Nation states of the world are driven by socio-economic imperatives that are rapidly degrading
the natural resources that sustain life on Earth. This paradox has led to numerous initiatives to
better understand and measure sustainability and sustainable development through indices.
The primary objective of this research is to critically analyse the plethora of indices developed
and used by institutions and organisations globally that have a role to play in measuring the
sustainability and sustainable development of nation states, and distil the analysis into one
integrated Sustainable Development Index (SDI) that compares all countries. A secondary
objective is to review South Africa‟s response to measure sustainability and determine how well
it performs compared to other nation states. A qualitative approach is used to review the
literature in three steps, namely to consider the challenges of measuring what matters, to reflect
on the response to govern and measure sustainability, and then to identify outcomes in terms of
specific indices related to triple bottom line dimensions. The review considers the scope and
level of integration of global indices as well as South Africa‟s response to measure
sustainability. The analysis phase normalizes all the data to establish an integrated SDI for all
countries, it then analyses and interprets the data to determine the variation and correlation
between all the global indices, and then benchmarks countries and specifically South Africa.
The review finds that twenty-one years after the Agenda 21 agreement at the Rio Earth Summit,
no acceptable or established SDI has been developed and implemented by the United Nations,
and the analysis develops two options for an integrated SDI at nation state level. In terms of
both these SDI‟s South Africa performs poorly from a benchmarked perspective. From both the
nation state and global indices perspectives, the appraisal of the single integrated SDI finds
significant variations in the results, coupled with a wide range of correlation outcomes which
distil into well correlated single integrated SDIs. The findings indicate that recent SDI
developments are moving towards human wellbeing indicators, however although
environmental priorities are considered, they play a secondary role. This “inconvenient truth”
alludes to a “business as usual” approach as the policy makers of the world continue to focus
on short-term socio-economic imperatives. Environmental thresholds and “limits to growth”
considerations need to be fundamental aspects of all SDIs. This argument continues by
factoring thresholds and priorities into the triple bottom line dimensions - a Sustainability
Intelligence Quotient is developed from the integrated SDI, which suggests that only two
countries meet the requirements. / (Master of Environmental Management), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/10204 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Keeling, Brian Neville |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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