Measuring sustainability

Excerpt

In any seminar a sure amusement-inducing opening line is that there are as many definitions of sustainability as there are people in the audience. For scientists and engineers this is a problem of some magnitude. If we cannot know what sustainability is, how can we ascertain if we have attained it as a result of an intervention? If there is such a thing as sustainability science, as many have claimed, there must be more clarity about how we can determine a sustainable state. Many conceptual variations of the definition are not helpful. Part of the confusion emanates from the prevalent tendency of thinking in terms of global or regional sustainability, both of which will include measures that are beyond the reach of science or engineering alone. Policy attributes are also important in determining paths toward sustainability of these systems. Since the scope of this journal is primarily the practice of science and engineering, and includes policy discussions only as they are scientifically supportable, we can limit this discussion to the sustainability of products and processes. …