SURF Framework for a Sustainable Economy

Abstract

This article presents a practical framework for approaching sustainable development and the green economy. As a result of analyzing the on-the-ground reality of attempting to transform products and services for sustainable development, the author identified gaps and incoherencies that rendered a new framework necessary. The SURF framework: supply chain, user, relations, and future, enables a systems-level approach, and subsequently a systems-level impact, for decisions made even on a very microscopic level. Start-ups and large companies, public organizations and private ones alike will benefit from adopting this framework and adapting it to their unique needs. The framework was configured based on an extensive analysis of available definitions, understandings, and methods for implementing sustainable development on a concrete level, as well as through discussions with various industries. A sample product in the form of a t-shirt, manufactured from bamboo textiles, is used to explain the application of SURF. SURF moves beyond the triple-bottom-line approach to sustainable development to place emphasis on the quadruple bottom line.