Indicators of sustainable development for industry: A general framework

Despite numerous actions worldwide which call for adoption of more sustaina ble strategies, relatively little has been done on a practical level so far on the pretext that the issue is too complex and not fully understood. Thi s paper follows the argument that it is important that today's decision-mak ers address the issue of sustainability, however imperfectly, as ignoring i t may only exacerbate the problem for future generations. In particular, th e paper concentrates on measuring the level of sustainability of industry w ith the aim of further informing the debate in this area. It proposes a gen eral framework with a relatively simple, yet comprehensive set of indicator s for identification of more sustainable practices for industry. The indica tors cover the three aspects of sustainability-environmental, economic and social-and among others, include environmental impacts, financial and ethic al indicators. The framework is applicable across industry; however, more s pecific indicators for different sectors have to be defined separately, on a case-by-case basis. It allows a modular approach for gradual incorporatio n of the framework into the organizational structure. The life cycle approa ch ensures that the most important stages in the life cycle and their impac ts are identified and targeted for improvements. The framework also provide s a link between micro- and macro-aspects of sustainable development throug h appropriate indicators. Thus, it serves as a tool which can assist compan ies in assessing their performance with regard to goals and objectives embe dded in the idea of sustainable development.