Title: Towards a conceptual framework for development of sustainable development indicators for an urban setup

Authors: Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan; B. Sudhakara Reddy

Addresses: Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), General Arun Kumar Vaidya Marg, Goregaon (E), Mumbai, 400065, India. ' Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), General Arun Kumar Vaidya Marg, Goregaon (E), Mumbai, 400065, India

Abstract: Bruntland Commission's report led to popularisation of notion of sustainability and a boom in the development of sustainable development indicators (SDIs). Numerous efforts have been made worldwide in constructing SDIs at global, national, and local scales, but India has been lacking in such initiatives. Motivated by this dearth of studies and prevailing sustainability risks in million-plus cities in India, this paper develops an SDI framework to assess sustainability of resources for city of Mumbai. With a systematic consideration of 16 SDI initiatives across the world, it reviews different SDI frameworks - their advantages, limitations, and applications. A multi-view black box (MVBB) framework has been introduced by eliminating the system component from the extended urban metabolism model (EUMM) and introducing three-dimensional views of economic efficiency (EE-view), social well-being (SW-view), and ecological acceptability (EA-view). Important domain areas and sectors are identified and a model has been demonstrated applying MVBB framework on energy domain.

Keywords: urban metabolism; economic efficiency; social well-being; ecological acceptability; multi-view black box approach; resource sustainability; sustainable development; sustainability indicators; India; Mumbai; Indian cities; modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSD.2012.047753

International Journal of Sustainable Development, 2012 Vol.15 No.3, pp.187 - 205

Received: 14 Jul 2010
Accepted: 08 Apr 2011
Published online: 30 Aug 2014 *

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