A method to assess the relevance of sustainability indicators: Application to the indicator set of the Czech Republic's Sustainable Development Strategy

• Published in: Ecological indicators Vol. 17; pp. 46 - 57
• Main Authors: Hak, Tomas, Kovanda, Jan, Weinzettel, Jan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01-06-2012
• Subjects: Assessment criteria; Environmental sustainability; Indicators; methodology; Relevance; scientists; Sustainable development; Validation; Czech Republic; Validation; Relevance; Assessment criteria; Environmental sustainability; Indicators; Sustainable development
• ISSN: 1470-160X; 1872-7034
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.04.034

The goal of this article is to critically review the state-of-the-art in assessing the quality of sustainability indicators and contribute to the development of a suitable methodology for that. We start with a broad review of the vast body of work in this field – in both practice and academic research. We show that both scientists and practitioners have sought developing and using methods for assessing quality of the indicators. They have usually defined some criteria for that; however, neither science nor practitioners have provided major support by developing reliable as well as practical and operative methods for indicator assessment. Therefore, we propose an innovative new method for indicator assessment from the perspective of their relevance. We operationalize this criterion and apply it to the environment-related indicators from the set used for the evaluation of the Czech Republic's Sustainable Development Strategy.