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Metrics and Indicators of sustainability

Metrics and Indicators of sustainability. Key questions. What are they? How do we find or develop them? Which indicators hold up to disciplinary standards? How do we validate methods? How do we know when a system is flexible enough?. To begin with.

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Metrics and Indicators of sustainability

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  1. Metrics and Indicators of sustainability

  2. Key questions • What are they? How do we find or develop them? • Which indicators hold up to disciplinary standards? • How do we validate methods? • How do we know when a system is flexible enough?

  3. To begin with • Some indicators have clear units and some are complex e.g. CO2, quality of life • Disciplines may approach indicators differently • Indicators may be temporal or scale-dependent • We can use a budget or thresholds as a way to place indicators in a sustainability framework

  4. Sample questions we grapple with • Which indicators would help to evaluate the social impact of business decision-making? • How do we talk about indicators of ecosystem services that are “hidden”? • In what ways do Tibetan villagers value endemic plants? • How do we measure the effects of land use on a river system? • Are there system dynamics that are fundamentally unsustainable? • How do we justify telling people to change?

  5. Conclusions • Sustainability is multi-scalar • One size doesn’t fit all • Indicators easiest to find when they’re targeted towards particular problems • Problem definition is important • We need to unpack questions -- e.g. how do we sustain rivers, how do we sustain salmon, how do we sustain critical life stages of salmon?

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