Informing Indicators

Increasing interest in sustainability has led to a growing number of initiatives directed at environmentally sustainable operations. However, a systems perspective with hierarchically structured principles is often not a prerequisite to these action-oriented efforts. While the linkage between overall guiding principles and the definition of successful outcomes has been addressed in other areas, such as management science, this linkage remains weaker in the area of environmental and social sustainability. The effect can be action without long term or overall strategic focus on social, economical, and ecological sustainability. We present a general logical structure for the envisioning, organization and assessment of sustainability initiatives. The critical role of basic principles for sustainability, organized in a general framework for backcasting (The Natural Step framework), is described. The practical utility of the framework for the development of strategic plans, and for the informing of metrics to monitor those plans, will be discussed.