Sustainability Indicators Past and Present: What Next?
This paper discusses the current state of thought amongst the Sustainability Indicator (SI) community, what has been achieved and where we are succeeding and failing. Recent years have witnessed the rise of “alternative facts” and “fake news” and this paper discusses how SIs fit into this maelstrom,...
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doaj-30e9b81b62764de8b6107aede064d0b72020-11-24T23:46:41ZengMDPI AGSustainability2071-10502018-05-01105168810.3390/su10051688su10051688Sustainability Indicators Past and Present: What Next?Simon Bell0Stephen Morse1Bayswater Institute and the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Faculty, Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UKCentre for Environment and Sustainability, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UKThis paper discusses the current state of thought amongst the Sustainability Indicator (SI) community, what has been achieved and where we are succeeding and failing. Recent years have witnessed the rise of “alternative facts” and “fake news” and this paper discusses how SIs fit into this maelstrom, especially as they are themselves designed to encapsulate complexity into condensed signals and it has long been known that SIs can be selectively used to support polarized sides of a debate. This paper draws from chapters in a new edited volume, the “Routledge Handbook of Sustainability Indicators and Indices”, edited by the authors. The book has 34 chapters written by a total of 59 SI experts from a wide range of backgrounds, and attempts to provide a picture of the past and present, strengths and weaknesses of SI development today. This paper is an “analysis of those analyses”—a mindful reflection on reflection, and an assessment of the malign and benign forces at work in 2018 within the SI arena. Finally, we seek to identify where SIs may be going over the coming, unpredictable years.http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/5/1688sustainability indicatorsgross domestic productGDPfake newstweets |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Simon Bell Stephen Morse |
spellingShingle |
Simon Bell Stephen Morse Sustainability Indicators Past and Present: What Next? Sustainability sustainability indicators gross domestic product GDP fake news tweets |
author_facet |
Simon Bell Stephen Morse |
author_sort |
Simon Bell |
title |
Sustainability Indicators Past and Present: What Next? |
title_short |
Sustainability Indicators Past and Present: What Next? |
title_full |
Sustainability Indicators Past and Present: What Next? |
title_fullStr |
Sustainability Indicators Past and Present: What Next? |
title_full_unstemmed |
Sustainability Indicators Past and Present: What Next? |
title_sort |
sustainability indicators past and present: what next? |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
series |
Sustainability |
issn |
2071-1050 |
publishDate |
2018-05-01 |
description |
This paper discusses the current state of thought amongst the Sustainability Indicator (SI) community, what has been achieved and where we are succeeding and failing. Recent years have witnessed the rise of “alternative facts” and “fake news” and this paper discusses how SIs fit into this maelstrom, especially as they are themselves designed to encapsulate complexity into condensed signals and it has long been known that SIs can be selectively used to support polarized sides of a debate. This paper draws from chapters in a new edited volume, the “Routledge Handbook of Sustainability Indicators and Indices”, edited by the authors. The book has 34 chapters written by a total of 59 SI experts from a wide range of backgrounds, and attempts to provide a picture of the past and present, strengths and weaknesses of SI development today. This paper is an “analysis of those analyses”—a mindful reflection on reflection, and an assessment of the malign and benign forces at work in 2018 within the SI arena. Finally, we seek to identify where SIs may be going over the coming, unpredictable years. |
topic |
sustainability indicators gross domestic product GDP fake news tweets |
url |
http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/5/1688 |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT simonbell sustainabilityindicatorspastandpresentwhatnext AT stephenmorse sustainabilityindicatorspastandpresentwhatnext |
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