MEASURING UP TO SUSTAINABILITY

As a concept sustainability has captured our imaginations and aspirati ons. As a tangible and identifiable goal it eludes us. Having develope d indicators to measure and monitor economic, social and environmental conditions, we want now to measure sustainability. Our emphasis on th e physical, the objective, and the rational, however, sees only the ex ternal manifestations of sustainability. The internal manifestations o f sustainability, the non-material, the subjective, and the experienti al, are put to one side, since they are messy, interpretive and time-c onsuming-the world of hermeneutics. Sustainability, however, is more t han a 'thing' to be measured, since it is about ecological integrity, quality of life and transformation or transcendence. Rather than ask h ow we can measure sustainability, it may be more appropriate to ask ho w we measure up to sustainability. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.