Contemporary Crises and Sustainability Indicators

• Main Authors: Aleksander Zidansek, Marko Limbek, Ivo Slaus
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SDEWES Centre 2014-06-01
• Series: Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems
• Subjects: Crisis; Sustainability indicators; Happiness; Life satisfaction; Technology indicators
• Online Access: http://www.sdewes.org/jsdewes/pi2014.02.0009

Following six decades of fastest economic and technological development in history, the current crises have been triggered by collapse of unsustainable financial systems. The extent of these contemporary interconnected crises of economic, societal, environmental, financial and other systems has also shown a need to reevaluate the measurement of sustainable development. Although the existing sustainability indicators are very complex, interdisciplinary and multidimensional, they could neither predict the onset of the crises nor their extent. Therefore relations between indicators of sustainability, technological development and happiness are presented and discussed also in terms of some of the current crises. Some possible solutions are also presented, which could be used for better measurement of life quality and could potentially replace the Gross Domestic Product as the prevailing measure of development.