Environmental Engineering and Management Journal · 2003 · 16 citations · 0 references
Natural SciencesEnvironmental SciencesSustainability ScienceSustainable DevelopmentSustainable Development PolicyEnvironmental SustainabilityLand Use SustainabilitySustainability AssessmentSustainability Performance MeasurementSustainable ProductionSustainable Production SystemsHuman-system IntegrationSustainability Assessment ModelsSustainability CriteriaSustainability Measurement FrameworksSustainable Development Indicators
The average Greek produces daily 0.8 kg of solid waste and 22.7 kg of CO 2 .If he eats a 250 g beefsteak produced in Brazil, he has destroyed 5m 2 of tropical forest.This amount of meat requires 750 L of water and 1.7 kg of grain.The list may go on almost ad infinitum.Is this behavior sustainable?To answer this question a new model that defines and measures sustainability is introduced.It uses fuzzy logic to combine data about a host of indicators related to two basic components, Ecosystem and Human System.The former is the logical resultant of four elements, Air, Land, Water, and Biodiversity, whereas the latter results from the logical combination of Policies, Wealth, Health, and Knowledge.Each of the eight components results from the combination of any number of primitives (basic indicators).Sustainability is assessed on a 0 to 1 scale.Examples show that no country is sustainable in the sense of this model.