Estimating sustainability gaps: methods and preliminary applications for the UK and the Netherlands

This paper sets out and applies a new methodology for determining whether o r not economic activity is environmentally sustainable. By comparing curren t environmental impacts with standards of environmental sustainability, it calculates the 'sustainability gaps' (SGAPs) with respect to different envi ronmental impacts. For the UK, SGAPs are computed for CO2, SO2, and other a ir pollutants. Across none of these environmental themes can current UK use of the environment be said to be sustainable. The SCAB indicators can be c ombined with current trends to show how long it would take, on continuation of the trends, for the sustainability standard to be attained. The paper c alls this indicator the 'Years to Sustainability' (YS) measure. For the pol icy objective of sustainable development to be made fully operational, it i s necessary for the concept of environmental sustainability to be clearly d efined by quantitative indicators. On the basis of the indicators set out i n this paper it can be judged whether economic activity is moving towards o r away from environmental sustainability, and at what speed. (C) 2001 Elsev ier Science B.V. All rights reserved.