt min(xt )
k
range(xt )
i
Notes: xkt is the value of indicator i fot country c at time t. wt is the weight given to
indicator i in the composite index. In Method 2, p = an arbitrarily chosen threshold
above and below the mean.
indicator quantitatively or qualitatively, to different types of variation in the study.

The steps suggested by Saisana and Tarantola (2002) for establishing the framework of Composite indicators are described below.
Once the policy goal has been dened, it is very important
to decide whether the phenomenon to be measured would fetch
in benet from the use of composite indicators. Secondly, there
should be better understanding of inuencing parameters and
themes. A clear cut approach is needed for selecting the individual sub-indicators. The data related to sub-indicators should be of
high quality. Proper imputation techniques should be employed
for achieving better data quality. In case of data gaps, methods
like mean substitution, correlation results, time series, etc. can be
applied. However, it is necessary to assess the suitable method
which can have reliable result. Thirdly, suitable normalizing and
weighting techniques are to be used for the sub-indicators. The
selection of the appropriate methods depends on the data and the
scope of the study. Finally, after aggregation of sub-indicators, it is
required to be checked for robustness and sensitivity.
Some of the key methods of aggregation employed are principal
components analysis, factor analysis, distance to targets, experts
opinion (budget allocation) and analytic hierarchy process.
The various methods for calculating the composite indicators
are shown in Table 2.
Dewan (2006) presents the milestones in the development of
various indices in the eld of economic, environmental and social
aspects, which are enumerated below:
Measure of Economic Welfare (MEW)
Index of Social Progress (ISP)

Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI)
Economic Aspects of Welfare (EAW)
Sustainability Performance Index (SPI)
Ecological Footprint
Material Input Per Service Unit (MIPS)
Barometer of Sustainability
Environmental Pressure Indicators (EPI)
Human Development Index (HDI)
Index for Sustainable Economic Welfare
(ISEW)
Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)
Nordhaus and Tobin (1973),

IMSA (1995), Jackson and
Marks (1994)
Estes (1974)
Morris (1979)
Zolotas (1981)
Krotscheck and Narodoslawsky
(1994)
Wackernagel and Rees (1996)
Schmidt-Bleek (1994)
IUCN/IDRC (1995)
EU (1999)
United Nations (1990)
Daly and Cobb (1989), Guenno
and Tizzi (1998)
Cobb et al. (1995)
288
Genuine Savings Indicator (GSI)

Total Material Requirement
Eco-efciency Indices
Compass of Sustainability
Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI)
Hamilton (1999)
EEA (2001)
WBCSD (1999)
Atkinson et al. (1997)
WEF (2002a,b)
5. Overview of sustainability indices

The brief description of various indices and ratings are described
below.
5.1. Innovation, knowledge and technology indices
5.1.1. Summary Innovation Index
The Summary Innovation Index (SII) is an innovation scoreboard
developed for European member states, which shows achievements and trends, highlights strengths and weaknesses of Member
States performances, and examines the European convergence
in innovation (DG Enterprise, 2001). The innovation scoreboard
comprises of 17 indicators broken down in four segments human
resources, knowledge creation, transmission and application of
new knowledge and innovation nance, output and markets. The
study was carried out between 1995/1997 and 1999/2000.The SII is
evaluated for a given country based on value equal to the number of
indicators that are more than 20% above the EU overall mean, minus
the number of indicators that are more than 20% below. Adjustment
has also been done in SII for differences in the number of available indicators for each country. The index can vary between +10
(all indicators are above average) to 10 (all indicators are below
average).
5.1.2. Investment in the knowledge based economy
Investment in the knowledge based economy is built by DG
RTD, which aims to summarize various indicators of national
investment in highly qualied human resources in science, technology, research and education, so as to measure a countrys
capacity to create knowledge (Muldur, 2001). The composite indicator aggregates seven indicators with respect to the number of
researchers, the number of new doctors in science and technology (annual inux), domestic expenditure on R&D, expenditure
on information technologies and imports of high-tech products.
For normalization purpose and also to neutralize the effect of the
size of the countries, all sub-indicators are measured on per capita
basis.
5.1.3. Performance in the knowledge based economy
The second index related to the knowledge-based economy
aims to measure a countrys performance in converting the new
knowledge into economic and technological progress to increase
both a countrys competitiveness and the well being of its citizens. The index combines six indicators: the number of EPO and
USPTO patents, the number of publications, production of high-tech
exports, the employment in the high-tech production and GDP per
capita.
5.1.4. Innovation Index
The Innovation Index comprises of three key areas that combine between 3 and 5 variables, which are mostly collected from
OECD databases. The rst key area i.e. generation of new knowledge combines variables such as basic research as a percentage
of GDP and non-business researchers as a share of the labour
force. The second key area is industry/science linkages demonstrated
by public/private links through data relating to R&D, the scientic evidence of patents, and publications. In the third key area
industrial innovation is represented by data on business research,
patents and the introduction of new products and processes which

are also used to measure the progress in innovation in private
sector.
5.1.5. National innovation capacity
National innovation capacity index has been developed to
dene the quantitative benchmark of national innovative capacity. There are eight sub-indicators identied viz. expenditures
on R&D, personnel employed in R&D, openness to International Trade & Investment, strength of protection for intellectual
property, share of GDP spent on secondary and tertiary education, GDP Per Capita, percentage of R&D Funded by private
Industry and percentage of R&D performed by Universities.
This index depicts the national highlights in terms of resource
commitments and policy options which has got signicant
impact on innovative output in the long run (Porter and Stern,
1999).
5.1.6. Information and communication technologies
The index aims at providing an overall state of a countrys
situation regarding development and application of information
and communication technologies (Fagerberg, 2001). Five indicators like number of mobile telephones, number of Internet
users, etc. are used for the aggregation of the composite indicator.
5.1.7. Technology Achievement Index
The Technology Achievement Index (TAI) is formulated to assess
the performance of countries in promoting and diffusing technology and in capacity building with a focus on developing a human
skills base (United Nations, 2001). The index comprises of four
dimensions which uses data from 8 indicators. The fours dimensions are technology creation in terms of number of patents granted
to residents per capita and by receipts of royalties and license
fees from abroad per capita, diffusion of recent innovations in
terms of the number of Internet hosts per capita and the share
of high- and medium-technology exports in total goods exports,
diffusion of old innovations, as measured by telephones (mainline
and cellular) per capita and electricity consumption per capita and
Human skills, in terms of mean years of schooling in the population aged 15 and above and the gross tertiary science enrolment
ratio.
5.1.8. General Indicator of Science and Technology
General Indicator of Science and Technology (GIST) developed
by the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy of Japan
(NISTEP) to highlight the trends in Japans Science and Technology
activities and conduct international benchmarking and time-series
analysis (NISTEP, 1995). GIST comprises of 13 indicators classied
in two categories. Five indicators grouped as input and eight as
output. The inputs indicators include: R&D expenditure, R&D
scientists/engineers, Bachelors of Science degrees conferred,
Bachelors of Engineering degrees conferred, and technology
imports. The output indicators identied as: scientic papers,
scientic paper citations, domestic patents, external patents,
patent citations, product output, high tech product output
and technology exports.
5.1.9. Success of software process improvement
The Index comprises of 14 variables which have signicant
impact on the software process improvement. The prime objective
of development of this index is to understand the software process
improvement mechanism and also identify reasons that can explain
the successes and failures of software process improvement efforts
(Emam et al., 1998).
5.2. Development indices

5.2.1. Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) developed by United
Nations comprises of three basic components viz. a long and
healthy life, knowledge and GDP per capita (United Nations, 2001).
Long and healthy life is measured based on life expectancy at birth,
knowledge is evaluated on adult literacy rate (with two-thirds
weight) and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross
enrolment ratio (with one-third weight) and GDP per capita in
terms of PPP US$. All the indices are evaluated based on minimum
and maximum values for each indicator and performance in each
component is expressed as a value between 0 and 1.
5.2.2. Index of sustainable and economic welfare
Centre for Environmental Strategy (CES) and the New Economics
Foundation (NEF) developed the Index of sustainable and economic
welfare (ISEW). The major goal of this index is to measure the
component of economic activity that leads to welfare to the society. It further aims to replace GDP as an indicator of progress,
because of its ability to demonstrate the relationship between economic activities and their direct impacts on the quality of life (CES,
2000). The index comprises of seven economic activities divided
into set of twenty sub-indicators. The main seven components
related to economic activities include: adjusted consumer expenditure, services from domestic labour, from consumer durables, from
streets and highways, public expenditure on health and education,
net capital growth and net change in international position. The
thirteen indicators that related to the reduction in welfare are:
consumer durables (difference between expenditure and value of
services), private expenditures on health and education, commuting costs, personal pollution control, automobile accidents, water
pollution, air pollution, noise pollution, loss of natural habitats,
loss of farmlands, depletion of non-renewable resources, costs of
climate change and costs of ozone depletion.
5.2.3. Relative intensity of regional problems in the Community
(by the EC)
The European Commission (EC) developed an index for measuring the regional problems in the community which is known
as relative intensity of regional problems in the Community
(Commission of the European Communities, 1984). The prime
objective of the Index is to help assist communities to formulate
concrete regional policy for strengthening the economic performance of regions having slower pace of development. The European
Commission constructed this uniform and global methodology to
synthesize three sub-indicators: GDP per employed in ECU, GDP
per head in PPS, and unemployment rate.
5.3. Market and economy based indices
5.3.1. Internal Market Index
The Internal Market Index aims to measure whether the benets
which are likely to be derived from the Internal Market Strategy for
the betterment of the citizens and companies, are effectively delivered (DG MARKT, 2001). There are 19 set of variables aggregated
in the Index. Some of the key indicators are growth in per-capita
income, long-term unemployment, price dispersion, growth in
intra-EU trade, prices of utilities services, and availability of venture
capital, energy intensity and greenhouse gas emissions.
5.3.2. Business climate indicator
DG ECFIN has constructed a composite indicator based on results
of business surveys. This is designed to deliver an indication and
early warning of the cyclical situation of the business within the
area and to improve the understanding of the business cycle in the
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European area as a whole (DG ECFIN, 2000). The ve sub-indicators

are selected based on the responses of national business surveys:
production trends in recent past, order books, export order books,
stocks and production expectations. Each series of information
transformed between 100 (indicating that all rms have reported
a deterioration) and +100 (all rms have noted an improvement).
5.3.3. European Labour Market Performance
The European Labour Market Performance Index aims to measure the labour market performance using Basic Performance
Indicators that are used in the benchmarking process of the Amsterdam Treaty (Storrie and Bjurek, 1999). For demonstration purposes,
three indicators of unemployment from the Basic Performance
Indicators are benchmarked. These three indicators are: the unemployment rate, the long-term unemployment rate and the youth
unemployment ratio.
5.3.4. Composite Leading Indicators
The OECD Composite Leading Indicators (CLI) comprises of individually elected leading indicators developed for 22 member states
(Nilsson, 2000). Composite Leading Indicators aims to provide better forecasting and tracking of business cycle. The OECD CLIs are
based on individually selected leading indicators for each country
(OECD, 2002).
5.3.5. Genuine savings (GS)
Pearce and Atkinson (1993) developed this index. This index is
based on Hicksian income concept (Bohringer and Jochem, 2007).
This indicator assesses the economys sustainability and redenes
the wealth in broader perspective and calculates the net change
in the whole range of assets that are important for development:
produced assets, natural resources, environment quality, human
resources and foreign assets.
5.3.6. Economic Sentiment Indicator
The Economic Sentiment Indicator of the European Commission
(EC ESI) aggregates business surveys into a single cyclical indicator. This indicator also reduces the risk of false signals and provides
a better forecasting and tracking tool to assess individual components (Nilsson, 2000). The Economic Sentiment Indicator comprises
of four components viz. industrial condence indicator, construction condence indicator, consumer condence indicator and share
price index.
5.3.7. Green Net National Product (GNNP) or (EDP) and SEEA
Green Net National Product (GNNP) takes care of both aspects
environmental degradation as well as ow of earnings and makes
adjustments. This eliminates the aws in GDP. The Environmental
Adjusted Net Domestic Product (EDP) has been developed within
the purview of SEEA (System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting UNEP, 2000). Bohringer and Jochem (2007)
explains three different versions of the EDP: (i) the EDP-I is evaluated by subtracting the depreciations of natural resources from
the Net National Income (NNI), (ii) the EDP-II is ascertained by
subtracting from the NNI the costs necessary to reach the same
state of the environment at the end of the period as existed at the
beginning of the period, and (iii) the EDP-III is calculated by subtracting the costs of environmental pressure and destruction using
willingness-to-pay methods.
5.4. Eco-system based Indices
5.4.1. Sustainability Performance Index (SPI)
The SPI is developed by Narodoslawsky and Krotscheck in 1994
for process industry to measure the sustainability. It uses only
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process data during the early stage of planning and data of natural concentrations of substances (not on their presumable impact
which is usually not known). The SPI evaluation comprises of calculation of the area needed to embed a process completely into the
biosphere. The SPI for the unit process is equivalent to the total area
required for production of raw material, process energy and provision of installations for process as well as the area required for
the staff and for the accommodation of products and by-products
(Lundin, 2003).
5.4.2. Eco-Index Methodology

For performing the Ecological Footprint (EF) analysis, the
Eco-Index Methodology was developed by Best Foot Forward
(Chambers et al., 2000) which is primarily utilizes component or
bottom-up approach methodology. This is also compatible with
the compound top-down approach which collects information
from international trade statistics. Eco-Index Methodology takes
care of entire life cycle data for assessing the EF conversion factors
for most of the key component. The ecological footprint (as measured using global average yields) is normalized by the application
of equivalence factors.
5.4.3. Living Planet Index (LPI)

Living Planet Index was developed by WWF (1998) which is
used as the global biodiversity indicator. LPI measures trends in
over 2000 populations of more than 1100 species of vertebrates
in terrestric, freshwater, and seawater ecosystems. The LPI calculates the sub-index for the three spheres. According to Bohringer
and Jochem (2007), LPI is the ratio between its populations for each
sphere for each consecutive year. The geometric mean of all ratios
of different species multiplied with the index value of the former
year provides the biodiversity index for the respective sphere. The
base year is considered as 1970 and index value is scale for 1970 is
unity.
5.4.4. Ecological Footprint (EF)

The Ecological Footprint (EF) (Wackernagel and Rees, 1997)
quanties for any given population the mutually exclusive, biotically productive area that must be continuous use to provide
its resource supplies and to assimilate its wastes. EF uses bioproductive area as unit of measurement. The footprint accounts
the resource supply chains and disposal management options.
This analysis calculates whether the land and sea area required
per year to sustain the current consumption by the help prevailing technology are within the available resources. Land and sea
are divided into ve components viz. bio-productive land, bioproductive sea, energy land, built land and biodiversity land for
non-human species. Footprints are calculated based on either compound or component or combination of these methods. EF is used to
estimate environmental sustainability at national and global level.
The EcoindexTM (Chambers and Lewis, 2001) gained lot of popularity which measures the impact of different products, services,
lifestyles.
5.4.5. Fossil Fuel Sustainability Index (FFSI)

Fossil Fuel sustainability index has been developed for fossil
fuels which aims to determine the most efcient management of
fossil fuel resources for the energy system (Ediger et al., 2007). This
study is conducted for 62 countries considering the independence,
lifetime and environmental constraints. The effect of these indicators are then integrated into a single index for oil, natural gas, and
coal. Two approaches viz. equal weights and principal component
analysis have been taken for development of index.
5.5. Composite sustainability performance indices for industries

5.5.1. Composite sustainable development index
Krajnc and Glavic (2005) identied key indicators for three
dimensions of sustainability. A composite sustainable development
index (ICSD ) has been developed in order to track integrated information on economic, environmental, and social performance of the
company with real-time information. All the indicators are normalized based on minimum and maximum value and aggregated
to three sustainability sub-indices and nally these are composed
into an overall indicator of a company performance. Weights of
the indicators have been evaluated using the concept of analytic
hierarchy process.
5.5.2. Compass Index of Sustainability (CIS)

The Compass Index of Sustainability developed by AtKisson Inc.
for Orlando, Florida. CIS comprises of four dimensions of sustainability viz. Nature (N), Economy (E), Society (S) and Well Being (W)
corresponding to the four points on a compass. Indicators were
scaled on a 0100 performance scale. Scales were set by normative judgments. Each indicator has equal weight. Simple averaging
technique was employed for aggregation (Atkinson et al., 1997).
5.5.3. Composite Sustainability Performance Index

The Composite Sustainability Performance Index (CSPI) is an
attempt to develop a measure of sustainability and to evaluate
how well a company demonstrates its policies and commitments
regarding sustainable development. This model enables industry
to identify the key sustainability performance indicators and provides framework for aggregating the various indicators into the
Composite Sustainability Performance Index (Singh et al., 2007).
The calculation of CSPI is a step-by-step procedure of grouping
various basic indicators into the sustainability sub-index for each
group of sustainability indicators. Sub-indices then subsequently
derived in the form of aggregated index. Weights are derived using
analytic hierarchy process. Liberatore scoring and Z score method
were employed for aggregation of indicators. The model has been
evaluated based on the real-time application for a steel industry.
Composite sustainability performance index (CSPI) with its subindices for each dimensions of sustainability was evaluated for the
time period of four years.
5.5.4. ITT Flygt Sustainability Index

This index is constructed by Pohl (2006) and calculated for ITT
Flygt AB over a three years period (20022004). ITT Flygt Sustainability Index provides a framework for measuring the sustainability
at corporate level. It shows that how well a company stands up to its
policies and commitments regarding sustainable development. The
index structure was constructed based on information collected
from scientic literature and stakeholder engagement process with
ITT Flygt and four other engineering companies. The index is calculated by aggregating some forty sustainability-indicators. The
identied indicators are specic to each company and are designed
to measure the signicant sustainability aspects of the company.
5.5.5. G Score method

G Score is a measurement tool to assess the corporate environmental performance based on the information obtained from
voluntary environment, health, and safety (EHS) report and is calculated by aggregating the points of ve categories namely general
environmental management (GEM), input, process, output, and
outcome (Jung et al., 2001).
5.5.6. Sustainable Asset management (SAM) Zurich, Switzerland

(www.sam-group.com)
Sustainable Asset Management founded by Swiss Re, Volkart
Brothers Group and SAM which serves as an in-house department for the investment company Sustainable Performance Group
and also assesses companies for external clients. They give input
to investment agencies on leading worldwide companies which
have strongly committed for sustainability and successfully integrated their economic, ecological and social aspects to their overall
management system. They also focus on the companies which
are able to recognize opportunities and risks proactively and thus
create for themselves long-term, sustainable competitive advantages, and further for the achieve above-average protability. The
assessment involves going into details of companys sustainability
opportunities (its strategic opportunities; product; corporate sustainability), and its sustainability risks (stakeholder engagement;
environmental management; resource efciency; strategic risks;
sustainability costs). There are more than 100 criteria are used for
the rating. SAM with the Dow Jones indices recently launched a
series of sustainability indices (DJSI, 2003). The global index contains 225 components, selected from the Dow Jones global index of
2000 blue chip companies (www.sam-group.com).
5.5.7. Dow Jones sustainability group indices (DJSGI), US
(www.sustainability-index.com)
The DJSGI in association with SAM Sustainability Group developed the rst set of global sustainability indices in September 1999.
The DJSGI provides a platform for corporate to benchmark their sustainability performance. It tracks the performance of the top 10% of
the companies in the Dow Jones global index which has taken lead
in the eld of sustainability. There are ve criterias of sustainability principles on which the ranking of companies are done (Dow
Jones/SAM 1999):
Technology: Assess adoption of innovative technology, efcient, effective and economic use of nancial, natural and social
resources.
Governance: Corporate governance, management responsibility,
organizational capability, corporate culture and stakeholder relations.
Shareholders: Sound nancial return, long-term economic
growth, long-term productivity, enhanced global competitiveness
and contributions to intellectual capital.
Industry: Focus of industry towards sustainable value creation
and demonstrating commitment and publishing superior performance with respect to sustainability.
Society: Stakeholder engagement, promote social well-being by
understanding the needs and expectations of stakeholders, evolving demographics, migratory ows, shifting cultural patterns and
the need for continuing education.
The criteria help in nancial quantication of sustainability performance by addressing the companys sustainability opportunities
and risks. Based on the nal score each companys sustainability
performance is given ranking.
5.5.8. Bovespa Corporate Sustainability Index
The Bovespa Corporate Sustainability Index (Indices de Sustentabilidade Empresarial ISE) is the index used for tracking the
economic, nancial, corporate governance, environmental and
social performance of leading companies listed in the So Paulo
Stock Exchange. It is primarily based on the triple bottom line
(TBL) concept, which evaluates the economic nancial, social, and
environmental elements in an integrated manner. The economicnancial, social, and environmental dimensions were divided
into four groups of criteria: Policies (commitment indicators);
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Management (indicating plans, programs, goals, and monitoring);

Performance; and Legal Compliance (with environmental and
consumer regulation, among others).
5.6. Product Based Sustainability Index
5.6.1. Life Cycle Index
Life Cycle Index (LInX) is a composite index developed for decision making of process and products considering its entire life
cycle attributes. The objective of this tool is to help companies to
provide decision support system in assessing the various design
and technological considerations of processes and products. LInX
is comprised of four components namely environment, cost, technology, and socio-political factors. It takes care of both aspects
wherein targets have to be met separately (xed) and trade-offs
between different impacts are allowed (exible). This model provides more exibility in reaching the target by considering the cost
of increased need for preference information collection and modeling. Typically, xed and exible models both can be incorporated
in the index while giving separate targets for selected impact categories. For remaining impact categories, it is combined together
and target can be given in term of aggregated impact (Khan et al.,
2004).
5.6.2. Ford of Europes Product Sustainability Index
Ford of Europes Product Sustainability Index (PSI) is a sustainability management tool is being used by car manufacturers which
is developed based on life cycle assessment approach... PSI is looking at eight indicators reecting environmental (Life Cycle Global
Warming Potential, Life Cycle Air Quality Potential, Sustainable
Materials, Restricted Substances, Drive-by-Exterior-Noise), social
(Mobility Capability, Safety) and economic (Life Cycle Cost of Ownership) vehicle attributes.
5.7. Sustainability Indices for Cities
5.7.1. Urban sustainability index
The urban sustainability index (USI) developed by Zhang (2002)
based on 22 individual indicators in the context of urban China.
These indicators were selected from a sustainability indicator
database (with 387 indicators) through three rounds of extensive consultation of experts using the pre-coded questionnaires.
Total urban sustainability score is having three components of the
urban sustainability scores and each of the three components is
based on a number of individual indicators. All the indicators have
given weights using analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method
and experts consultation. The three dimensions are namely urban
status, urban coordination and the urban potential. These dimensions capture the three key points of urban sustainability: the
urban development capacity, urban coordination capacity and
urban development potential. The score of USI is the weighted
sum of scores of the three components of the urban sustainability index. The score of each of the three components of the urban
sustainability index is the weighted sum of scores of the relevant
subcomponents of the urban sustainability. The score on the urban
sustainability index has been scaled from 0 to 1.
5.7.2. Sustainability Index for Taipei
This study was carried out for Taipei city. This study is performed
based on the views of experts, scholars, government departments
and collecting information from scientic literature. It also takes
care of specic aspects of Taipei city. A total number of 51 sustainability indicators selected with respect to the socio-economic
characteristic of Taipei City. Indicators are classied into economic,
social, environmental and institutional dimensions. Subsequently,
statistical data is collated to understand the trend of sustainable
292
development from 1994 to 2004. Moreover, the sustainability index

is calculated for the four dimensions and for Taipei as a whole. This
study applies standard deviation as the basic method for calculating the sustainability index. It standardizes indicator values so that
each standardized value falls between 0 and 1. Study applies the
equal weight method for initial integration and analyzing overall
sustainability trend.
5.7.3. City Development Index
The City Development Index (CDI) developed by the United
Nations Centre for Human Settlements (HABITAT) comprises of
ve sub-indices: (i) an infrastructure index, which is sub-divided
into four (equally weighted) indicators namely percentages of
households connected to clean water, canalization, electricity and
availability of phone network (without mobiles); (ii) waste index
sub-classied into twofold (equally weighted) indicators as the
percentage of untreated sewage in total wastewater and the percentage of disposal of solid waste in total solid wastes.
5.7.4. The Sustainability Cities Index
Forum for the Future has identied three dimensions of indicators for providing ranking to the cities of Britain. The three
dimensions are namely, Environmental Impact of the city which
describes the impact of the city on the environment with respect
to resource use and pollution, Quality of Life for residents shows
the state of city to live in for all its citizens and the third dimension
is Future Proong which indicates how well the city is preparing
itself for a sustainable future. These index categories were identied to evaluate the sustainability of each city in a transparent and
balanced way considering 13 indicators.
5.7.5. Ecosistema Urbano Performance Index
Ecosistema Urbano is a project initiated in Italy in 1994 for 103
main Italian metropolitans. Over the years it has been well established to evaluate the environmental index of the city. This index
comprises of 20 environmental indicators and has been tested
for last 10 years. The project focuses on the resources quality
and its management and environmental protection. Indicators are
designed in such a way that it facilitates in evaluating the sustainability of the cities in terms of the impact posed on environmental
resources due to economic activities and modern lifestyles. It also
evaluates the outcome of the actions carried out to mitigate the
pressure. It allows organizing cities environmental data in order to
identify a sustainability evaluation criteria and an environmental
performance benchmarking.
5.7.6. Sustainable Seattle: developing Indicators of Sustainable
Community
Sustainable Seattle has been developed as part of community
engagement process to measure the community well being in order
to address the health problems of the city in 1998. The development
process involved series of consultation meetings which resulted in
identication of 40 indicators covering various issues like environment, population and resources, economy, youth and education,
health and community.
5.7.7. ISSI Index, Italy
Institute of Sustainable Development, Italy developed a sustainability index for measuring the sustainable performance of
Italy. The ISSI index comprises of three components namely socioeconomic, environment and resources categories. Each category
consists of 10 indicators. This is a multi dimension vector presentation tool which allows comparisons between the Italian regions
as well as between countries. Indicators are normalized based
on the target value, considering the time series data. Simplied
dashboard has also been realized by color representation of various

components (Ronchi et al., 2002).
5.8. Environmental Indices for Policies, Nations and Regions
5.8.1. Environment Sustainability Index
The 2002 Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) is developed for 142 countries to measure the overall progress towards
environmental sustainability. The ESI comprises of sixty-eight
basic indicators. These indicators are then aggregated to construct
twenty one core indicators. The Environmental Sustainability Index
value for each country is aggregated based on the average value
for the 21 factors. Every variable in the data set is normalized and
scaled between 0 (low sustainability) and 100 (high sustainability)
(WEF, 2002a,b).
5.8.2. Environment Quality Index
Environment Quality Index (EQI) was developed for assessing
the environmental impacts of various alternatives. The key environmental indicators are dened and selected on the basis of the
multiattribute-utility theory and weights are ascertained by using
the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology (Saaty, 1980).
EQI is evaluated by weighted sum of all environmental indicators,
which provides the overall environmental impact of each alternative (Bisset, 1988). Each environmental indicator is scaled in the
range 010 and evaluated using linear utility function, the utility
functions are given the weights according to the importance of each
environmental factor, and the weighted sum gives the environmental quality index.
5.8.3. Environmental Sustainability Index
The Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) was developed for
122 countries under the aegis of World Economic Forum in 2001
which is a measure of overall progress towards environmental sustainability (WEF, 2001). The ESI scores comprises of a set of 22
sub-indicators, each of which combines two to six variables. In total
67 variables are considered.
5.8.4. Concern about environmental problems
The index developed by Parker primarily aims to measure the
public concern emerging out of environmental problems (Parker,
1991). This index has eleven indicators and classied in three categories namely air problems, water problems and landscape-related
problems. The air problems comprises of four parameters namely
nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide and particulates,
two indicators associated with water problems are bathing and
fertilizers and ve landscape-related indicators are population
change, new dwellings, tourism, trafc and waste.
5.8.5. Index of Environmental Friendliness
The Index of Environmental Friendliness has been developed
based on aggregation of direct and indirect data related to global
and local environmental problems. The scope of the model is
designed to cover the key environmental problems of greenhouse
effect, ozone depletion, acidication, eutrophication, ecotoxicological effect, resource depletion, photo-oxidation, biodiversity,
radiation and noise (Puolamaa et al., 1996).
5.8.6. Environmental Policy Performance Indicator (by Adriaanse
A., The Netherlands)
The Environment Policy Performance Indicator has been developed to monitor the trend in the total environmental pressure
and also ascertain the adequacy of the environmental policy in
the Netherlands (Adriaanse, 1993). This index comprises of six
theme indicators namely: (a) change of climate, (b) acidication,
(c) eutrophication, (d) dispersion of toxic substances, (e) disposal

of solid waste, and (f) odour and noise disturbance.
5.8.7. Environmental Performance Index
The Environment Performance Index (EPI) has been developed
to measure the impact of policy which results in reduction of environmental stresses on human health and promoting ecosystem
vitality and sound natural resource management (Bohringer and
Jochem, 2007). The EPI aims to evaluate a set of environmental
issues monitored through six policy categories for which all governments are liable to undertake (Esty et al., 2005). All the indicators
are scaled from 0 to 100. Weights of indicators are evaluated using
principal component analysis and nally it is aggregated in the form
of weighted sum.
5.8.8. Environmental Vulnerability Index
The Environmental Vulnerability Index (EVI) has been developed to assess the likelihood of potential damages caused by
environmental problems. This index comprises of 32 indicators of
hazards, 8 indicators of resistance, and 10 indicators that measure
damage (SOPAC, 2005). All 50 indicators are given equal weights
and aggregated by an arithmetic mean. The scale is normalized
between the range of 1 (indicating high resilience/low vulnerability) and 7 (indicating low resilience/high vulnerability).
5.8.9. Two Synthetic environmental indices
In the review paper of Isla M., two composite indicators (one
structural and one functional) are developed aiming to assist
the local municipalities of Barcelona to monitor and evaluate
their environmental performance (Isla, 1997). Twenty-two subindicators for environment are combined into 2 synthetic indices,
a structural and a functional one.
5.9. Environment Indices for Industries
5.9.1. Eco-points
There are number of eco-points schemes have been developed.
Eco-points scores constructed under Eco-Scan are primarily based
on a distance to target methodology (Pre Consultants, 2004).
Effects are evaluated based on the current level and the target
level to achieve sustainability. Eco-points is used to evaluate the
processes and products to cover all life cycle stages namely raw
material extraction, production, transport, distribution, use and
end-of-life. For each stage, once can identify the materials, energy,
processes, usage, and transportation details from the options and
software calculates an eco-score for each of these elements, based
on a number of points for a given quantity or usage. Three separate databases viz. Eco-indicator 95, Idemat 96, Eco-indicator 97 of
eco-points is provided with the Eco-Scan package.
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oriented impact assessment method. This tool aims to assist designers and product managers to improve products and processes in
life cycle perspective. The Eco-indicator 99 addresses three damage
categories based on end-points namely human health, ecosystem
quality and resources, minerals and fossil fuels. Specic models
have been designed to evaluate the respiratory and carcinogenic
effects, global warming potential, ozone layer depletion and ionising radiation. Impact on human are calculated as DALY (Disability
Adjusted Life Years). Impact on eco-systems is evaluated as the percentage of species that have disappeared in a certain area due to
the environmental load. Resource extraction is calculated based on
the quantity of the remaining mineral and fossil resources.
5.9.4. Environment assessment for cleaner production
technologies
Fizal (2007) developed an environmental assessment method
for cleaner production technologies enabling quantitative analysis
of environmental impact. The method is based on study of proles
related to material and energy ows, waste, product and packaging proles related to the technology under evaluation. This index
is used as a basis for determining an integrated index for overall environmental assessment of cleaner production technologies.
The presented method can be employed to evaluate environmental impact of implemented, modernized and modied technological
processes and products as well to perform comparative analyses of
alternative technologies.
5.9.5. COMPLIMENT environment performance index for
industries
Hermann et al. (2007) developed a tool known as COMPLIMENT
for providing comprehensive detailed information on the overall environmental impact of an industry. COMPLIMENT combines
various tools such as life cycle assessment, multi-criteria analysis and environmental performance indicators. The methodology
is based on identication environmental performance indicators
considering life cycle approach, providing weights to indicators and
aggregation of indicators. EPIs are calculated while considering the
goal and scope denition of an LCA, followed by inventory analysis
and conversion and subsequently the classication, characterization and normalization activities. The various impact categories are
global warming, acidication potential, eutrophication potential,
ozone precursors and human health. Three types of weights were
evaluated based on AHP techniques for local, regional and national
perspectives. Weights are multiplied to each impact category and it
is evaluated in terms of normalized potential impacts per category.
The resulting weighted impacts per category can then be added up
to form an index of the normalized total potential environmental
impact for each perspective.
5.10. Social and quality of life based indices
5.9.2. Eco-compass
Dow Chemical developed the simplied visual tool for representing the summary of Life Cycle Assessment data (Fussler and
James, 1996). It is based on the indicators of eco-efciency developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development
(WBCSD), with some minor amendments (DeSimone and Popoff,
1997). The eco-compass has six poles or dimensions namely
energy intensity, mass intensity, health and environmental potential risk, resource conservation, extent of re-valorization (re-use,
re-manufacturing and re-cycling) and service extension.
5.9.3. Eco-indicator 99
The Eco-indicator 99 has been developed by a team of experts
from 1997 to 1999 for evaluating the life cycle impacts of materials and processes (Pre Consultants, 2000). This is based on damage
5.10.1. Gender Empowerment Measure

The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) is a tool developed
for capturing the issues related to gender inequality. It focuses on
womens opportunities rather than their capabilities on the following three areas:
Share of parliament seats in percentage of women and men indicating participation of women in political decision making.
Womens and mens percentage shares of positions as legislators,
senior ofcials and managers and womens and mens percentage
shares of professional and technical positions depict economic
participation and decision-making.
Power over economic resources, as measured by womens and
mens estimated earned income (PPP US$).
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Both indices Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) and

Gender-related Development Index (GMI) are evaluated as arithmetic means of three components. The components of each Index
are scaled between 0 and 1 before computation (UNDP, 1996).
5.10.2. Physical Quality of Life Index
The Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) developed by Morris
(1979) which comprises of three indices- life expectancy index,
infant mortality index and adult literacy rate to compute the PQLI.
Ram (1982) applied principal component analysis and recomputed
the PQLI.
5.10.3. Well-Being Assessment (Well-Being Index WI)
The Well-Being Assessment developed by Prescott-Allen (2001)
comprises of arithmetic mean of Human Well-being Index (HWI)
and an Ecosystem Well-Being Index (EWI). HWI has 5 subcomponents while EWI comprises of six sub-components. The
various sub-components of HWI are namely Health and Population, Welfare, Knowledge, Culture and Society and Equity Index.
The EWI consists of sub-components for land, water, air, species
and genes as well as for resources deployment. There are total 87
indicators divided into 36 indicators for HWI and 51 indicators for
EWI (Bohringer and Jochem, 2007). Indicators are judged based
on subjective assessment, normalized a by a proximity-to-target
approach and aggregation is carried out by a weighted arithmetic
mean.
5.10.4. National Health Care Systems Performance
The National Health Care Systems Performance Index has been
developed to measure the performance of all 120 Health Authorities in England, Scotland and Wales. The aim of the index is to
evaluate the trend in health care standards across the country, gulf
in the health of town and city dwellers, and impact of poverty on
the health service (Kings Fund, 2001). There are six sub-indicators
were selected which cover various aspects of the performance of
the National Health Care System namely deaths from cancer, deaths
from heart disease, total number of people on hospital waiting lists,
percentage of people on waiting lists waiting over 12 months, number of hip operations and deaths from avoidable diseases (e.g. TB,
asthma, etc.).
5.10.5. Overall Health System Attainment
The World Health Organization has developed an index that
evaluates the performance of health systems in 191 countries, in
terms of overall level of goal achievement and the distribution
of that achievement (WHO, 2000). Goal achievement and its distribution have been given equal weights. The index comprises of
ve components namely overall good health, distribution of good
health, overall responsiveness, distribution of responsiveness and
fairness in nancial contributions. Good health is measured by
DALY and the distribution of good health by an equality of child
survival index.
5.10.6. Index for sustainable society
This index has been developed recently for a sustainable society
called as the SSI which combines both aspects of sustainability and
quality of life. The SSI allows policy makers to visualize the level of
sustainability of a country, measure the progress and identify the
areas where improvements are urgently required.
The framework of the Index for a Sustainable Society consists of
ve categories, each built up from several indicators.
Personal Development (Healthy Life, Sufcient Food, Sufcient
to Drink, Safe Sanitation, Education Opportunities and Gender
Equality).
Clean Environment (Air Quality, Surface Water Quality and Land
Quality).
Well-balanced Society (Good Governance, Unemployment, Population Growth, Income Distribution and Public Debt).
Sustainable Use of Resources (Waste Recycling, Use of Renewable Water Resources and Consumption of Renewable Energy).
Sustainable World (Forest Area, Preservation of Biodiversity,
Emission of Greenhouse Gases, Ecological Footprint and International Cooperation).
5.11. Energy based indices
5.11.1. Sustainability assessment tool for energy system
Begic and Afghan (2007) performed multi-criteria sustainability assessment of various options of the energy power system.
A 110 MW Thermal Power Unit is compared with other technologies of power generation viz. thermal power unit with a
coal-fueled boiler with combustion in uidized bed; combined
cycle gas turbine plants; hydropower plant, power plants based
on solar energy (photovoltaic [PV] systems); wind turbines; and
biomass power plants. The assessment methodology focuses on
stochastic models of uncertainty to assess the various systems.
Non-numeric (ordinal), non-exact (interval) and non-complete
information (NNNinformation) were used to obtain normalization
indexes. This tool enables decision maker to select the most optimal
options of power plant.
5.11.2. Energy indicators for tracking sustainability in developed
countries
The sustainability discussion is focused on environmental topics for developed countries and issues of poverty and equity for
developing countries. Consequently, for measuring sustainable
development in a developing country, the inclusion of a poverty
indicator in a set of lead indicators is essential. Moreover, human
activities and most sustainability issues are closely related to
energy use. The energy system is a sound framework for providing lead indicators for sustainable development (Fajik and Naim,
2007). Kemmler and Spreng (2007) developed energy-based indicators of poverty which is quite relevant for social issues. The three
energy measures that are used for the comparison are primary,
useful, and an access-adjusted useful energy (all per capita). The
indicators for poverty are measured through various parameters
namely total household expenditure, education level of the head of
the household, calorie intake, source of drinking water, sanitation,
house condition, dwelling area size, dwelling construction type and
land possession.
5.12. Ratings
5.12.1. Benchmarking US petroleum reneries, the Environmental
Defence Fund (EDF), US NGO
This benchmarking study on environmental performance carried out for ranking of 166 oil reneries based on publicly available
data on toxic waste generation and pollutant release. Data were
normalized based on the renery capacity to adjust for its size (Ditz
and Ranganathan, 1997).
5.12.2. ECCO-CHECK Index, Environmental Risk Rating Ltd,
Surrey, UK
Ecco-Check Index has been used as a fully commercial index of
corporate environmental performance in Europe. This index aims
to provide information about the companys liabilities evaluated
based on the various elements of UK legislation.
5.12.3. Investor Responsibility Research Centre (IRRC),
Washington DC, US (www.irrc.org)
Investor Responsibility Research Centre compiles corporate
environmental prole which comprises of 60 indicators of
emissions (total weight of corporate toxic release inventory emissions), volume of oil spill, volume of chemical spill, hazardous
waste (number of Superfund national priority list sites), compliance
(punitive nes for environmental non-compliance), environmental
litigation (number of disclosed environmental litigation incidents).
Indicators are normalized by considering environmental risk per
unit revenue, facilitates easy comparisons of companies of different sizes and capacities.
5.12.4. Council on Economic Priorities (CEP), New York, US
(www.cepnyc.org)
CEP compiles information of corporate environment performance of the companies and provides rating based on
their performance. There are thirteen indicators evaluated for
environmental performance namely releases, policy, packaging,
ofce recycling, raw materials/waste, toxic reduction, community
impact, energy conservation, natural resources, accidents, Superfund sites, compliance and environmental technologies. Some of
the social factors such as ethics, charitable giving, community outreach, family benets and workplace issues are also assessed.
5.12.5. Oeko Sar Fund, Bank Sarasin & Cie, Basel, Switzerland
(www.sarasin.ch)
This bank assesses environmental performance for its own
environmental fund. The assessment system was developed by
environmental consultant Ellipson Ltd in Basel which is in line
with the same system used by Norwegian UNI Storebrand designed
by Ellipson Ltd. The various components used for environmental and social ratings are: policy/strategy, production/provision
of service, products/services, environmental management systems, customers/suppliers, employee relations, public relations
and shareholders/investors.
The various companies are grouped into three categories based
on their potential environmental impact: high (e.g. steel industry), medium and low (service sector companies). For inclusion
in the fund, the company should achieve a desired level of rating
depending on the impact categories. Moreover, negative criteria
are used, avoiding any company that drives more than 5% from
the defence industry, nuclear power and nuclear power plant construction, gene technology, chlorine industry, agrochemical and
automobile industries. All the data and information are collected
from the company annual reports, environment reports and other
publications from the companies, management interviews, newspaper clippings, articles, information from environmental pressure
groups such as Greenpeace, and through lled in questionnaire.
5.12.6. Storebrand Scudder Environmental Value Fund, Oslo,
Norway (www.storebrand.no)
The Storebrand Scudder environmental investment fund was set
up in 1996 by the Norwegian insurers, UNI Storebrand. This index
is primarily used to evaluate the environmental performance of
the companies. The index is calculated from environmental indicators of: global warming, ozone depletion, material efciency,
toxic release, energy intensity, water use, environmental liabilities,
and environmental management quality. Storebrand also uses the
index to measure the environmental dividend which is calculated
by the difference between the funds environmental performance
and the market on average. Although this is termed as sustainability index but it only focuses on environmental performance, and
does not include social issues.
5.12.6.1. Innovest strategic value advisors (www.innovestgroup.
com). Innovest strategic value advisors developed a proprietary
investment model Eco Value 21 in US to evaluate both the environmental risk and opportunity proles of companies and determine
the related impacts for investors. This model also provides a fund
295
rating as well as a customized portfolio analysis on both US and

Canadian stocks.
5.12.7. OEKOM Environment Rating
Oekom research AG, an international supplier of environmental research studies based in Munich has established an
Environmental-Rating in 1993. This rating methodology has since
been continuously improved. This method is being used to analyze
and assess over 400 companies quoted on various stock markets
worldwide. The research process of an Environmental-Rating is
divided into three steps. First, the relevant ecological and industryspecic assessment criteria are dened. The following are the three
typical criterias and their sub-components identied for an automobile industry:
Environmental management
Environmental goals/environmental managers.
Environmental
management
systems/environmental
audits/environmental programmes/ecological balance sheet.
Environmental standards used in overseas operations.
Partnerships/training and personnel/environmental ofce management.
Suppliers/transport and logistics.
Products and services
Reduction of emissions and resource use.

Development of efcient engines and alternative drive systems.
Durability.
Re-usability/suitability for recycling.
Take-back of products and recycling capacities.
Avoidance of toxic substances.
Use of environmentally compatible materials.
Environmental benchmarks
Analysis of the following information in relation to turnover,
output or number of employees:
Energy and water consumption.

Air pollution, e.g. CO2 , NOX, SOX, dust.
Water pollution.
Quantity of waste and its composition, e.g. proportion of recyclable raw.
materials, proportion of hazardous waste.
Secondly, each rating area is given a grade on a scale from A+ to

D based on the ecological activities within the area:
A+: The Companys environmental activities are especially progressive within the industry.
D: The company focuses on complying with environmental regulation but shows little or no further environmental commitment.
Thirdly, the three rating areas are weighted according to the specic industry after which the separate grades are brought together
to form the overall rating.
5.12.8. Jupiter Income Trust Funds (subsidiary of Jupiter Tyndall
Group PLC), UK (www.jupiteronline.co.uk)
Jupiter Income Trust Funds developed by eight UK unit trusts
and 11 investment trusts especially created to achieve environmental and nancial objectives. They use very substantial investment
criteria to assess companies and avoid companies that derive more
than 1% from oppressive regimes, or armaments, nuclear or tobacco
industries.
296
Table 3
Summary table of the sustainability indices.
Name
Number of sub-indicators
Scaling/normalization
Weighting
Aggregation
Summary Innovation Index
17
[+10, 10]
Mean substraction
Equal weights
Internal Market Index
19
PCA
Business climate indicator
Percentage annual
differences
100 to 100
Investment in the
knowledge based economy
Number of indicators that

are more than 20% above
the European average
minus the number of
indicators which are more
than 20% below and
division by the total
number of available
indicators for each country.
Synthesis of variables using
PCA
PCA applied to dene
weights. One principal
component adopted as the
composite indicator
Weighted average
Performance in the
knowledge based economy
Relative intensity of
regional problems in the
Community
Economic Sentiment
Indicator
Composite Leading
Indicators
Number varies across

member states
Information and
communication
technologies
Environmental
Sustainability Index
10
68
11
Human Development
Index
12
Technology Achievement
Index
8 (grouped in 4
sub-indices)
13
Overall Health System

Attainment
14
Two Synthetic
environmental indices
22
15
National innovation
capacity
16
General Indicator of
Science & Technology
Success of software process
improvement
European Labour Market
Performance
13
17
18
14
3
19
Eco-indicator 99
20
Concern about
environmental problems
11
21
National Health Care

systems performance
Mean subtraction and

division by the standard
deviation
deviation
deviation
Dividing the
month-to-month changes
with the average month to
month change
division by the mean of the
absolute differences from
the mean
Country rankings for each
indicator
deviation
[0, 1], using minimum and
maximum value for each
indicator as goal post
[0, 1] using minimum and
maximum value for each
indicator as goal post
[0, 100]
Indicators are combined

into 2 synthetic indices a
structural and a functional
one
The logarithmic values of
the sub-indicators are
considered
FA/PCA was applied to
dene weights.
Subjective scale
[0, 100]
Efciency frontier
(objective method)
Division by a reference
value for each indicator
Dividing the value in each
year by the value for the
year for which each
indicator is rst available
No standardisation
PCA & FA
Choice of weights is up to
the user
Choice of weights is up to
the user
Weighted average
Empirical weights are

determined considering
the degree of correlation
between two
sub-indicators
Equal weights
Neutralising the effect of

correlation
Smoothing via Months for

cyclical dominance moving
average
Summation
Arithmetic average of the

normalised indicators
Sum of rankings
Equal weights

normalised indicators
Equal

scaled indicators
Equal
Arithmetic average of the 4

sub-indices
Weights based on survey of

preferences of informed
individuals
Equal
Summation

indicators
Multiple regression model
Regression analysis
employed
PCA
PCA (primary principal

component of each set)
PCA
Weight based on value
judgment
Weighting scheme is
selected by a panel of
experts
Weights derived from
public opinion polls
Budget allocation survey

of 1000 people across the
UK dened the weights for
the indicators
Sum of normalized weights

multiplied by the
corresponding normalized
indicators
Weighted average
297
Table 3 (Continued)
Name
Number of sub-indicators
Scaling/normalization
Weighting
Aggregation
22
Index of sustainable and

economic welfare
20
Sub-indicators are
expressed in monetary
terms

indicators
23
Index of Environmental
Friendliness
11
Normalization of problem
indices by dividing the
sectoral problem index by
the value of the national
problem index
24
Environmental Policy
Performance Indicator
6 theme indicators
(composed of several
simple indicators)
25
Living Planet Index
Equal weights
Geometric mean
26
27
28
Ecological footprint
City Development Index
Environment Performance
Index
Environment Vulnerability
Index
Well Being Index
Composite Sustainability
Performance Index
2000 populations of more

than 11,000 species
6
5
Six policy categories
Division by the
corresponding a)
sustainability levels, and b)
policy targets
Ratio to current and
previous year
Area
Distance from mean
[0, 100]
Equal. Allow the user to

change the weightings and
assumptions used in the
index
Subjective weights for the
normalised problem
indices are determined
from experts by means of
the Analytic Hierarchy
Process
Equal
Equal
PCA/experts
PCA/experts
Summation
Weighted average
Weighted average
50
Aim = 1, worst = 7
Equal
Average
87
Five categories; 59
indicators
Subjective
AHP
Weighted average
Weighted average
AHP
Weighted average
3 capitals
5
[0, 100]
Distance from mean
divided by standard
deviation
Distance from maximum
and minimum
Life cycle impact
assessment
Monetized
Area
Equal
Equal
Four categories of
indicators
40
[0, 100]
Normative judgment
[+10, 100]
Equal
Summation
Total area per unit product
divided by area per capita
Average
Company opinion
Summation
Based on multi-attribute
utility theory
4 categories; 21 indicators
[0, 10], linear utility

function
Linear and non linear
functions
Subjective
Mathematical formula for
each indicator
AHP
Weighted sum
AHP
Geometric mean
Equal
Equal
Summation
Summation
29
30
31
38
Composite sustainable
development index
Ford of Europes Product
Sustainability Index
Genuine Savings Index
Sustainability Performance
Index
Compass Index of
Sustainability
ITT Flygt Sustainability
Index
Environment Quality Index
39
Life Cycle Index
40
41
G Score
Index of Sustainable
Society
32
33
34
35
36
37
Three categories; 38
indicators
8
5 categories
5 categories; 22 indicators
5.12.8.1. FTSE Good Index. The FTSE4 Good Index Series aims to
evaluate the performance of companies that meet globally accepted
corporate responsibility standards and also facilitates investment
in those companies. The FTSE4Good selection criteria are based
on measures which ideally represent good corporate responsibility practice globally. It involves detailed stakeholder engagement
and market consultation process. The criteria are revised on regular
basis to ensure that they continue to reect standards of responsible business practice, and developments in socially responsible
investment as they evolve.
The details of various indexes viz. scaling, normalization,
weighting and aggregation are summarized in Table 3.
6. Conclusion
This paper covers an overview of various sustainability indices
which are practically implemented to measure sustainable development. Attempts have been made to compile the information
about how the index were formulated using the three central steps
viz. normalization, weighting, aggregation.
Indices and rating systems are subject to subjectivity despite
lot of objectivity used in assessing the sustainability. The major
advantages associated with indices are because of its multidimensionality, use of normalization and aggregation based on
scientic rules and robust statistical methods.
Weighted sum
Sum of the six theme

indicators
Although there are various international efforts on measuring

sustainability, only few of them have an integral approach taking
into account environmental, economic and social aspects. In most
cases the focus is on one of the three aspects. Although, it could
be argued that they could serve supplementary to each other, sustainability is more than an aggregation of the important issues, it
is also about their interlinkages and the dynamics developed in a
system. This point will be missing if tried to use them supplementary and it is one of the most difcult parts to capture and reect
in measurements.
If the indices are poorly constructed, this will provide misleading results. It will be interpreted altogether differently. Thus,
sensitivity analysis and uncertainty analysis can help in testing
the efcacy and robustness of the index. Sub-indicators should be
selected meticulously. Choice of model, weighting mechanism and
treatment of missing value also play a predominant role while construction of framework. Since the need of data collection enhanced
due to large number of indicators for indices, it is always worthwhile to conduct statistically signicant analysis on the data. There
are two critical issues viz. correlation among indicators and compensability between indicators must be taken into consideration.
Indicators of sustainable development should be selected, revisited and rened based on the appropriate communities of interest.
Thus, indices should be constructed within a coherent framework.
This would help in selection of suitable parameters which really
298
inuence the policy goal and also ensures that the evaluation process involved could change through time according to the interests
of the particular stakeholders involved in the construction of the
indicator.
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Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

An overview of sustainability assessment methodologies

PE Sustainability Solutions, Bhilai, India

DOI of original article: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2008.05.011.

R.K. Singh et al. / Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299

Conditions and trends

Fig. 2. The DPSIR framework for reporting on environmental issues.

2. Sustainable development indicators

society and environment. Another important development in this

R.K. Singh et al. / Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299

city. The eco-efciency framework of the WBCSD allows assessing

R.K. Singh et al. / Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299

Global Reporting Initiative

Labour practices and

Direct Economic Impacts

Oceans, Seas and

R.K. Singh et al. / Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299

Profit, value and tax

Emissions, waste and

Fig. 6. The Institute of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) sustainability metrics.

Economic indicators ind.

HDI Income Disparities Longlibety, Indicators

Social indicators Ind.

Fig. 7. The Wuppertal sustainable development indicator framework.

The classication and evaluation of indicators can be done based

Aspects of the sustainability to be measured by indicators.

3.1. Guidelines for construction of indices

R.K. Singh et al. / Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299

Fig. 8. Framework of sustainability assessment tools.

scaled than there is no need of scaling variables. Secondly, the use

Ebert and Welsch (2004) identied four generic classes

R.K. Singh et al. / Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299

1. Sum of country rankings

ratio-scale without being comparable would call for a geometric

2. Number of indicators above

indicator quantitatively or qualitatively, to different types of variation in the study.

Index of Social Progress (ISP)

Nordhaus and Tobin (1973),

Genuine Savings Indicator (GSI)

R.K. Singh et al. / Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299

5. Overview of sustainability indices

patents and the introduction of new products and processes which

R.K. Singh et al. / Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299

5.2. Development indices

European area as a whole (DG ECFIN, 2000). The ve sub-indicators

R.K. Singh et al. / Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299

5.4.2. Eco-Index Methodology

5.4.3. Living Planet Index (LPI)

5.4.4. Ecological Footprint (EF)

5.4.5. Fossil Fuel Sustainability Index (FFSI)

5.5. Composite sustainability performance indices for industries

5.5.2. Compass Index of Sustainability (CIS)

5.5.3. Composite Sustainability Performance Index

5.5.4. ITT Flygt Sustainability Index

5.5.5. G Score method

R.K. Singh et al. / Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299

5.5.6. Sustainable Asset management (SAM) Zurich, Switzerland

Management (indicating plans, programs, goals, and monitoring);

R.K. Singh et al. / Ecological Indicators 15 (2012) 281299