Sustainable Society Index

Lead Authors: Geurt van de Kerk (other articles) and Arthur R. Manuel(other articles)

Article Topic: Sustainable development

This article has been reviewed and approved by the following Topic Editor: Graham Douglas (other articles)

Last Updated: December 29, 2008

Abstract

When we were looking for a suitable yardstick to measure the level of sustainability of a country a suitable instrument could not be found. Although the main existing indexes were examined we had to conclude that none of them seem to fit our needs completely. The main shortcomings are a limited definition of sustainability, a lack of transparency or high complexity and an absence of regular updates. For this reason, a new index – the Sustainable Society Index (SSI) – has been developed. The SSI integrates the most important aspects of sustainability and quality of life of a national society in a simple and transparent way. Consisting of only 22 indicators, grouped into 5 categories, it is based upon the definition of the Brundtland Commission, extended to the Brundtland+ definition by explicitly including the social aspects of human life.

Using data from public sources, the SSI was initially developed for 150 countries and published in 2006. In 2008 the first of two-yearly updates was published with results for 151 countries for which the SSI could be calculated. The resulting SSI scores on a scale of 0 to 10 allow a quick comparison between countries as is shown on the world map./.../