Elsevier

Ecological Economics

Volume 64, Issue 3, 15 January 2008, Pages 470-474
Ecological Economics

Commentary
Measuring sustainable development — Nation by nation

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.08.017Get rights and content

Abstract

Sustainable development represents a commitment to advancing human well-being, with the added constraint that this development needs to take place within the ecological limits of the biosphere. Progress in both these dimensions of sustainable development can be assessed: we use the UN Human Development Index (HDI) as an indicator of development and the Ecological Footprint as an indicator of human demand on the biosphere. We argue that an HDI of no less than 0.8 and a per capita Ecological Footprint less than the globally available biocapacity per person represent minimum requirements for sustainable development that is globally replicable. Despite growing global adoption of sustainable development as an explicit policy goal, we find that in the year 2003 only one of the 93 countries surveyed met both of these minimum requirements. We also find an overall trend in high-income countries over the past twenty five years that improvements to HDI come with disproportionately larger increases in Ecological Footprint, showing a movement away from sustainability. Some lower-income countries, however, have achieved higher levels of development without a corresponding increase in per capita demand on ecosystem resources.

Introduction

The foundations of international development were laid after the end of World War II with the goals of alleviating poverty, reducing inequality, and improving the global standard of living (Truman, 1949). In 1987, the UN-mandated World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission) responded to an emerging recognition that the human economy was stressing global ecosystems. The Commission affirmed the importance of development which “extends to all the opportunity to fulfil their aspirations for a better life.” At the same time, it emphasized that this development must be “within the bounds of the ecologically possible,” or what they call within “the world's ecological means.” They called for sustainable development “that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (WCSD, 1987).

An action plan for sustainable development, called Agenda 21, was launched in 1992 at Rio's Earth Summit (World Summit on Environment and Development), and more recently, the UN Millennium Development Goals, adopted in 2000, called on all countries to integrate the principles of sustainable development into national policies and programs.

How can a country that has accepted the sustainability challenge determine if it is making progress toward sustainable development? Measurements are needed. These indicators must not only reflect changes in quality of life, but must also show if these changes are compatible with the planet's current ecological limits. While a precise and complete definition of sustainability may be elusive (Carter, 2001), it is possible to define measurable bottom-line conditions for both human development and ecological sustainability. Following Boutaud (2002) in this study we use the UN Human Development Index (UNDP, 2005) (HDI) as an indicator of development and the Ecological Footprint (Rees, 1992, Rees and Wackernagel, 2004, Wackernagel and Rees, 1996, Wackernagel et al., 2002, Wackernagel et al., 2005) as an indicator of sustainable consumption. Using a pair of indicators which a) are based on specific research questions (rather than more general or subjective indices) and b) separately evaluate ecological sustainability and human development offers a potentially more meaningful evaluation of progress and trade-offs than would be possible using either the HDI or Footprint on their own. This approach also improves upon using any single indicator, such as the Environmental Sustainability Index (Esty, 2005), which attempts to measure both factors together by applying yet a third set of criteria.

This analysis of sustainable development using the HDI and the Ecological Footprint highlights the reality of the limited biological carrying capacity of the planet. This is a real constraint not often emphasized in other development assessments. The neoclassical paradigm for sustainable development, as advanced by figures such as Lomborg (2001), tends to treat natural resources as limitless and advances a version of ‘weak’ sustainability in which manmade capital can fully substitute for natural capital. The Millennium Development Goals strongly emphasize human development but do not directly address how a growing global population with growing resource demands will share the planet's finite resources. The Ecological Footprint and HDI represent strict, yet widely accepted, metrics for ecological sustainability and human development.

Section snippets

Methods

We examine sustainable development in terms of its two dimensions. We assess progress in development with the UN Human Development Index (HDI) because it is one of the most widely used overall measures of human well-being. The other dimension of sustainable development is the commitment to develop within the ecological capacity of planet Earth. This can be measured with the Ecological Footprint, a resource accounting tool that assesses how much of the regenerative capacity of the biosphere is

Results

Fig. 1 illustrates the trends in HDI and the Earth-equivalents ratio between 1975 and 2003 for the 93 countries for which data are available. Countries for which data are available only for 2003 are depicted without trend lines. The full graph with identifiable data points for each country is available online (see Supplementary Information). Fig. 2 repeats this analysis at the regional and global level. Regional HDIs represent the population-weighted averages of the countries' HDIs.

Specifying

Discussion

Five factors determine the gap between the Footprint and biocapacity. Biocapacity is composed of the bioproductive area times the productivity of each hectare. One possibility is to increase, or at least maintain, biocapacity. This means protecting soil from erosion and degradation, and preserving cropland for agriculture. It involves protecting river basins, wetlands, and watersheds to secure freshwater supplies, and maintaining healthy forests and fisheries. It includes taking action to

Conclusion

Measurable outcomes rather than intentions ultimately determine whether or not humanity follows a sustainable path. Quantitative measurements of human development and ecological sustainability are possible with currently available indicators. Contrary to claims that sustainable development is an evasive concept, this analysis shows that (a) minimum conditions for sustainable development can be measured, (b) overall, the sustainable development challenge, as defined by minimum conditions that

References (25)

  • C. Monfreda et al.

    Establishing national natural capital accounts based on detailed ecological footprint and biological capacity assessments

    Land Use Policy

    (2004)
  • A. Boutaud

    Elaboration de critères et indicateurs de développement durable

    Economie & Humanisme

    (2002)
  • N. Carter

    The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy

    (2001)
  • G. Ceballos et al.

    Global mammal conservation: what must we manage?

    Science

    (2005)
  • R. Costanza

    Forum: the ecological footprint. Special section of ecological economics

    Ecological Economics

    (2000)
  • P.R. Ehrlich et al.

    Impact of Population Growth

    Science

    (1971)
  • D. Esty

    2005 Environmental Sustainability Index

    (2005)
  • Global Footprint Network

    Africa Factbook

  • J. Kitzes et al.

    A research agenda for ecological footprint accounting

  • B. Lomborg

    The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World

    (2001)
  • Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

    Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis Report

    (2005)
  • Cited by (293)

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text