User:Geurt.vandekerk/Sustainable Society Index

Sustainable Society Index
The Sustainable Society Index ([www.sustainablesocietyindex.com]), SSI, shows at a glance the level of sustainability of each of the 151 assessed countries, included in the SSI. It shows in a simple way the distance to full sustainability for each of the 22 indicators that build up the SSI.

End 2006 the Sustainable Society Index, SSI, was published for the first time. It has been developed by the Sustainable Society Foundation in order to provide the public at large as well as politicians and authorities, with a transparent and easy tool to measure how sustainable a society is. The SSI is based on the well-known and respected definition of Brundtland (WCED, 1987), extended with a third line to explicitly include Quality of Life. It runs as follows:

A sustainable society is a society • that meets the needs of the present generation,

• that does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,

• in which each human being has the opportunity to develop itself in freedom, within a well-balanced society and in harmony with its surroundings. The SSI comprises 22 indicators, grouped into 5 categories. The indicators cover the main aspects of Quality of life and of Sustainability. The SSI is based on data from public sources and has been calculated for 151 countries. In 2008 the first of the two yearly updates was presented.

The spider web of the SSI shows at a glance the distance to full sustainability for our world at large.

Looking at the spider web, the world is way from full sustainability. One can easily see which aspects need attention most urgently: •	Depletion of resources, Waste (15)

•	Renewable energy (17)

•	Air Quality (7)

•	Good governance (10)

•	Employment (11)

•	Income distribution (13)

Many indicators score below 6. At school a 6 could be sufficient for many of use. With respect to sustainability, each score has to be a sustainable 10. Thus a 6 is only just over halfway. The SSI is used for monitoring the progress of a country on its way to sustainability, for setting priorities with respect to sustainability, to make comparisons between countries, for education purposes and for further research and development. Recently the SSI has been developed on regional level for the eight regions of Romania. A further extension to local level is 'under construction'.

References: Geurt van de Kerk and Arthur Manuel, A comprehensive index for a sustainable society: The SSI – the Sustainable Society Index. Ecological Economics, Vol (2008) 66(2-3), pages 228-242