Environmental Space and the Prism of Sustainability: Frameworks for Indicators Measuring Sustainable Development

The notion of environmental space was coined by Hans Opschoor in the early 1990s, referring to a range of limitations in resources available for human consumption. Meanwhile it has been demonstrated that energy, material flows and land use are three essential resources to be taken into account, and that the reduction of their use would significantly contribute to reducing the main stresses for the European environment. In the Environmental Space concept, the environmental upper limit to resource consumption is complemented by a socially motivated lower limit, safeguarding a resource accessibility that permits to lead a dignified life in the respective society. However, although the social aspect is of equivalent relevance in the concept, it is not dealt with in detail in this paper focussing on environmental aspects. In 1995 the CSD has introduced the institutional dimension as the fourth dimension of sustainable development, a concept that has proven extremely fruitful ever since. Combined with the triangle, a prism of sustainability results, permitting to define core indicators for each dimension and their interlinkages. At the macro level, the prism of sustainability has been applied to international, regional and national indicator development. At the micro level, systems of indicators for households, companies and local communities have been developed. These indicators haven been used in dynamic modelling as well, demonstrating their capability to assess the sustainability of diverging development policies. Specific applications include thematic specifications such as indicators biodiversity for pressures or water management in arid regions, macro level assessments e.g. for the European Union and for Central Asia and micro level applications e.g. for households, companies and communities.