A progressive company specializing in environmental matters for the retail industry and the manufacturers serving it

Retail Sustainability Consultants | New York, NY

We offer services as expert consultants for your sustainability efforts. We specialize in consumer packaged goods (CPG), packaging. We offer full sustainability, ecologically friendly approved product certifications. We represent top manufacturers across the country, servicing food, drug, and mass retailers.

Walmart has most notably launched efforts requiring their vendors (suppliers) to improve in-store packaging, freight, use of renewable energy, transportation, GHG & CO2 greenhouse gas emissions, packaging materials, recycled content, cube utilization, recovery value, waste reduction.

Our services and specialties are expansive
and customized to your business. Please, don't hesitate to contact us at:


[Press contact welcome]

Some top retail customers that our target clients service:

1 Wal-Mart
2 Home Depot
3 Kroger
4 Sears
5 Target
6 Albertson's
7 Kmart
8 Costco
9 Safeway
10 JCPenney
11 Walgreen
12 Ahold USA
13 CVS
14 Lowe's
15 Best Buy
16 Federated Dept. Stores
17 Publix
18 Rite Aid
19 Delhaize America
20 May Dept. Stores
21 Gap
22 Winn-Dixie
23 Meijer
24 Office Depot
25 Toys "R" Us
26 A&P
27 Staples
28 TJX
29 7-Eleven
30 Circuit City
31 SuperValu Retail
32 Limited
33 H.E.B.
34 Dillard's
35 Kohl's
36 CompUSA
37 Saks
38 Nordstrom
39 Dollar General
40 BJ's Wholesale
41 Intimate Brands
42 Menard
43 Barnes & Noble
44 AutoZone
45 Radio Shack
46 OfficeMax
47 Giant Eagle
48 Shaw's Supermarkets
49 Foot Locker
50 Longs Drug Stores
51 Pathmark
52 Hy-Vee
53 Family Dollar
54 QVC
55 Spartan Stores
56 Big Lots
57 Borders Group
58 ShopKo Stores
59 Fleming Retail
60 Amazon.com
61 Raley's
62 Wegman's
63 Spiegel
64 Neiman Marcus
65 Ross Stores
66 Bed Bath & Beyond
67 Payless ShoeSource
68 The Pantry
69 Stater Bros.
70 Ames
71 Michaels Stores
72 Advance Auto Parts
73 PETsMART
74 Footstar
75 Burlington Coat Factory
76 Harris-Teeter
77 Penn Traffic
78 Belk
79 Value City
80 Whole Foods Markets
81 Pep Boys
82 Schnuck Markets
83 Williams-Sonoma
84 Zale
85 Casey's General Stores
86 Berkshire Retail
87 Ingles Markets
88 Charming Shoppes
89 Weis Markets
90 Dollar Tree Stores
91 Smart & Final
92 Lenscrafters/Sunglass Hut
93 DeMoulas
94 Linens 'N Things
95 84 Lumber
96 K-B Toys
97 Home Shopping Network
98 Marsh Supermarkets
99 Talbots
100 Tiffany

 

© 2008 | Retail Sustainability Consultants | New York, NY


end copyright

Green, Ecology, Ecological, renewable, recyclable usage Consultants.

This wikepedia article defines Sustainability as the below: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

Sustainability is an attempt to provide the best outcomes for the human and natural environments both now and into the indefinite future. One of the most formidable definitions has been given by the Brundtland Commission, led by the former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, who defined sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". It relates to the continuity of economic, social, institutional and environmental aspects of human society, as well as the non-human environment.

 

Contents
1 At least ecological
2 Definitions, metrics and indices
2.1 Life cycle assessment and ecological footprint analysis
2.2 Global Reporting Initiative
2.3 Energy, emergy and Sustainability Index (SI)
2.4 Environmental Sustainability Index
3 Conceptual issues
3.1 Population growth
4 Sustainability and business
5 The Natural Step
6 Sustainable Livelihoods Approach
7 Types of sustainability
7.1 Development sustainability
8 Barriers to a sustainability culture
8.1 The phenomenon of change resistance
8.2 Barriers to ecological sustainability
9 Notes and References
10 Bibliography
11 See also
11.1 Other sustainability articles
12 External links
12.1 Research and policy programs
12.2 Training and education programs


At least ecological
At its least, sustainability implies paying attention to comprehensive outcomes of events and actions insofar as they can be anticipated at present. This is known as full cost accounting, or Environmental accounting. This kind of accounting assumes that all aspects of a system can be measured and audited (Environmental audits).

This can be a limited biological interpretation as in ecological footprint analysis, or may include social factors as in the ICLEI Triple Bottom Line standards for urban and community accounts. The introduction of social factors to the debate implies a much more complex and contentious debate, and those focused on ecological impacts tend to strongly resist non-ecological interpretations.

At most, sustainability is intended as a means of configuring civilization and human activity so that society, its members and its economies are able to meet their needs and express their greatest potential in the present, while preserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems, and planning and acting for the ability to maintain these ideals in a very long term. Typically at least seven generations - the maximum span that any individual human is likely to experience directly. Sustainability can be investigated at every level of organization, from the local neighborhood to the entire planet.

None of these extended definitions, however, ever deny or downplay the importance of the ecological interpretation of sustainability as defined by the science of ecology itself. All advocates of sustainability accept that ecological, not social, factors, are the most measurable and universal indicators of sustainability.


Definitions, metrics and indices
See also main article sustainability metric and indices


Sustainability- The ability to meet present needs without compromising those of future generations.

Many people have pointed to various practices and philosophies in the world today as being useful to sustainability. In order to distinguish which activities are destructive and which are benign or beneficial, various models of resource use have been developed.

Sustainability can be defined both qualitatively in words, and quantitatively as a pair of compound exponentials - the rising one being the life of a system, the declining one leading to death if the final tipping point for intervention is irreversibly past.

In 1996 the International Institute for Sustainable Development developed a Sample Policy Framework which proposed that a sustainability index "would give decision- makers tools to rate policies and programs against each other" (1996, p.9). Ravi Jain (2005) [1] argued that, "The ability to analyze different alternatives or to assess progress towards sustainability will then depend on establishing measurable entities or metrics used for sustainability." Likewise the International Institute For Environment And Development, Environmental Planning Group (1993, p.2) said:

The need for sustainability analysis and particularly for indicators of sustainability [1] is a key requirement to implement and monitor the development of national sustainable development plans, as required by Agenda 21 agreed at UNCED in June 1992.


Life cycle assessment and ecological footprint analysis
The algorithms of the ecological footprint model have, on the one hand, been used in combination with the emergy methodology (S. Zhao, Z. Li and W. Li 2005), and a sustainability index has been derived from the latter. They have also been combined with an index of quality of life (Marks et al, 2006), and the outcome christened the "(Un)Happy Planet Index" (HPI)shows indices for 178 nations. One of the striking conclusions to emerge from ecological footprint analyses is that it would be necessary to have 4 or 5 back up planets engage in nothing but agriculture for all those alive today to live a Western lifestyle.


Global Reporting Initiative
In 1997 the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) was started as a multi-stakeholder process and independent institution whose mission has been "to develop and disseminate globally applicable Sustainability Reporting Guidelines". The GRI uses ecological footprint analysis and became independent in 2002. It is an official collaborating centre of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and during the tenure of Kofi Annan, it cooperated with the UN Secretary-General’s Global Compact.


Energy, emergy and Sustainability Index (SI)
In 1997, systems ecologists M.T.Brown and S.Ulgiati published their formulation of a quantitative sustainability index (SI) as a ratio of the emergy (spelled with an "m", i.e. "embodied energy", not simply "energy") yield ratio (EYR) to the environmental loading ratio (ELR). Brown and Ulgiati also called the sustainability index the "Emergy Sustainability Index" (ESI), "an index that accounts for yield, renewability, and environmental load. It is the incremental emergy yield compared to the environmental load".

[2]


NOTE: The numerator is called "emergy" and is spelled with an "m". It is an abbreviation of the term, "embodied energy". The numerator is NOT "energy yield ratio", which is a different concept.
[3]


Environmental Sustainability Index
In 2004, a joint initiative of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy (YCELP) and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) of Columbia University, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the Directorate-General Joint Research Centre (European Commission) also attempted to construct an Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI)[4]. This was formally released in Davos, Switzerland, at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) on 28 January 2005. The report on this index made a comparison of the WEF ESI to other sustainability indicators such as the Ecological footprint Index. However there was no mention of the emergy sustainability index.

Nevertheless writers like Leone (2005) and Yi et al. have also recently suggested that the emergy sustainability index has significant utility. In particular, Leone notes that while the GRI measures behavior, it fails to calculate supply constraints which the emergy methodology aims to calculate.

See also:

Environmental Accounting Using Emergy:Evaluation of the State of West Virginia, United States Environmental Protection Agency
Dow Jones Sustainability Index.
The 2006 US City Rankings(June, 2006) peer-reviewed study, by SustainLane.com, ranking the 50 most populated U.S. cities across 15 categories, utilizing over 2000 data points.

Conceptual issues
Values vary greatly in detail within and between cultures, as well as between academic disciplines (e.g., between economists and ecologists).[5] At the heart of the concept of sustainability is a fundamental, immutable value set that is best stated as 'parallel care and respect for the ecosystem and for the people within'. From this value set emerges the goal of sustainability: to achieve human and ecosystem well-being together. It follows that the 'result' against which the success of any project or design should be judged is the achievement of, or the contribution to, human and ecosystem well-being together. Seen in this way, the concept of sustainability is much more than environmental protection in another guise. It is a positive concept that has as much to do with achieving well-being for people and ecosystems as it has to do with reducing stress or impacts.

Critics of American society state that the philosophy of infinite economic growth and infinite growth in consumption are completely unsustainable and will cause great harm to human civilization in the future. In recognition that the Earth is finite, there has been a growing awareness that there must be limits to certain kinds of human activity if life on the planet is to survive if not indefinitely, at least for the next seven generations. For example, life expectancy and overall quality of life in the USA, although relatively high, are still not as high (in terms of international comparisons) as many people believe. But the other side of the coin is devastating. This quality is delivered at enormous cost (calculated in terms of its ecological footprint). A perhaps even more surprising finding is that a few nations, even in today's world, do manage to deliver long and high quality of life more or less within a sustainable economic footprint. The explanation of these surprises stems from the fact that, as Marks et al and, earlier, Lane (1993) has shown, quality of life stems primarily from things like security for the future and networks of social contact. It has little to do with the materialistic components generally used to calculate GNP. One way of summarising the outcome of this work is to view the American dream as a Pied Piper unnecessarily leading us to our doom.

Some people now consider the term "sustainable development" as too closely linked with continued material development, and prefer to use terms like "sustainability", "sustainable prosperity" and "sustainable genuine progress" as the umbrella terms. Despite differences, a number of common principles are embedded in most charters or action programmes to achieve sustainable development, sustainability or sustainable prosperity. These include (Hargroves & Smith 2005, see bibliography):

Dealing transparently and systemically with risk, uncertainty and irreversibility.
Ensuring appropriate valuation, appreciation and restoration of nature.
Integration of environmental, social, human and economic goals in policies and activities.
Equal opportunity and community participation/Sustainable community.
Conservation of biodiversity and ecological integrity.
Ensuring inter-generational equity.
Recognizing the global integration of localities.
A commitment to best practice.
No net loss of human capital or natural capital.
The principle of continuous improvement.
The need for good governance.

Population growth
One of the critically important issues in sustainability is that of human overpopulation combined with human lifestyle. A number of studies have suggested that the current population of the Earth, already over six billion, is too many people to support sustainably at current material consumption levels. This challenge for sustainability is distributed unevenly. According to calculations of the ecological footprint, the ecological pressure of a US resident is 13 times that of a resident of India and 52 times that of a Somali resident.

Obviously, exponential growth is unsustainable in the long term, regardless of technology or lifestyle. For example, with the 2006 population of 6.5 billion, at the current world growth rate of 1.4%/year, the population will reach 1.49x1014 in 722 years, which is equal to the number of square meters of land area on the earth. This is clearly an unfeasible situation.

Critics of efforts to reduce population rather than consumption fear that efforts to reduce population growth may lead to human rights violations such as involuntary sterilization and the abandoning of infants to die. Some human-rights watchers report that this is already taking place in China, as a result of its one child per family policy.

Albeit, it appears inevitable that human population numbers will be constrained and brought into some form of equilibrium by the Malthusian limit and in accordance with the Lotka-Volterra equation. In his book Collapse, author Jared Diamond makes the case that population growth mixed with unsustainable consumption levels have throughout human history bred sometimes very rigid cultural or religious systems. These systems required discipline and hierarchical alignment of the individual but with continued growth, further perpetrated an unsustainable culture. Eventually, a culture of unsustainable growth and consumption leads to unrest and imbalance. One consequence is a sudden collapse in population numbers.


Sustainability and business
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development, founded in 1995, has formulated the business case for sustainable development and argues that "sustainable development is good for business and business is good for sustainable development". This view is also maintained by proponents of the concept of Industrial ecology. The theory of Industrial Ecology declares that industry should be viewed as a series of interlocking man-made eco-systems interfacing with the natural global eco-system.

According to some economists, it is possible for the concepts of sustainable development and competitiveness to merge if enacted wisely, so that there is not an inevitable trade-off[6]. This merger is being motivated by the following six facts (Hargroves & Smith 2005):

Throughout the economy there are widespread untapped potential resource productivity improvements to be made to be coupled with effective design.
There has been a significant shift in understanding over the last three decades of what creates lasting competitiveness of a firm.
There is now a critical mass of enabling technologies in eco-innovations that make integrated approaches to sustainable development economically viable.
Since many of the costs of what economists call ‘environmental externalities’ are passed on to governments, in the long-term sustainable development strategies can provide multiple benefits to the tax payer.
There is a growing understanding of the multiple benefits of valuing social and natural capital, for both moral and economic reasons, and including them in measures of national well-being.
There is mounting evidence to show that a transition to a sustainable economy, if done wisely, may not harm economic growth significantly, in fact it could even help it. Recent research by ex-Wuppertal Institute member Joachim Spangenberg, working with neo-classical economists, shows that the transition, if focused on improving resource productivity, will lead to higher economic growth than business as usual, while at the same time reducing pressures on the environment and enhancing employment.
It is an unresolved question as to whether all of the attempts at definitions have anything to do with the compound constructs of sustainability investment [2] advanced by network economics and systemic entrepreneurs. These mathematical maps explain how shocked most human beings now are to find that global business models have commonly excluded human sustainability from their long term consequences. Ray Anderson has been the most consistent hero within the corporate world on this issue; Al Gore a strong public servant.

However, it is as late as fall 2006 that a nation's treasury -the UK Stern Report - has released a report showing that 1% of GDP will now need to be invested to save 20% of GDP -because of failures to date by most global market sectors to integrate sustainability in the metrics they have governed with.


The Natural Step
The international nonprofit The Natural Step, founded in 1989 by Swedish cancer scientist Karl-Henrik Robèrt, with the patronage of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, has coordinated a consensus process to define and operationalize sustainability. At the core of the process lies a consensus definition of sustainability, described as The System Conditions of sustainability (as derived from System theory).


Sustainable Livelihoods Approach
Another application of sustainability has been in the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach, developed on conceptual work by Amartya Sen, and the UK's Institute for Development Studies (IDS). This was championed by the UK's Department for International Development(DFID), UNDP, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as well as NGOs such as CARE, OXFAM and Khanya. Key concepts include the Sustainable Livelihoods (SL) Framework, a holistic way of understanding livelihoods, the SL principles, as well as six governance issues developed by Khanya.

See also:

Livelihoods Connect
Worldchanging.

Types of sustainability
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has identified considerations for technical cooperation that affect three types of sustainability:

Institutional sustainability. Can a strengthened institutional structure continue to deliver the results of technical cooperation to end users? The results may not be sustainable if, for example, the planning authority that depends on the technical cooperation loses access to top management, or is not provided with adequate resources after the technical cooperation ends. Institutional sustainability can also be linked to the concept of social sustainability, which asks how the interventions can be sustained by social structures and institutions;
Economic and financial sustainability. Can the results of technical cooperation continue to yield an economic benefit after the technical cooperation is withdrawn? For example, the benefits from the introduction of new crops may not be sustained if the constraints to marketing the crops are not resolved. Similarly, economic, as distinct from financial, sustainability may be at risk if the end users continue to depend on heavily subsidized activities and inputs.
Ecological sustainability. Are the benefits to be generated by the technical cooperation likely to lead to a deterioration in the physical environment, thus indirectly contributing to a fall in production, or well-being of the groups targeted and their society.
Some ecologists have emphasised a fourth type of sustainability.

Energetic sustainability. This type of sustainability is often concerned with the production of energy and mineral resources. Some researchers have pointed to trends which document the limits of production. See Hubbert peak for example.
The United Nations has declared a Decade of Education for Sustainable Development starting in January of 2005. A non-partisan multi-sector response to the decade has formed within the U.S. via the U.S. Partnership for the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. [3] Active sectors teams have formed for youth, higher education, business, religion, the arts, and more. Organizations and individuals can join in sharing resources and success stories, and creating a sustainable future.


Development sustainability
Sustainability is relevant to development projects. A definition of development sustainability is "the continuation of benefits after major assistance from the donor has been completed" (Australian Agency for International Development 2000). Ensuring that development projects are sustainable can reduce the likelihood of them collapsing after they have just finished; it also reduces the financial cost of development projects and the subsequent social problems, such as dependence of the stakeholders on external donors and their resources. All development assistance, apart from temporary emergency and humanitarian relief efforts, should be designed and implemented with the aim of achieving sustainable benefits. There are ten key factors that influence development sustainability.[citation needed]

Participation and ownership. Get the stakeholders (men and women) to genuinely participate in design and implementation. Build on their initiatives and demands. Get them to monitor the project and periodically evaluate it for results.
Capacity building and training. Training stakeholders to take over should begin from the start of any project and continue throughout. The right approach should both motivate and transfer skills to people.
Government policies. Development projects should be aligned with local government policies.
Financial. In some countries and sectors, financial sustainability is difficult in the medium term. Training in local fundraising is a possibility, as is identifying links with the private sector, charging for use, and encouraging policy reforms.
Management and organisation. Activities that integrate with or add to local structures may have better prospects for sustainability than those which establish new or parallel structures.
Social, gender and culture. The introduction of new ideas, technologies and skills requires an understanding of local decision-making systems, gender divisions and cultural preferences.
Technology. All outside equipment must be selected with careful consideration given to the local finance available for maintenance and replacement. Cultural acceptability and the local capacity to maintain equipment and buy spare parts are vital.
Environment. Poor rural communities that depend on natural resources should be involved in identifying and managing environmental risks. Urban communities should identify and manage waste disposal and pollution risks.
External political and economic factors. In a weak economy, projects should not be too complicated, ambitious or expensive.
Realistic duration. A short project may be inadequate for solving entrenched problems in a sustainable way, particularly when behavioural and institutional changes are intended. A long project, may on the other hand, promote dependence.
The definition of sustainability as "the continuation of benefits after major assistance from the donor has been completed" (Australian Agency for International Development 2000) is echoed by other definitions (World Bank, USAID). The concept has however evolved as it has become of interest to non grant-making institutions. Sustainability in development refers to processes and relative increases in local capacity and performance while foreign assistance decreases or shifts (not necessarily disappears). For a presentation of this evolution in the health sector of development, see publications on: http://www.childsurvival.com/documents/CSTS/sustainability.cfm


Barriers to a sustainability culture
Acknowledging the barriers to sustainability, numerous publications from the Tellus Institute examine the factors necessary to achieve an environmentally sustainable future, something Tellus terms a ‘Great Transition’ (see Raskin et al, 2002; Rajan, 2006; Kreigman, 2006). Using scenario analysis, Tellus shows that a new sustainability paradigm is possible if progressive elements of civil society, government, business, and an engaged citizenry work together to create an alternative vision of globalization centered on the quality of life, human solidarity, environmental resilience, and shared information.


The phenomenon of change resistance
The above concepts focus primarily on the proper practices required to live sustainably. However, there is also the need to consider why there is such strong resistance to adopting sustainable practices.

Unruh (2000, 2002) has argued that numerous barriers to sustainability arise because today's technological systems and governing institutions were designed and built for permanence and reliability, not change. In the case of fossil fuel-based systems this is termed "carbon lock-in" and inhibits many change efforts.

Thwink.org argues that if enough members of the environmental movement adopted a problem solving process that fit the problem, the movement would make the astonishing discovery that the crux of the problem is not what it thought it was. It is not the proper practices or technical side of the problem after all. Any number of these practices would be adequate. Instead the real issue is why is it so difficult to persuade social agents (such as people, corporations, and nations) to adopt the proper practices needed to live sustainably? Thus the heart of the matter is the change resistance or social side of the problem.


Barriers to ecological sustainability
Despite the now overwhelming evidence that the human species is set on a population adjustment course of immense proportions, and despite long-standing and widespread public awareness of the seriousness of the consequence (e.g., Nelson, 1986; Yankelovitch, et. al., 1983; Diamond, Jared (2005) ), it seems impossible to alter the course of our destiny.

This is generally attributed to “change resistance” (see, e.g., Thwink.org), viewed as involving change in individual values, whether at personal, corporate, or collective levels (see e.g., Stafford Beer). Unfortunately, it has been frequently demonstrated, e.g., in the studies cited, that people’s values are, in general, in the right place. The problem is to enact them. This has led to the preparation of numerous “wish lists” – such as that compiled by Shah, H., & Marks, N. (2004) – drawing together many recommendations for government action.

Government and individual failure to act on the available information is widely attributed to personal greed (deemed to be inherent in human nature) especially on the part of international capitalists. But even Karl Marx did not suggest this, instead highlighting sociological processes which have been in operation for thousands of years. If fault is to be found with Marx's work it can be argued that it lies elsewhere. Because he believed that the collapse of capitalism was imminent, he never discussed how to run society in an innovative way in the long term public interest.

Two things seem to follow from this brief discussion.

It is vital to follow up Marx’s scientific study of the sociocybernetic (see sociocybernetics), or systems (see also systems theory), processes which, it seems, primarily control what happens in society.
We should use the social-science-based insights already available to evolve forms of Public management that will act on information in an innovative way in the long term public interest.

Notes and References
^ Jain, Ravi; Sustainability: metrics, specific indicators and preference index, Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy (Journal), May 2005, pg. 71-72
^ Brown, M.T. and S. Ulgiati.1999. Emergy evaluation of natural capital and biosphere services. AMBIO. Vol.28 No.6, Sept. 1999.
^ Ulgiati, S. and M.T. Brown. 1999. Emergy accounting of human-dominated, large scale ecosystems. In Jorgensen and Kay (eds.) Thermodynamics and Ecology. Elsevier.
^ Environmental Sustainability Index (2005) Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy Yale University, New Haven and Yale University Center for International Earth Science Information Network Columbia University
^ Tisdell, C. 1988. Sustainable development: Differing perspectives of ecologists and economists, and relevance to LDCs. World Development 16(3): 373-384.
^ Esty, D. C., Porter, M. E., Industrial Ecology and Competitiveness: Strategic Implications for the Firm, Journal of Industrial Ecology Winter 1998, Vol. 2, No. 1: 35-43.
^ Leone, M. (2005). "The Quest for an Environmental Metric: Gazing at weather systems, a ground-breaking scientist spawned an ecological accounting standard that Wall Street might one day embrace". CFO Publishing.
^ Maine, T. (2003). "Towards a Metric of Sustainability". CSIRO Publishing.
^ Brown, M.T. and Ulgiati, S. (1997). "Emergy-based indices and ratios to evaluate sustainability: monitoring economies and technology toward environmentally sound innovation". Ecological Engineering 9: 51-69.
^ Brown, M.T. and Ulgiati, S. (1999). "Emergy Evaluation of the Biosphere and Natural Capital". Ambio 28 (6).
^ Zhao, S.; Li, Z.; Li, W. (2005). "A modified method of ecological footprint calculation and its application". Ecological Modelling 185 (1): 65-75. DOI:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2004.11.016.
^ Yi, Heui-seok; Hau, Jorge L. ; Ukidwe, Nandan U. and Bakshi, Bhavik R. (2004). "Hierarchical Thermodynamic Metrics for Evaluating the Environmental Sustainability of Industrial Processes". Environmental Progress 23 (4): 65-75. DOI:10.1002/ep.10049.
^ Jain, R. (2005). "Sustainability: metrics, specific indicators and preference index". Clean Techn Environ Policy 7: 71-72.

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