Measuring Sustainability: Deriving Metrics from a Secure Human–Environment Relationship

The ability of individuals and institutions to take actions that would achieve sustainability is often lost in rhetoric about what it is or isn’t and how to measure progress. Typically, sustainability is viewed as an objective and in this capacity efforts are made to identify indicators and to manage the environment to save it from civilization or to minimize human impact upon it. However, our intention to measure sustainability as an objective sets us in the wrong direction. Indicators of this objective measure deviations of the human or environmental condition from sustainability, but to sustain requires that no appreciable deviation has occurred. Viewed from this perspective, sustainability must be redefined and a new set of metrics must be identified to guide actions that avoid losses. These metrics must define the boundaries of human activities relative to environmental capabilities and to provide early warning signs of conditions that would be unfavorable to human life and signal a need to change. Once established, these metrics can be used as planning criteria so that they inform and become a measure of human actions. This enables progress toward civilization within the context of an environment that is able to sustain human life and is itself able to be sustained.