– Indicator II –

Goal = a description of future condition community members wish to achieve

It provides a framework for developing indicators and the context for tracking, reporting, and discussing the indicators.

A good and sustainable goal:
– Reflects a balance between economic, social, and environmental conditions
– Recognizes and accounts for long-term limits of natural, social, and built systems
– Promotes inter- and intra-generational equity
– Reflects a ‘big picture’ system view

Principle = a rule of conduct

Criteria = factors by which we can judge something

Indicator = a numeric measure that provides key information about a system’s condition

As you have already learned in the lecture before, an indicator clarifies and specifies what the goal is and it monitors if we are moving towards or away from the goal

Or the so-called expert based approach (Figure B).

Here, experts start by identifying through research what is valuable to society. Based on their knowledge, indicators are selected, data is collected and assessed for relevance using statistical tools. This process exposes trends, that might be missed by a more casual observation.

A problem that can occur is, that there is no data for the selected indicator and the process has to be started again. Another weakness of this approach is that is often fails to engage the local communities.

This is the community bases approach (Figure B).

It emphasizes on local communities to establish priorities and set goals. This means that the approach comes more from social science, it includes cultural anthropology, social activism, education and social psychology. Ideally it is an on-going learning process between the community and the researches. The idea behind this approach is that you need to understand first the problems and needs of the locals, to be able to come up with solutions and innovations. A weakness of this approach is that it may not be able to monitor sustainability very accurate.