Sustainability, Energy and Development: A Proposal of Indicators

Abstract

Measuring sustainability is a major issue as well as a driving force for the discussion on sustainable development. Developing tools that reliably measure sustainability is a prerequisite for identifying non-sustainable processes informing design-makers of products' quality and monitoring impacts on the social environment. According to Agenda 21, one of these significant issues to sustainability is energy. This paper presents a proposal of sustainable energy indicators for cities. This research presents 26 indicators classified into five dimensions (environmental, economic, social, territorial and political). The indicators were validated by experts of different fields who also gave weights for each indicator depending on its importance to sustainability. This resulted in the finding of key indicators in each dimension. The analysis of these five dimensions could help policymakers to foster sustainable energy development in the cities. This research was conducted in the Brazilian context, an emerging economy. In these economies, sustainable energy has become central to maintain the country's growth. The result of this research is the first step in order to develop an index of sustainable energy of cities. Further research should apply these indicators to evaluate cities in different contexts.