Geurt van de Kerk is chairman of the Sustainable Society Foundation, a private initiative taken by him in 2003.Geurt received his M.Sc. degree in civil engineering at Delft Technical University in 1969. Subsequently he held several positions as management consultant in the Netherlands and abroad until he co-founded K+V Management Consultants in Arnhem, the Netherlands, in 1984.
Arthur Manuel is board member of the Sustainable Society Foundation. After receiving his M.Sc. degree in civil engineering at Delft Technical University in 1965, he started his career as research engineer at Delft Hydraulics Laboratory. Subsequently he was appointed project manager of a rural water supply programme in India. Upon return in the Netherlands in 1969, he joined Consultants for Water and Environment IWACO
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When we were looking for a suitable yardstick to measure the level of sustainability of a country a suitable instrument could not be found. Although the main existing indexes were examined we had to conclude that none of them seem to fit our needs completely. The main shortcomings are a limited definition of sustainability, a lack of transparency or high complexity and an absence of regular updates. For this reason, a new index – the Sustainable Society Index (SSI) – has been developed. The SSI integrates the most important aspects of sustainability and quality of life of a national society in a simple and transparent way. Consisting of only 22 indicators, grouped into 5 categories, it is based upon the definition of the Brundtland Commission, extended to the Brundtland+ definition by explicitly including the social aspects of human life.
Using data from public sources, the SSI was initially developed for 150 countries and published in 2006. In 2008 the first of two-yearly updates was published with results for 151 countries for which the SSI could be calculated. The resulting SSI scores on a scale of 0 to 10 allow a quick comparison between countries as is shown on the world map.
The underlying data, some of which are included in this article, allow in-depth analysis of the differences between countries. Two-yearly updates enable to follow developments over time. Although the time lap is relatively short, the results of the SSI-2006 and SSI-2008 seem to indicate a slight improvement in the worldwide average score.
This article outlines the development of the SSI and the calculation methodology and gives the main results. It also summarizes the need for further research and development of the SSI.
Introduction
Sustainability is very much in the spotlight these days. Nevertheless, the notion of what is meant by sustainability varies considerably. Many interpret it in the sense of continuous growth. Even among scientists there are numerous definitions of sustainability. However, to be able to support a sustainable way of living on our planet, a clear definition of sustainability is required. Moreover, one has to be able to measure the present level of sustainability and indicate how far removed we are from complete sustainability. This need was clearly recognized by Hales and Prescott-Allen (2002) when they stated: ‘Achieving sustainability requires defining its components in measurable terms and clearly fixing the responsibility to assess progress comprehensively.’ In an attempt to meet these challenges, we propose a comprehensive definition of sustainability and a corresponding new set of indicators, as described in this article.
In section 2 a definition of sustainability is given, existing sets of indicators are examined and a new set of indicators is developed.
Section 3 describes the methodology of calculating the indicators and of aggregating the results first into categories and then into one index. A preliminary sensitivity analysis for the attached weights for the aggregations is given.
Section 4 gives the main results of the SSI-2008 for the world at large, the 7 distinct regions and for all 151 countries.
In section 5 a comparison is made between the SSI-2006 and the SSI-2008 to identify progress over time.
Section 6 outlines proposals for use of the SSI.
Section 7 gives the main subjects which are proposed for further research and development on the SSI.
A conclusion is given in section 8.