A conceptual framework for development of sustainable development indicators

Author: 
Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan, B. Sudhakara Reddy
JEL codes: 
Description: 
WP-2008-003
Abstract: 

There was a boom in the development of sustainable development indicators (SDIs) after notion of
sustainability became popular through Bruntland Commissions report. Since then numerous efforts
have been made worldwide in constructing SDIs at global, national and local scales, but in India not a
single city has registered any initiative for indicator development . Motivated by this dearth of studies
added to the prevailing sustainability risks in million plus cities in India, a research is being undertaken
at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development and Research (IGIDR), Mumbai, India, to develop a set
of sustainable indicators to study the resource dynamics of the city of Mumbai. As a first step in the
process, the ground for development of SDIs is prepared through the development of a framework. A
multi-view black box (MVBB) framework has been constructed by eliminating the system component
from the extended urban metabolism model (EUMM) and introducing three-dimensional views of
economic efficiency (EE), social wellbeing (SW), and ecological acceptability (EA). Domain-based
classification was adopted to facilitate a scientifically credible set of indicators. The important domain
areas are identified and applying MVBB framework, a model has been developed for each domain.