Measuring environmental sustainability with quantitative indicators: The Enviromental Performance Measurement Project

Robert C. Paehlke’s chapter dealing with sustainable development in terms of urban contexts shows cases of American cities’ efforts for improving environmental sustainability through several institutional approaches. One impressive concept is how cities’ environmental sustainability is measured with quantitative indicators. I found an interesting site on measuring environmental sustainability from the “Environmental Performance Measurement Project” (http://www.yale.edu/esi/). This project was released in the Davos forum, Switzerland, at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum on Friday, January 28, 2005. This Web site includes concrete research methodology, countries used, variables and indicators for measuring environmental sustainability, and results, so if you are interested in measuring environmental sustainability with quantitative research methods, this project and related data can be very helpful in understanding it. You can also find raw data for environmental sustainability in terms of international comparative studies.