Compositeindicatorsofenvironmentalsustainability-OECD.docVIP

Composite indicators of environmental sustainability Bed?ich Moldan, Tomá? Hák, Jan Kovanda, Miroslav Havránek, Petra Ku?ková Charles University Environment Center, Prague The use of environmental indicators at the international level was pioneered by the OECD, which published in 1974 its “Core Set of Indicators” (OECD, 1974) recommending to use them by the EU Member States. Since than, a large number of environmental indicators are regularly published by many intergovernmental, international and national institutions. In addition to the continuous work by OECD, the most outstanding ones are at the global level indicators produced by UNEP (the Global Environmental Outlook series, UNEP 2002), UNDP (annual Human Development Report, UNDP 2004), World Bank (World Development Report series, WB 2004), and World Resources Institute (World Development Report series, WRI 2003). At the European level, many indicator-based reports are produced by the European Environment Agency (e.g. the so-called Dob?í? Assessment Series, EEA 2003). The concept of the environment and its protection gradually evolved from the Stockholm UN Conference on the Human Environment in 1972 through the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. According to the current understanding based on results of the Johannesburg Summit, the environment is seen as one of the three pillars of sustainable development. This broader view does not restrain the distinct role of the environment but points out its essential interconnection with the other two pillars, namely the economic and social pillar. Therefore, it is appropriate to use the term “environmental sustainability” that stresses both the specificity of the environment and its fundamental anchoring within the sustainability framework. Accordingly, there is a need for indicators that could cover the linkages between the environmental and the other two dimensi