期刊名称：Surveys and Perspectives Integrating Environment and Society
电子版ISSN：1993-3800
出版年度：2008
卷号：1
期号：1
页码：59-73
DOI：10.5194/sapiens-1-59-2008
出版社：Copernicus Publications
摘要：Social indicators, and therefore sustainable development indicators also,
are scientific constructs whose principal objective is to inform public
policy-making. Their usefulness is dependant on trade-offs between
scientific soundness and rigor, political effectiveness and democratic
legitimacy. The paper considers in this perspective three important stages
in the building of sustainable development indicators: the identification of
the various dimensions underlying the concept of sustainable development,
the process of aggregating lower dimension indicators in higher level
composite indices and the attribution of weights at various levels of the
indicators hierarchy. More specifically, it assesses the relative
fruitfulness for indicators construction of the four most widespread
conceptions of sustainable development, in terms of domains or pillars
(economy, society, and environment), in terms of resources and productive
assets (manufactured, natural, human and social capitals), in terms of human
well-being (needs, capabilities) or in terms of norms (efficiency, fairness,
prudence...). It concludes with a plea for the construction of
synthetic indices able to compete with and complement the GNP as an
indicator of development.
