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SUSTAINOMICS

World decision makers are facing traditional development issues (such as economic stagnation, persistent poverty, hunger, and illness), as well as new challenges (like environmental damage and globalisation). One key approach that has emerged is the concept of sustainable development or ‘development which lasts’. Following the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and the adoption of the United Nations’ Agenda 21, this idea has become well accepted worldwide (WCED 1987; UN 1993). Subsequently, international events like the 2000 Millennium Development Goals (MDG), and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, have helped to maintain the impetus.

The Bruntland Commission’s original definition of sustainable development was succinctly paraphrased as “meeting the needs of the present generation without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (WCED 1987). Since then, many other (often confusing) definitions have been proposed, As a contribution to better define, analyse, and implement sustainable development, Munasinghe (1992, 1994) proposed the term “sustainomics” to describe “a transdisciplinary, integrative, comprehensive, balanced, heuristic and practical framework for making development more sustainable.” Unlike other traditional disciplines, it focuses exclusively on sustainable development. Thus, the main principle of the framework seeks to make ongoing and future development efforts more sustainable, as a first step towards the ultimate goal of sustainable development.

1.	SUMMARY OF BASIC PRINCIPLES AND METHODS

The sustainomics framework draws on the following basic principles and methods (Munasinghe 1992, 1994, 2002).

1.1	Making development more sustainable (MDMS)

The step-by-step approach of “making development more sustainable” (MDMS) becomes the prime objective, while sustainable development is defined as a process (rather than an end point). Since the precise definition of sustainable development remains an elusive and perhaps unreachable goal, a less ambitious strategy that merely seeks to make development more sustainable does offer greater promise. Such a gradient-based method is more practical and permits us to address urgent priorities without delay, because many unsustainable activities are easier to recognize and eliminate. Although MDMS is incremental, it does not imply any limitation in scope (e.g., restricted time horizon or geographic area – see item (c) below). MDMS also seeks to keep future options open and identify robust strategies which meet multiple contingencies and increase resilience. Thus, while implementing short and medium term measures, we also follow a parallel track by continuing efforts to better define and achieve the long term goal of sustainable development.

1.2	Sustainable development triangle and balanced viewpoint

Sustainable development requires balanced and integrated analysis from three main perspectives: social, economic and environmental. Each view corresponds to a domain (and system) that has its own distinct driving forces and objectives. The economy is geared towards improving human welfare, primarily through increases in the consumption of goods and services. The environmental domain focuses on protection of the integrity and resilience of ecological systems. The social domain emphasizes the enrichment of human relationships and achievement of individual and group aspirations. Interactions among domains are also important.

1.3	Transcending conventional boundaries for better integration

The analysis transcends conventional boundaries imposed by discipline, space, time, stakeholder viewpoints, and operationality. The scope is broadened and extended in all domains, to ensure a comprehensive view. Trans-disciplinary analysis must cover economics, social science and ecology, as well as many other disciplines. Spatial analysis must range from the global to the very local, while the time horizon may extend to decades or centuries. Participation of all stakeholders (including government, private sector and civil society) through inclusion, empowerment and consultation, is important. The analysis needs to encompass the full operational cycle from data gathering to practical policy implementation and monitoring of outcomes.

1.4	Full cycle application of practical and innovative analytical tools

Sustainomics includes a set of analytical tools which facilitate practical solutions to real world problems over the full operational cycle, from data gathering to policy implementation. These elements include optimality and durability, issues-policy mapping, policy tunneling, Action Impact Matrix (AIM), sustainable development assessment (SDA), environmental valuation, extended cost-benefit analysis (CBA), multi-criteria analysis (MCA), etc. The literature provides many practical applications and detailed case studies.

2.	EMERGENCE OF SUSTAINOMICS

The sustainomics framework draws together two broad streams of thought -- i.e., development (focused on human well-being) and sustainability (systems science oriented), as described below.

2.1	Development stream (human well-being focused)

Current approaches to sustainable development draw on the experience of several decades of development efforts. Historically, the development of the industrialized world focused on material production as the basis of human well-being. Not surprisingly, most industrialized and developing nations have pursued the economic goal of increasing output and growth during the twentieth century. While the traditional approach to development was strongly associated with economic growth, it had important social dimensions as well.

By the early 1960s the large and growing numbers of poor in the developing world, and the lack of ‘trickle-down’ benefits to them, resulted in greater efforts to improve income distribution directly. The development paradigm shifted towards equitable growth, where social (distributional) objectives, especially poverty alleviation, were recognized as being distinct from and as important as economic efficiency in contributing to well-being.

Protection of the environment has now become the third major objective of sustainable development. By the early 1980s, a large body of evidence had accumulated that environmental degradation was a major barrier to human development and well-being, and new proactive safeguards were introduced (such as the environmental assessments).

Some key milestones relating to the evolution of recent thinking on sustainable development include: the 1972 United Nations Environmental Summit in Stockholm, 1987 Bruntland Commission report, 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, 1995 World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen, UN Millennium Summit and Millennium Development Goals (MDG) in 2000, 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, UN Millennium Development Project approved as a follow-up to MDG in 2005, and UN Decade on Education for Sustainable Development (1995-2014).

2.2	Sustainability stream (systems science oriented)

Meanwhile, the scientific community became more interested in exploring the concept of sustainability. During the 1980s a number of relevant international scientific research initiatives dealing with nature emerged, including the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) in 1980, International Geosphere and Biosphere Programme (IGBP) in 1986, and DIVERSITAS (on biodiversity and ecology) in 1990. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was also established in 1988 (by WMO and UNEP), with global scientific expertise to periodically assess information on climate change. However, global sustainability issues like climate change were mainly framed by natural scientists as problems involving biogeophysical systems, largely divorced from their social context. Although the social aspects have received increasing attention in the scientific debate, it was considered an “add-on” rather than a fundamental element.

In the 1990s, it was recognized that human activity was a major factor influencing global changes -- e.g., in the work of existing scientific bodies like the IPCC (IPCC 1996, 2001), and creation of new bodies like International Human Dimensions to Global Environmental Change (IHDP) in 1996. In 1995, the IGBP GAIM (Global Analysis, Integration and Modelling) Task Force was established to integrate the knowledge generated in the various IGBP core projects. Since then, a series of international conferences and initiatives have called for a more integrated approach between the natural and the social sciences, and for linking scientific activities better with sustainable development problems – especially the human dimension. Among the significant outcomes of this trend was the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) launched by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2001, which linked ecosystems, human communities and development.

2.3	Sustainomics framework merges both development and sustainability streams

Amongst these multiple initiatives, the first ideas about sustainomics were outlined from 1990 onwards in several conference presentations by Munasinghe, culminating in a formal paper presented at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, which set out key elements of the framework (Munasinghe 1992). Subsequently these ideas were further elaborated for practical application (Munasinghe 1994). The aim was a more holistic and practical synthesis that would help to make development more sustainable, by integrating the concerns of the development community (who focused on pressing development issues like poverty, equity, hunger, employment, etc.), and the interests of the scientific community (who emphasized research on sustainability science, environment, etc.). The neologism “sustainomics” was coined to project a more neutral image by focusing attention on sustainable development, and avoiding any disciplinary bias or hegemony. Sustainomics also seeks to balance people-oriented Southern priorities including promotion of development, consumption and growth, poverty alleviation, and equity, with environment-oriented Northern concerns about issues like natural resource depletion, pollution, the unsustainability of growth, and population increase.

Sustainable development is broadly described as “a process for improving the range of opportunities that will enable individual human beings and communities to achieve their aspirations and full potential over a sustained period of time, while maintaining the resilience of economic, social and environmental systems” (Munasinghe 1992). Adapting this general concept, a more focused and practical approach towards making development more sustainable sought “continuing improvements in the present quality of life at a lower intensity of resource use, thereby leaving behind for future generations an undiminished stock of productive assets (i.e., manufactured, natural and social capital) that will enhance opportunities for improving their quality of life”.

The sustainomics framework encourages decision making based on the balanced and consistent treatment of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, and draws on a sound but evolving body of scientific knowledge, including the natural and social sciences, engineering and humanities. A decade or more of experience in further developing and practically applying the sustainomics framework in the field, was described at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (Munasinghe 2002, GOSL 2002). Meanwhile, the approach has been cited and used in the work of many world bodies, governments, and individual researchers -- in diverse areas like climate change, development policy, energy, environmental assessment, forest communities, mining, social capital, and transport (e.g., Beg et al. 2002, Chopra 2001, Corfee-Morlot et al. 2002, Devkota 2005, Hall et al. 2003, Kok and Coninck 2004, Najam and Cleveland 2003, Niang-Diop and Bosch 2003, SUMMA 2003, Swart et al. 2003, Winkler et al. 2002)

3.	DETAILS OF BASIC PRINCIPLES AND METHODS

Sustainomics broadly describes sustainable development as “a process for improving the range of opportunities that will enable individual human beings and communities to achieve their aspirations and full potential over a sustained period of time, while maintaining the resilience of economic, social and environmental systems.” This definition recognizes that development of economic, social and ecological systems depends on expanding the set of opportunities for their improvement. Meanwhile, the sustainability of systems will be enhanced by improving their resilience and adaptive capacity. Based on this approach, a more focused and practical approach towards making development more sustainable also emerged, which sought “continuing improvements in the present quality of life at a lower intensity of resource use, thereby leaving behind for future generations an undiminished stock of productive assets (i.e., manufactured, natural and social capital) that will enhance opportunities for improving their quality of life” (Munasinghe 1992). This evolution of ideas takes us beyond traditional “development” (which relates to broadly improving the well-being of individuals and communities), and growth (which refers to increases in economic output or value added in goods and services, conventionally measured by gross national product, etc.)

The heuristic element in sustainomics underlines the need for continuous adaptation and rethinking of the framework based on new research, empirical findings and current best practice, because reality is more complex than our incomplete models. The current state of knowledge is inadequate to provide a comprehensive definition of sustainomics. Sustainomics must provide a dynamically evolving learning framework, to address rapidly changing sustainable development issues.

The basic ideas about sustainomics sketched out below have benefited greatly from the post-Bruntland discussions and work of other researchers. They also provide a fresh start. The intent is to stimulate discussion and further research that will help to further flesh out the basic framework. Many authors have already contributed significantly to this effort with work that is related to the sustainomics approach and the sustainable development triangle (see below).

The core framework rests on several basic principles and methods: (a) 	making development more sustainable (MDMS); (b) 	sustainable development triangle and balanced treatment; (c) 	transcending conventional boundaries for better integration; and (d) 	full cycle application of practical analytical tools and methods, from data gathering to policy implementation and operational feedback.

3.1	Making development more sustainable (MDMS)

Since the precise definition of sustainable development remains an elusive goal, a less ambitious strategy might offer greater promise. Thus, the step-by-step approach of “making development more sustainable” (MDMS) becomes the prime objective, while sustainable development is defined as a process rather than an end point. Such an incremental (or gradient-based) method is more practical and permits us to address urgent priorities without delay, while avoiding lengthy philosophical debates about the precise definition of sustainable development. However, this approach does not eliminate the need to have a practical metric to measure progress towards sustainable development.

MDMS suggests a pragmatic, systematic process. We start with the many unsustainable activities that are easiest to recognize and eliminate – for example, reducing land degradation through improved farming practices, or conserving energy by switching off unnecessary lights. The section below argues that an appropriate measurement framework should cover the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. Especially critical is the choice of appropriate indicators to suit the application. Conventional economic evaluation attempts to measure all such indicators (economic, social and environmental) in monetary units and then use economic cost-benefit analysis (CBA) criteria to test for viability. However, problems arise because CBA is based on the concept of optimality which differs from sustainability, and such economic valuation is often difficult to do. In that case, our MDMS metric will need to rely on indicators that have different units of measurement (monetary, biophysical, social, etc.) and corresponding sustainability criteria. Multi-criteria analysis (MCA) is more suitable to assess indicators that cannot be directly compared. If an activity results in an improvement of all sustainability indicators, it clearly satisfies the MDMS requirement – also called a “win-win” outcome. For other actions, some sustainability indicators may improve while others worsen. In such cases, judgement is required to trade-off one indicator against another, and practical ways of addressing such issues are discussed in applied case studies given in Munasinghe (2007). This process needs to continuously adapt and improve itself, as scientific knowledge about sustainable development improves.

Instead of criticising the shortcomings of other disciplines, sustainomics takes a positive and practical viewpoint by borrowing appropriate methods and tools. Reliance on an eclectic set of concepts and methods does not imply lack of rigour, but rather, underlines the value of diversity in cross-disciplinary thinking. However, concepts drawn from different disciplines may not be mutually consistent, and thus require more efforts to ensure trans-disciplinary integration.

Although MDMS is incremental, it does not imply any limitation in scope (e.g., restricted time horizon or geographic area). Thus, the effects of specific near term actions on long run sustainable development prospects need to be analysed, within the sustainomics framework. While pursuing the MDMS approach to deal with current problems, we also follow a parallel track by seeking to better define the ultimate goal of sustainable development. In particular, it is important to avoid sudden catastrophic (‘cliff edge’) outcomes, in case our MDMS analysis is too restricted and “myopic”. Similarly, incremental analysis may fail to detect serious consequences of large scale changes (like global climate change). Finally, MDMS encourages us to keep future options open and seek robust strategies which could meet multiple contingencies, thereby increasing resilience and durability.

3.2	Sustainable development triangle and balanced treatment

Current thinking on the concept has evolved to encompass three major points of view: economic, social and environmental, as represented by the sustainable development triangle in Figure 1 (Munasinghe 1992). Each viewpoint corresponds to a domain (and system) that has its own distinct driving forces and objectives. The economy is geared mainly towards improving human welfare, primarily through increases in the consumption of goods and services. The environmental domain focuses on protection of the integrity and resilience of ecological systems. The social domain emphasizes the enrichment of human relationships and achievement of individual and group aspirations.

During the preparations for the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, there was a lively debate on how the “three pillars” (environment, economy and society) might be integrated within development policy. The sustainable development triangle was presented at Rio to emphasize that the sides and interior of the triangle (representing interaction among the three pillars) are as important as the three vertices – e.g., placing an issue like poverty or climate change in the centre reminds us that it should be analysed in all three dimensions (Munasinghe 1992). There was considerable resistance to the idea, mainly due to disciplinary rivalries. However, by the time of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, the approach had become widely accepted (e.g., GOSL 2002). Several versions of the triangle are in operational use today (e.g., World Bank 1996, Hinterberger and Luks 2001, Odeh 2005). For some specialized applications, a fourth vertex such as “institutions” or “technology” has been proposed, converting the triangle into a pyramid. While these additions are useful in specific cases, the original triangle retains its advantages of simplicity and versatility.

Source: adapted from Munasinghe [1992, 1994]

Figure 1. Sustainable development triangle – key elements and interconnections (corners, sides, centre).

The substantive trans-disiplinary framework underlying sustainomics should lead to the balanced and consistent treatment of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development (as well as other relevant disciplines and paradigms). Balance is also needed in the relative emphasis placed on traditional development versus sustainability. For example, Southern priorities include continuing development, consumption and growth, poverty alleviation, and equity, whereas much of the mainstream literature on sustainable development which originates in the North tends to focus on pollution, the unsustainability of growth, and population increase.

3.3	Transcending conventional boundaries for better integration

Sustainable development encompasses all human activities, including complex interactions among socioeconomic, ecological and physical systems. Accordingly, sustainomics encourages practitioners to synthesize novel solutions by transcending conventional boundaries imposed by discipline, space, time, stakeholder viewpoint, and operational focus.

3.3.1 Discipline

The neologism “sustainomics” underlines the fact that the emphasis is explicitly on sustainable development, and emphasizes a neutral approach free of any disciplinary bias or hegemony. Several authors suggest that sustainomics represents a new discipline, paradigm or science (e.g., Vanderstraeten 2001; Markandya et al. 2002). We stress that sustainomics is a practical, transdisciplinary framework (or “transdiscipline”), that seeks to establish an overarching, ‘holistic’ design for analysis and policy guidance, while the constituent components (principles, methods and tools drawn from many other disciplines) provide the rigorous ‘reductionist’ building blocks and foundation. It complements rather than replaces other approaches to addressing sustainable development issues.

The multiplicity and complexity of issues involved cannot be covered fully by a single discipline. Hitherto, multidisciplinary teams involving specialists from different disciplines, have been applied to sustainable development issues. Interdisciplinary work goes a step further by seeking to break down the barriers among various disciplines. However, what is now required is a truly transdisciplinary framework, which would bridge and weave the scientific knowledge from diverse disciplines into new concepts and methods, while facilitating a full information exchange among all stakeholders that could address the many facets of sustainable development – from concept to policy and actual practice. Thus, sustainomics would provide a more comprehensive framework and eclectic knowledge base to make development more sustainable.

Sustainomics is a neutral expression – the neologism focuses attention on sustainable development without any disciplinary bias. It has much in common with other trans-disciplinary methods that attempt to bridge the economy-society-environment interfaces. Distinctive features of sustainomics include the focus on making development more sustainable, discipline-neutrality, applications orientation and policy-relevance. It prefers to draw on other disciplines to use the most practical and appropriate methods available (with relevant caveats and cautions), rather than to criticize them.

One closely related field is ecological economics, which combines ecological and economic methods to address a range of problems, and emphasizes the importance of key concepts like the scale of economic activities (Costanza et al. 1997). Environmental and resource economics attempts to incorporate environmental concerns into traditional neoclassical economic analysis (Tietenberg 1992). Newer areas related to ecological science such as conservation ecology, ecosystem management, industrial ecology and political ecology have birthed alternative approaches to the problems of sustainability, including crucial concepts like system resilience, and integrated analysis of ecosystems and human actors (Holling and Walker 2003). Key papers in sociology have explored ideas about the integrative glue that binds societies together, while drawing attention to the concept of social capital and the importance of social inclusion (Putnam 1993).

The literature on systems, energetics and energy economics has focused on the relevance of physical laws like the first and second laws of thermodynamics (covering mass/energy balance and entropy, respectively). This research has yielded valuable insights into how stocks and flows of energy, matter and information link physical, ecological and socioeconomic systems together, and analysed the limits placed on ecological and socioeconomic processes by laws governing the transformation of ‘more available’ (low entropy) to ‘less available’ (high entropy) energy (Boulding 1966, Georgescu-Roegen 1971, Munasinghe 1990). Recent work on cultural economics, environmental psychology, economics of sociology, environmental sociology, social psychology, sociological economics, and sociology of the environment, are also relevant. The literature on environmental ethics has explored many issues including the weights to be attached to values and human motivations, decision making processes, consequences of decisions, intra- and inter-generational equity, the ‘rights’ of animals and the rest of nature, and human responsibility for the stewardship of the environment (Andersen 1993, Sen 1987, Westra 1994).

Understanding human behaviour is a challenge to all disciplines. For example, both biology and sociology can provide important insights into this problem, which challenge the ‘rational actor’ assumptions of neoclassical economics. Thus, recent studies seek to explain phenomena such as hyperbolic discounting (versus the more conventional exponential discounting), reciprocity, and altruistic responses (as opposed to selfish, individualistic behaviour) (Gintis 2000, Robson 2001). Siebhuner (2000) defines ‘homo sustinens’ as a moral, cooperative individual with social, emotional and nature-related skills, as opposed to the conventional ‘homo economicus’ motivated primarily by economic self interest and competitive instincts. Neoclassical economics has been criticized both for ignoring fundamental physical limitations (Georgescu-Roegen 1971), and for being mechanistically (and mistakenly) modeled on classical thermodynamics (Sousa and Domingos 2006).

As explained earlier, the sustainomics approach seeks to integrate knowledge from both the sustainability and development domains. Thus, it draws on information from other recent initiatives like ‘sustainability transition’ and ‘sustainability science' (Parris and Kates 2001, Tellus Inst. 2001). Such a synthesis needs to make use of core disciplines like ecology, economics, and sociology, as well as anthropology, botany, chemistry, demography, ethics, geography, law, philosophy, physics, psychology, zoology etc. Technological skills such as engineering, biotechnology, and information technology also play a key role.

3.3.2 Spatial and Temporal Scales

The scope of analysis needs to extend geographically from the global to the local scale, cover time spans extending to centuries (for example, in the case of climate change), and deal with problems of uncertainty, irreversibility, and non-linearity. Multi-scale analysis and multi-stakeholder involvement are especially important with growing globalization of economic, social and environmental issues.

Figure 2 shows how the multi-scale spatial and temporal aspects of sustainable systems are interlinked. An operationally useful concept of sustainability must refer to the persistence, viability and resilience of organic, biological and social systems, over their ‘normal’ life span. Sustainability is linked to both spatial and temporal scales, as shown in the figure. The X axis indicates lifetime in years and the Y axis shows linear size (both in logarithmic scale). The central O represents an individual human being – having a longevity and size of the order of 100 years and 1.5 metres, respectively. The diagonal band shows the expected or ‘normal’ range of life spans for a nested hierarchy of living systems (both ecological and social), starting with single cells and culminating in the planetary ecosystem. The bandwidth accommodates the variability in organisms and systems, as well as longevity.

We may argue that sustainability requires living systems to be able to enjoy a normal life span and function normally, within the range indicated in the figure. Environmental changes that reduce the life span below the normal range imply that external conditions have made the system unsustainable. For example, the horizontal arrow might represent an infant death – indicating an unacceptable deterioration in human health and living conditions. Thus, the regime above and to the left of the normal range denotes premature death or collapse. At the same time, no system is expected to last forever. Indeed, each sub-system of a larger system (such as single cells within a multi-cellular organism) generally has a shorter life span than the larger system itself. If subsystem life spans increase too much, the system above it is likely to lose its plasticity and become ‘brittle’ – as indicated by the region below and to the right of the normal range. Gunderson and Holling (2001) use the term ‘panarchy’ to denote such a nested hierarchy of systems and their adaptive cycles across scales.

Figure 2. Transcending spatial and temporal scales

Forecasting over a time scale of several hundred years is rather imprecise. Thus, it is important to improve the accuracy of scientific analysis, to make very long-term predictions about sustainability more convincing – especially in the context of persuading decision makers to spend large sums of money to reduce unsustainability. The precautionary approach is one way of dealing with uncertainty, especially if potential risks are large – i.e., avoiding unsustainable behaviour using low cost measures, while studying the issue more carefully.

3.3.3 Stakeholder Viewpoints and Operational Focus

Sustainomics encourages multi-stakeholder participation through inclusion, empowerment and consultation in analysis and decisionmaking. Such processes not only help to build the consensus, but also promote ownership of outcomes and facilitate implementation of agreed policies. Three basic groups – government, civil society, and the business community -- need to collaborate to make development more sustainable at the local, national and global levels. This multi-stakeholder, multi-level breakdown may be further tailored to suit location-specific circumstances. The principle of subsidiarity is especially important for good governance, whereby decentralized decisions are taken and implemented at the lowest practical and effective level. The analytical process is operationally focused. The full cycle includes purposeful data gathering and observations, concepts and ideas, issues, models and analysis, results, remedies, policies and plans, implementation, monitoring, review and feedback.

3.4	Full cycle application of practical analytical tools

A variety of practical and novel analytical tools facilitate governance over the full cycle from initial data gathering to ultimate policy implementation and feedback. The literature clearly illustrates the methodology through empirical case studies that are practical and policy-relevant over a wide range of geographic scales (global to local) and time periods (months to centuries). These examples cover a wide variety of countries, sectors, ecosystems and circumstances (Munasinghe 2007).

Two complementary approaches based on “optimality” and “durability” may be used to integrate and synthesize across economic, social and environmental domains, within an integrated assessment modeling framework. An issues-implementation transformation map (IITM) helps to translate issues in the environmental and social domains, into the conventional national economic planning and implementing mechanisms within line ministries and departments.

Restructuring the pattern of development to make economic growth more sustainable is explained through a “policy tunneling” model, especially useful in poor countries, where poverty alleviation will require continued increases in income and consumption. Other practical tools include the Action Impact Matrix (AIM), integrated national economic-environmental accounting (SEEA), sustainable development assessment (SDA), environmental valuation, extended cost-benefit analysis (CBA), multi-criteria analysis (MCA), integrated assessment models (IAM), and so on. A range of sustainable development indicators help to measure progress and make choices at various levels of aggregation.

The Action Impact Matrix (AIM) process is the key link from initial data gathering to practical policy application and feedback. Critical sustainable development concerns are included in conventional national development strategy and goals in two main ways: an upward link where sustainable development issues are embedded in the macro-strategy of a country via the medium- to long-term development path; and a downward link where such issues are integrated into the national development strategy in the short- to medium-term, by carrying out sustainable development assessments (SDA) of micro-level projects and policies.

4.	BRIEF REVIEW OF KEY IDEAS

One may conclude that significant progress has been made towards understanding and implementing the concept of sustainable development in the past two decades. The way forward is by taking practical steps towards “making development more sustainable” (MDMS), as set out in the sustainomics framework. Many unsustainable practices are obvious and may be addressed incrementally today, as we progress towards the long term (and less clear) goal of sustainable development. Sufficient examples exist of good (and bad) practices, and the lessons learned permit us to address immediate problems like poverty, hunger, and environmental degradation in a more sustainable manner, while concurrently seeking to better define and attain the ultimate goal of sustainable development.

The core principles underlying the sustainomics framework provide a good starting point for systematic analysis of sustainable development problems: (a) making development more sustainable, (b) sustainable development triangle (economic, social and environmental dimensions) and balanced viewpoint; (c) transcending conventional boundaries (discipline, space, time, stakeholder viewpoint, and operationality) for better integration; and (d) full cycle application of practical and innovative analytical tools (including the AIM) -- from data gathering to policy implementation and feedback.

A wide range of case studies and applications are available in the literature, which demonstrate that the approach of making development more sustainable has already yielded encouraging practical results and shows increasing promise for the future. These practical and policy-relevant examples cover a wide range of geographic and time scales, countries, sectors, ecosystems and circumstances.

We accept that sustainomics is incomplete -- there are both gaps in knowledge and problems of implementation. Nevertheless, the hope and expectation is that the important contributions of other potential “sustainomists” will rapidly help to further flesh out the initial framework and existing applications. The final take home message is optimistic – i.e., although the problems are serious, an effective response can be mounted, provided we begin immediately. Sustainomics can help to show us the first practical steps in making the transition from the risky business-as-usual scenario to a safer and more sustainable future.

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