147

Sustainability Indicators: Are We Measuring
What We Ought to Measure?
Tomohiro TASAKI1* and Yasuko KAMEYAMA2**
1

Center for Material Cycles and Waste Management Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies
2
Center for Social and Environmental Systemes Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies
16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, 305-8506, Japanemail: *tasaki.tomohiro@nies.go.jp, **ykame@nies.go.jp

Abstract
17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the General Assembly of the United
Nations (UN) in September 2015 with 169 targets signaling a course towards a sustainable future. Indicators
are required for monitoring the level of achievement toward the targets, and to be well received by national
governments stakeholders, these indicators should fully take into account circumstances and concerns ofeach country. Using national sustainability indicators already in place, this study aimed at investigating what
national governments have attempted to measure and how such attempts have reflected people’s notions ofsustainability. A thorough review was conducted of literature on indicators established by 28 countries andinternational organizations, and to investigate common usage of the term “sustainability,” phrases containingthat word were searched on Internet websites. Merging outcomes of the review and search revealed that (1)some elements of sustainable development were more regularly used for measuring sustainability thanothers, and that (2) non-expert people used the term “sustainability” in a wide variety of ways, and the usage
did not reflect the meaning intended by sustainability indicators set by the government. From these results,
the authors argue that sustainable development indicators at the UN level could include several new
indicators that are regularly used by lay people, and also that experts need to convey messages regarding theimportance of sustainability in fields that are not being considered by the community.
Key words: monitoring , national sustainability indicator, public opinion , sustainable development goals (SDGs),
website search

1. Introduction
The term “sustainable development” (SD) has beenused since the late 1980s (IUCN et al., 1980; Barbier,1987; WCED, 1987). The United Nations Commission
on Sustainable Development was established to follow
up on Agenda 21, adopted at the Earth Summit in June
1992. Many countries have followed Agenda 21 andestablished their own national SD strategies andindicators. After the Rio+ 20 Conference, multilateral
discussions related to Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) under the United Nations were set up, andeventually 17 SDGs and 169 targets were adopted by theUnited Nations General Assembly in September 2015
(UN, 2015). Guided by these aspirational and global
targets, each government is expected to pursue its own
national targets taking into account national
circumstances (Para. 55, UN, 2015). Indicators are
required for monitoring the level of achievement toward
the targets (Hák, et al., 2016). An Inter- agency andExpert Group on Sustainable Development Goal
Global Environmental Research
19/2015: 147−154
printed in Japan

Indicators (IAEG-SDGs) created by the United Nations
Statistical Commission, is discussing a proposal for an
SDG indicator framework (e.g., UNSC, 2015).
The targets and indicators require consideration of
the needs and expectations of all countries, bothdeveloped and developing. Meanwhile, this is not thefirst experience for the countries at developing
sustainability indicators. There have already been a lotof work and literature contributing to the measurement ofsustainable development. Researchers and internationalorganizations also have made efforts to create SD
indicators (SDIs) that would help countries achieve SD.
As a result, many countries have developed their own
respective SDIs, without harmonizing with each other. It
is questionable that the selected indicators are actually
the best set of indicators to assess countries’ progress
towards coherent achievement of SD worldwide. It is thus
worthwhile to examine what types of indicators werechosen by countries when they established their own
sustainable development or sustainability indicators. It isalso important that governmental actions of measuring©2015 AIRIES148T.TASAKI and Y.KAMEYAMA

national sustainability affect people’s perception of what
is to be nourished in their countries.
The aim of this study is to investigate what national
governments have attempted to measure by using nationalsustainability indicators already in place, and how suchattempts have reflected people’s notion of sustainability.

2. Methods
2.1 Overall Design of the Survey
The study consisted of two consecutive examinations.
First, a thorough literature review on sustainability
indicators established by 28 countries and internationalorganizations was made to find out what indicators had
been chosen by a number of countries to assess their levelof national sustainability. Second, a search for terms
containing the word “sustainability” on Internet websites
was conducted in two languages, Japanese and English, toobserve how lay people – those who were not experts insustainability sciences – were using the term in two
linguistic areas. A comparison of the results was made to
examine whether or not SDIs set by governments reflected
people’s mindset as to what ought to be measured.
2.2 Sustainability Indicators at the National
Governmental Level
This study surveyed SD indicators (SDIs) adopted bynational governments, regions, and internationalorganizations. The intention of this survey was tounderstand the elements of SD as a notion. There havebeen a number of studies that reviewed SDIs by national
governments (Eurostat, 2007; UN, 2008), developmentof new SDIs by academia, and reviews of SDIs
developed by academia (Bell & Morse, 2003, 2008;
Hák et al., 2007; International Journal of Sustainable
Development, 2007; Mitchell, 1996; Moldan et al.,
1997; OECD, 2000; Parris & Kates, 2003; Pearce et al.,1996), but they have mostly focused on indicatorsdeveloped in western countries. This study is intended toreview indicators developed by national governments inboth developed and developing countries as well asinternational organizations, because the main focus is on
national governmental decisions.
We used the results of a survey of SDIs by Tasaki etal. (2010) and an additional survey of two reports on
SDIs. In total, 1,848 indicators from 28 countries andinternational organizations (Australian Bureau of
Statistics, 2006; CEC, 2007; Council for Economic
Planning Development, 2002; Council for Sustainable
Development, 2005; Czech Republic, 2004; Danish
Government, 2002; Department for Environment, Foodand Rural Affairs, 2004, 2006; Federal Government ofAustria, 2002; Federal Government of Germany, 2002;
Finnish Environment Institute, 2006; INEGI et al.,
2000; Ministère de l’écologie, 2004; Ministère del’Environnement, 2002; National Economic and Social
Council, 2002; Ministry of Finance of Norway, 2006;
National Roundtable on the Environment and theEconomy, 2003; NESDB, 2005; Nguyen, 2003; Plan

Bleu Regional Activity Centre, 2009; SFSO, 2004a,b;Secretaría de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sustentable, 2006;
Statistics New Zealand, 2002; Statistics Sweden &Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, 2001;
Swedish Government, 2006; Task Force Développement
Durable, 2005; UNEP Regional Office for Latin America
and the Caribbean, 2002; UNDESA, 2007; UNDG,
2003; UK Government, 1996, 1999; U.S. Interagency
Working Group on Sustainable Development Indicators,2001). These indicators were categorized into the 77
subcategories used by Tasaki et al. (2010), which aresubcategories under the UNCSD categories of economic,
environmental, social and institutional (UNCSD, 2001).
Several indicators belonged to more than one category
and the number of indicators in the 77 subcategories
amounted to 2,086.

2.3 Analysis of Words Associated with “Sustainable”
Contrasting to the survey in the previous section,
which was made at a governmental level, the second
stage of the research consisted of a survey aiming at
investigating how people in general were using the term“sustainable” to find out what people intend to sustain.
Aggregating those objects chosen by people to besustained produced an image of actual sustainable
development. Two languages, Japanese and English,
were chosen for the case studies, because Japan has notcreated sustainable development indicators at thenational level, and thus it was considered to be
worthwhile to examine how Japanese people utilized theterm “sustainability” in their daily lives, and also to beable to compare the results of the two languages andfind commonalities and differences.
One of the few studies that conducted a similar searchof general usage of the term “sustainability” was a workby Barkemeyer et al. (2009), which compared 115
newspapers around the world to compare the frequency
of appearance of the terms “sustainability,” “sustainable
development,” “corporate social responsibility,” etc.
This study, however, did not cover Japanese- language
newspapers, so it was another reason for this study tofocus on Japan. A study by Kajikawa et al. (2007, 2008)
covering scientific journal literature in English, andsearching for the term “sustainable” and “sustainability”
in titles and abstracts, found out that articles on“sustainability” started to increase around 1990, andcontinued to increase up to 2005. As newspaper articles
only started increasing after 1999, it can be said that
there is a time gap of a decade between when ideas aretaken up by academia and the community in general(Tasaki et al., 2014).
First, we searched for phrases with “sustainable xxx”
on the Internet in titles of books and newspaper articles.
Different search results were obtained depending on the
search engine. The first step was to determine which
search engine to be used for this study. We examinedsearch results among four widely-used search engines,
and selected Google to conduct our search, as it had themost hits in both Japanese and English.

Sustainability Indicators: We Ought to Measure?

The search was conducted in April 2012. As forJapanese, we searched for phrases with “jizoku-kano,”“sasutenaburu,” “sasutinaburu”and “sasuteinaburu” (allmeaning “sustainable” in Japanese). Phrases with“sustainable” were searched for in English- language
websites. The top 1000 phrases were listed for in both
Japanese and English. After deletion of duplicated phrases,
we found 236 phrases in Japanese and 247 phrases inEnglish. Words associated with the phrases found werecategorized according to the SDI categorization
explained in the previous section of this paper.

3. Results
3.1 Counts of Categories of Sustainable Development
The results of categorizing SDIs and words
associated with “sustainable” are listed in Table 1. The
indicator sub- categories listed in the column on theleft- hand side of the table are those included in thenational SDIs reviewed in the previous section. The total
numbers of indicators found in the national SDIs areshown in column (A), whereas total numbers ofcountries that included the indicator are shown incolumn (B). The other columns list the results of thewebsite search. The number of Japanese word searchhits is in column (C), and results of the English search
are in column (D). The common logarithm was taken for
the figures in (C) and (D) as the figures had different
orders of magnitude when compared between the twocolumns. The sum of (C) and (D) is shown in column(E).
3.2 Sustainability Indicators at the National
Governmental Level
In the economic category, “energy use,” “transportation”
and “economic performance” were the three mostcommon subcategories. Indicators in the “energy use”
subcategory focused on energy consumption, supply andintensity; and several focused on energy resources,
energy efficiency, and energy price. “Transportation”
indicators included travel distance, accessibility, traffic
congestion, traffic energy consumption, share of specifictransportation mode, noise and emissions. Most
countries commonly apply GDP as an indicator of“economic performance,” but they also concurrently use
other macroeconomic indicators to visualize qualitative
performance.
In the environmental category, “climate change,”“ecosystems” and “agriculture and livestock” were thethree most common subcategories observed. Most
indicators for “climate change” focused on CO2 andgreenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and some countries
chose indicators segmented for industry and household
sectors. Indicators of temperature and of emissions per
GDP or per capita were also found. “Ecosystem”
indicators included those for protected regions, thenumber of inhabitants of specific species, and diversity.
Most of these indicators represented ecosystem states or149

land use in terms of area, not how human activities werebalanced with the ecosystem. As for the subcategory of“agriculture and livestock,” there were many indicatorsof agricultural land use, and several indicators focusedon organic agriculture and the material balance ofnitrogen and phosphorus.
In the social category, “mortality, life expectancy,and health,” “education” and “work” were the threemost commonly observed subcategories, being used bymore than two-thirds of the countries reviewed. Many
indicators in the “mortality” subcategory included life
expectancy, mortality rate, and causes of death from
specific diseases. The rate of smoking and degree ofsatisfaction with health were some unique indicators.
The “education” subcategory covered both compulsory
and lifetime education, as well as labor training.
Many indicators related to the unemployment rate in
the “work” subcategory were found, and a few of themused the long- term unemployment rate and working
poor.
Institutional category: “Environmental management
and policy” was the most common group of
subcategories, and many indicators focused on
management systems such as the ISO 14000 series.
“Science and technology” was the second most common
subcategory, taken up by 20 countries reviewed. Many
countries applied indicators such as “expenditure on
research and development” and “patent registrations”.

3.3 Comparison of Words Associated with “Sustainable”
The categorization was based on the words associatedwith phrases containing “sustainable.” The absolute
number of total hits was on the order of 31.8 million forJapanese and 158.8 million for English. Hits in English
exceeded those in Japanese for almost all words, but thisresult is unsurprising as there is a much larger Englishspeaking population than Japanese-speaking populationworldwide.
By comparing (A)(B) with (C)(D)(E), it is easily
recognized that some subcategories measured by SDIs
were not found in the website searches. The reason isquite simple, that people wish to sustain only things thatare judged as good or positive. “Disaster,” “poverty,”“gender inequality,” etc., are subcategories that were
measured by SDIs, but not hoped to be “sustained.”
Some other subcategories included similar concepts. For
instance, “sustainable ecosystem” is almost the same as“unsustainable endangerment of species.”
On the other hand, there were some other subcategories
in (A)(B) that did not appear in (C)(D)(E). Subcategories
such as “air quality,” “water quality,” “coastal zones,”“international cooperation,” etc., are important elementsof sustainable development, but they are not used with“sustainable” in ordinary circumstances. This could be
because good air and water quality or cooperative
relations of countries themselves embody the concept ofSD.
A comparison of (A), (B) and (E), particularly
focusing on the top three subcategories in each, raised

150

T.TASAKI and Y.KAMEYAMA

Table 1 Categorization of sustainable development indicators (SDIs) and search hits of associated words.
Category
Economic

Environmental

SocialIndicator sub-categories

(A)

(B)

(C)

(D)

(E)

Energy use

100

26

6.2

7.1

13.3

Transportation

93

21

5.4

6.9

12.3

Economic performance

63

25

6.2

6.0

12.2

Waste generation and management

58

21

4.8

5.7

10.5

Capital and investment

39

19

5.7

5.7

11.4

Financial status

27

17

5.9

5.4

11.3

Material use

26

14

5.7

6.0

11.6

Trade

25

15

-

-

-

Eco-business

22

10

-

-

-

Household financial status

15

8

6.1

5.6

11.8

Recycling

14

13

-

-

-

Business and industry

12

9

6.8

7.0

13.8

Climate change

74

27

-

-

-

Ecosystem

63

21

5.4

5.1

10.5

Agriculture and livestock

55

19

5.1

7.2

12.3

Air quality

54

24

-

-

-

Water quality

45

24

-

-

-

Water quantity

40

18

5.8

6.5

12.3

Forests

39

17

5.7

6.5

12.2

Land use

38

17

5.0

5.7

10.7

Resources

27

15

5.5

6.0

11.5

Chemicals

27

14

-

-

-

Coastal zone

27

13

-

-

-

Endangered species

21

14

-

-

-

Fisheries

21

13

4.6

6.1

10.6

Soil

19

14

4.9

6.1

10.9

Ozone layer depletion

14

13

-

-

-

Urbanization

14

8

4.6

4.8

9.4

Radioactivity

10

7

4.2

4.7

8.9

Disaster

8

6

-

-

-

Noise

8

6

-

-

-

Commune with nature

5

4

5.2

6.9

12.2

Landscape

3

3

5.2

5.6

10.8

Desertification

3

3

-

-

-

Environmental aggregated indicator

2

2

6.0

6.1

12.1

Perception of environmental pollution

1

1

-

-

-

Water cycle

1

1

-

-

-

Biosecurity

1

1

-

-

-

Mortality, life expectancy and health

108

25

-

-

-

Education

94

25

5.5

5.7

11.2

Work

78

25

6.4

5.8

12.2

International cooperation

62

18

-

-

-

Poverty and dependence

54

19

-

-

-

Gender inequality

37

15

-

-

-

Social relationship and participation

36

12

5.0

4.7

9.7

Housing

33

16

5.9

7.0

12.9

151

Sustainability Indicators: We Ought to Measure?

Category

Institutional

Ideas, Others

Indicator sub-categories

(A)

(B)

(C)

(D)

(E)

Economic inequality

26

16

-

-

-

Information

30

14

6.1

5.8

11.9

Population change

32

12

5.3

5.4

10.7

Culture, leisure, and time

25

14

6.1

6.1

12.1

Working conditions

23

12

-

-

-

Child living conditions

25

11

-

-

-

Crime

21

11

-

-

-

Sanitation and drinking water

20

11

-

-

-

Social exclusion (incl. the disabled)

17

9

-

-

-

Literacy and numeracy

16

11

-

-

-

Generation inequality

13

8

-

-

-

Regional inequality

13

8

-

-

-

Race/immigrant inequality

11

7

-

-

-

Services and public facilities

10

8

5.5

6.3

11.8

Food safety

10

3

5.2

4.6

9.8

Nutritional status

9

6

5.5

6.7

12.2

Social aggregated indicator

8

6

6.0

6.1

12.1

Social security

8

5

5.4

5.5

10.9

Peace/conflict

4

2

4.7

5.8

10.5

Alcohol

3

3

-

-

-

Childcare

3

3

-

-

-

Family

2

2

5.6

5.1

10.7

Spiritual

1

1

-

-

-

Environmental management and policy

63

14

-

-

-

Science and technology

35

20

6.0

6.3

12.3

Morality and compliance

17

9

-

-

-

Strategic implementation of SD

16

8

-

-

-

International institutions

3

3

-

-

-

Legal administration

2

2

-

-

-

Sustainable development networks

2

2

-

-

-

Administration and management

2

1

5.8

7.4

13.2

Regional development

-

-

6.2

7.4

13.6

Lifestyle

-

-

6.1

7.1

13.2

Future, timespan

-

-

-

-

-

Action, practice

-

-

6.2

6.2

12.4

Development, vision

-

-

-

-

-

System

-

-

5.4

5.5

11.0
-

Others
Total

-

-

-

-

2086

28

7.5

8.2

Notes: (A): Number of sub-categories found in national SDIs
(B): Number of countries that chose indicators categorized in (A)(C): Number of hits by word search in Japanese, shown in the common logarithm (log 10). For instance, “4” is listed when 10,000
hits were found by the web search.
(D): Number of hits by word search in English, shown in the common logarithm (log10).
(E): (C)+(D)Shaded cells are the top three ranking items in the column for each category.

152

T.TASAKI and Y.KAMEYAMA

another interesting observation. Some subcategories of
the top three national SDIs were widely used in
websites. On the other hand, some other subcategories,
such as “business and industry,” “communing withnature” and “housing” were ranked near the bottom innational SDIs, but widely used in websites. Some otherconceptual ideas such as “regional development,”“lifestyle” and “action and practice” that attract people’s
attention with respect to sustainability were also notmuch measured by national SDIs.
A comparison of the searches in Japanese (C) andEnglish (D) is helpful toward recognizing the way
Japanese people acknowledge the concept ofsustainability. Japanese websites that mentioned the term“sustainable” were mostly associated with words
categorized in “business and industry,” “financial
status,” “work,” “regional development” and “action,practice.” This result suggests many of these words are
related more with economic activity than withenvironmental protection or social justice. On the other
hand, websites in English used “sustainable” associatedwith words categorized in “energy use,” “transportation,”“agriculture and livestock,” “communing with nature,”“housing,” “administration and management” and “regional
development.” The usage in English held a betterbalance between economic activity, environmental andresource conservation, and social stability.

4. Discussion
The integration of the two exercises revealed many
new ideas for developing national and international SDIs
further.
The first “top-down” survey conducted for indicators
set up at national governmental levels utilized three orfour key categories shared among experts −− economic,
environmental, social, and institutional −− to establish
their respective national sustainability indicators. Thus,
indicators were selected in a balanced manner from thosefour categories. The most commonly used indicators were;“energy use,” “transportation” and “economic performance”
for the economic category, “climate change,” “ecosystem”
and “agriculture and livestock” for the environmental
category, “mortality, life expectancy and health,” “education”
and “work” for the social category, and “environmental
management and policy” and “science and technology”
for the institutional category.
On the other hand, the second “bottom-up” survey
conducted for phrases with “sustainable” resulted in listsof associated words, many of which were not measured
by the national SDIs. Particularly in Japan, many of thephrases with “sustainable” were used merely to express
something that was expected to continue. Words such as“job,” “economy,” “commodity,” “energy,” “information,”“environment” and “way of living” were the mostcommonly associated words used in Japan. English
websites associated it with “community,” “agriculture,”“design,” “transport,” “building” and “forest,” many ofwhich were related to society or citizens’ daily lives. In

both languages, the associated words had little
connection with the notion of maintaining a goodbalance with a sound environment.
A comparison of the two approaches is helpful
toward understanding the gap that exists between what
national governments try to measure and how citizens
interpret the term “sustainable.” From the standpoint ofexperts, we could suggest this gap to indicate a “misuseor misunderstanding of the term by lay people.”
Meanwhile, from the standpoint of lay people, we may
be able to draw out suggestions as to what citizens hope
to be measured by national governments.
As for what the people want to be sustained, the SDIs
tend to judge sustainability by degree of balance among
environment, economy and society, while ordinary
citizens tend to think simply to sustain something
without any consideration of balancing with otheraspects. Those positive values which people wish tosustain should be classified separately in SDIs fromnegative elements that hamper sound sustainability.
Results from the Japanese website search indicatethat Japanese people tend to consider “sustainability”
from the economic dimension. Japan has yet to develop
its own SDIs. When there is a chance to start the processof creating Japanese SDIs, we should consider indicatorsthat emphasize environmental and social aspects ofsustainability, as well as taking into account both“national and regional” and “individual and household”
levels of indicators so that the Japanese people’s
recognition of sustainability will be enhanced and thescope of their own ideas on sustainability widened.
As people’s perceptions are formulated throughinformation they receive, education and information
provision can play an important role. The differences inresults between English and Japanese suggest thatdifferently-focused information is being disseminated in
the respective countries, and that obstacles to achieving
sustainable development for the international community
as well as for each government might not be sharedproperly. The same implications can be applied to
explaining differences in the results between experts andnon-experts. The results of our study imply that it would
be meaningful to reconsider and examine what
information regarding SD should be disseminated as
public policy, including information on how one
indicator (issue) is related to another. Another result wasthat conceptual ideas such as “regional development”
and “lifestyle” were not in the categories measured bynational SDIs. This implies that people tend to think ofoverall conditions rather than individual categoricalconditions with respect to sustainability. Simple
presentation of a set of SDIs is therefore inappropriate
and we should reconsider the current ways ofcommunicating with ordinary citizens.

5. Conclusions
This article deals with two types of reviews that
resulted in a two-way examination of SDIs. A thoroughSustainability Indicators: We Ought to Measure?

survey of national and international indicators suggeststhat national governments have attempted to measureseveral key indicators for each of the four categories,
namely economic, environmental, social and institutional
categories. Maintaining a good balance among the four
categories was a condition for achievement of sustainable
development. Meanwhile, the choice of indicators was
somewhat ad hoc, meaning that the chosen indicators
did not always have consistency with each other. The
website search for phrases with “sustainability” revealed
a tendency among lay people to use the phrase for things
they wished to sustain into the future. Ideas related to“business and industry,” “communing with nature” and“housing” were widely used in websites but were ranked
near the bottom in national SDIs. On the other hand,subcategories related to “air quality,” “water quality,”“coastal zones” and “international cooperation” were notassociated with “sustainable” in ordinary use.
As the United Nations adopts new sets of targets andindicators for sustainable development, it is importantfor indicators to reflect not only expert knowledge of
researchers and governmental officials, but also ideas ofnon-expert citizens. Although existing SDIs establishedby national governments around the world have selectedindicators quite similar to each other as well as to the
UN choices, these official indicators should not be far
from perceptions of all the other ordinary citizens. By
looking into the discourse of lay people, experts canlearn more about what ought to be measured by SDIs.
Continuous dialogues among people and improved
provision of information regarding SD would play animportant role in filling, or at least understanding, thegaps in perception. They would also contribute toproducing an indicator set more suitable to a particularcountry.
Further research on why the different perceptions
revealed by this study arose may help us to fill theperceptual gaps between experts and non-experts, as well
as between people speaking different languages, andultimately to formulate a global vision as there is for SDGs.

Acknowledgements
This study was conducted party supported by theEnvironment Research and Technology Development Fundof Ministry of Environment, Japan, under a project entitled“POST 2015 – Project on Sustainability Transformation
beyond 2015” (S11 Project). We appreciate the S11
project members for meaningful discussions relating tothis study.

References
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2006) Measures of Australia’s
Progress 2006.
Barkemeyer, R., F. Figge, D. Holt and T. Hahn (2009) What the
papers say: trends in sustainability: a comparative analysis of
115 leading national newspapers worldwide. The Journal of
Corporate Citizenship, 33 (Spring): 69 – 86.

153

Barbier, E. (1987) The concept of sustainable economic development.
Environmental Conservation, 14(2): 101 – 110.
Bell, S. and S. Morse (2003) Measuring Sustainability, Learningfrom Doing, Earthscan, London.
Bell, S. and S. Morse (2008) Sustainability Indicators, Measuring
the Immeasurable? 2nd Edition, Earthscan, London.
CEC (Commission of the European Communities) (2007)
Commission Staff Working Document, Accompanying Document
to the Communication from the Commission to the Council andthe European Parliament, Progress Report on the European
Union Sustainable Development Strategy 2007, COM(2007)
642 final. SEC (2007) 1416.
Council for Economic Planning Development (2002) Sustainable
Development Indicators System.
<http://theme.cepd.gov.tw/sustainable-development/eng/main.htm>
Taiwan. (accessed 26.Jul.2007)
Council for Sustainable Development (2005) Briefing on the
Sustainability Assessment System. Hong Kong.
Czech Republic (2004) The Czech Republic Strategy for
Sustainable Development (draft).
Danish Government (2002) Denmark’s National Strategy for
Sustainable Development: a Shared Future−Balanced Development,
Indicator Report.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2004)
Quality of Life Counts − 2004 Update. UK.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2006)
Sustainable Development Indicators in Your Pocket 2006, UK.
Eurostat (2007) Analysis of National Sets of Indicators Used in
the National Reform Programmes and Sustainable Development
Strategies. Methodologies and Working Papers.
Federal Government of Austria (2002) The Austrian Strategy for
Sustainable Development.
Federal Government of Germany (2002) Perspectives forGermany − Our Strategy for Sustainable Development.
Finnish Environment Institute (2006) Sustainable Development
Indicators 2006.
Hák, T., B. Moldan and A.L. Dahl eds. (2007) Sustainability
Indicators − A Scientific Assessment. SCOPE 67, Island Press,
Washington D.C.
Hák, T., S. Janoušková and B. Moldan (2016) Sustainable
Development Goals: A need for relevant indicators. Ecological
Indicators, 60: 565 – 573.
International Journal of Sustainable Development (2007) Special
issue: the use of sustainable development indicators. International
Journal of Sustainable Development, 10(1)(2).
INEGI (El Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía eInformática), INE (el Instituto Nacional de Ecología) andSemarnap (Órgano Desconcentrado de la Secretaría de Medio
Ambiente, Recursos Naturales y Pesca) (2000) Indicadores deDesarrollo Sustentable en México. (in Spanish)
IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature andNatural Resources), WWF (World Wild Fund for Nature) and
UNEP (United Nations Environmental Programme) (1980) The
World Conservation Strategy. Gland: Switzerland.
Kajikawa, Y., J. Ohno. Y. Takeda, K. Matsushima and H. Komiyama(2007) Creating an academic landscape of sustainability science:an analysis of the citation network. Sustainable Science, 2: 221–
231.
Kajikawa, Y., O. Usui, K. Hakata, Y. Yasunaga and K. Matsushima(2008) Structure of knowledge in science and technology
roadmaps. Technological Forecasting and Social Changes, 75:
1 – 11.
Ministère de l’écologie (2004) Indicateurs Nationaux duDéveloppement Durable: Lesquels Retenir. France. (in French)
Ministère de l’Environnement (2002) Indicateurs de Développement
Durable pour le Luxembourg. (in French)
Ministry of Finance of Norway (2006) Indicators for Sustainable
Development 2006 − Future Challenges for Norway.
Mitchell, G. (1996) Problems and fundamentals of sustainable

154

T.TASAKI and Y.KAMEYAMA

development indicators. Sustainable Development, 4:1 – 11.
Moldan, B., S. Billharz and R. Matravers, eds. (1997) Sustainability
Indicators: A Report on the Project on Indicators of Sustainable
Development. SCOPE 58, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester.
National Economic and Social Council (2002) National Progress
Indicators for Sustainable Economic, Social and Environment
Development. Ireland.
NESDB (National Economic and Social Development Board)(2005) The Development of Thailand’s Sustainable Development
Index Project: Phase II. Project Report.
National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy (2003)
Environment and Sustainable Development Indicators for
Canada.
Nguyen, H.T. (2003) Initiating and Testing the Proposed Set of
National Sustainable Development Indicators (SDI), SARCS
Project 91/ 01/ SDI Sustainable Development Indicators forSoutheast Asia, 2002 – 2003.
OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)(2000) Frameworks to Measure Sustainable Development.
Parris T.M. and R.W. Kates (2003) Characterizing and measuring
sustainable development. Annual Review of Environment andResources, 28: 559 – 586.
Pearce, D., K. Hamilton and G. Atkinson (1996) Measuring
sustainable development: progress on indicators. Environmentand Development Economics, 1: 85 – 101.
Plan Bleu Regional Activity Centre (2009) Mediterranean
Strategy for Sustainable Development Follow-up: Main
indicators, 2009 Update. September 2006.
Secretaría de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sustentable (2006) Sistema
de Indicadores de Desarrolleo Sostenible Argentina. (inSpanish)SFSO (Swiss Federal Statistical Office) (2004a) Monitoring
Sustainable Development.
SFSO (2004b) Sustainable Development in Switzerland, Indicators
and Comments.
Statistics New Zealand (2002) Monitoring Progress towards a
Sustainable New Zealand.
Statistics Sweden and Swedish Environmental Protection Agency(2001) Sustainable Development Indicators for Sweden.
Swedish Government (2006) Strategic challenges, a further
elaboration of the Swedish strategy for sustainable development.
Government Communication 2005/06:126.
Tasaki T., Y. Kameyama, S. Hashimoto, Y. Moriguchi and H.
Harasawa (2010) A survey of national sustainable development
indicators. International Journal of Sustainable Development,
13 (4): 337 – 361.
Tasaki, T., Y. Kameyama, H. Motoki and M. Oshima (2014)
Fuzuigokaramita Nihonjin no Jizokukanousei ni kansuru bunseki(An analysis on Japanese people’s perception on sustainability
from perspective of associated words). Journal of Environmental
Information Science, 43(3): 70 – 79. (in Japanese)
Task Force Développement Durable (2005) Tableau D'indicateursde Développement Durable. Belgium. (in French)
UK Government (1996) Indicators of Sustainable Development
for the United Kingdom.
UK Government (1999) Quality of Life Counts.
UN (United Nations) (2008) Measuring Sustainable Development.
Report of the Joint UNECE/OECD/Eurostat Working Group on
Statistics for Sustainable Development, New York and Geneva.
UN (2015) Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development. 25 September 2015.
UNCSD (United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development)(2001) Indicators of Sustainable Development: Guidelines andMethodologies (2nd edition).
UNDESA (United Nations Department of Economic and Social
Affairs) (2007) Indicators o f Sustainable Development: Guidelines
and Methodologies (3rd edition).
UNDG (United Nations Development Group) (2003) Indicators
for Monitoring the Millennium Development Goals. UK.

UNEP (United Nations Environmental Programme) Regional
Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (2002) Latin
American and Caribbean Initiative for Sustainable Development.
UNSC (United Nations Statistical Commission) (2015) Technical
Report on the Process of the Development of an Indicator
Framework for the Goals And Targets of the Post-2015
Development Agenda.
U.S. Interagency Working Group on Sustainable Development
Indicators (2001) Sustainable Development in the UnitedStates: An Experimental Set of Indicators.
WCED (World Commission on Environment and Development)(1987) Our Common Future. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Tomohiro TASAKI
Tomohiro TASAKI, Ph.D., heads the Sustainable
Material Cycle Systems Section at the National
Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) andis a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo,
Japan. His academic background includes both
systems engineering and policy science. His
work is mainly focused on the 3Rs (reduce,reuse and recycle) of waste and environmental product policy. He has
been applying the methodologies of material flow analysis and policy
comparison to evaluate and design recycling policy. His other studies
address sustainability science, including sustainable development indicatorsand sustainable lifestyles. He recently published a report (2015) entitled“ International Survey on Stakeholders' Perception of the Concept ofExtended Producer Responsibility and Product Stewardship,” and a coauthored book, Environmental Subsidies to Consumers: How did theywork in the Japanese market?, edited by S. MATSUMOTO.

Yasuko KAMEYAMAYasuko KAMEYAMA, Ph.D., heads the Sustainable
Social Systems Section at NIES, Japan. Her
major field of study is international negotiations
on climate change from the international
relations (IR, political science) aspect. Her
recent major work has been on post- 2020
international institutions addressing climatechange. She spent one year between 1999 and 2000 in the US as a visiting
researcher at the Department of Government and Politics, University of
Maryland.
She has published many works in both Japanese and English, including“Environmental and Social Policies in Japan,” in Tony FITZPATRICK, ed.,International Handbook on Social Policy & the Environment, Edward
Elgar Publishing (2014); and Climate Change in Asia: Perspectives on
the Future Climate Regime, United Nations University Press (2008), coedited with Agus P. SARI, Moekti H. SOEJACHMOEN and Norichika
KANIE.
(Received 1 June 2015, Accepted 29 October 2015)