An international gathering of specialists takes a unified approach toward measuring #sustainability #metrics

Ask any political leader if they are in favor of sustainability, and the pat answer is typically a resounding, "Yes." Evaluating its effectiveness, however, is a much trickier endeavor.

Thomas Dietz, a sociology and environmental science and policy professor at Michigan State University, took steps to indentify a universal framework to evaluate sustainability at a national gathering of scientists Feb. 20.

"By design, we were able to bring together researchers from many disciplines from around the world," Dietz said. "We were really fortunate to get the leaders of the five most-prominent measures."

The unifying theme of sustainability is human well-being, how it impacts the environment and the tradeoffs of the two. While some methods focus on economics, others place higher emphasis on the environment and some do both. Yet all are complementary and wrestling with the same overarching goals, Dietz added.

For details on who attended and more info, read rest of article:
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-approach-sustainability.html

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