Tools for Sustainable Development Tools for sustainable development are used to support, promote and monitor progress
towards sustainability and are numerous as well as varied in type. These tools can be in the form of policies, support measures or particular technologies and have evolved over time to produce three main groups in which they can be broadly grouped. The first category includes tools which are used to assess the impact of a policy or action before it is implemented. The second category consists of tools which are used once an activity has been initiated allowing particular aspects of the project to be closely monitored. The third category of tools focuses on creating and strengthening the interplay between social, environmental and economic dimensions by building on knowledge through the use of multidisciplinary approaches and multidimensional interactions. The three main groupings are as follows: 1. Sustainable development impact tools These tools are used to assess the impact of a current or proposed policy or action on the three pillars of sustainable development simultaneously. These tools are characterised by their ability to consider the impacts on environmental protection, economic prosperity and social cohesion in a balanced way. The value of these tools lies in their ability to assess the effect of an initiative or action before its implementation. Some of the tools which are included within this basket of instruments are: Modelling and simulation software; Accounting frameworks and codes of practice; Impact assessments; Performance monitoring; External cost estimation.
2. Sustainable development indicators These indicators are used solely to monitor particular objectives within a sustainability action and implementation plan. They are used once a project is initiated to ensure that the set goals and objectives of the project are achieved. These tools are characterised by their quantitative dimension and their focus on one element at a time. Some sustainable development indicators are: Greenhouse gas emissions; Renewable electricity generation; Resource use; Dwelling density; Wellbeing.
3. Knowledge brokerage and CSO involvement The focus of these tools is to build on knowledge that already exists by using multidisciplinary approaches and multi-level interactions. The uniqueness of these tools is that they allow discussions amongst a variety of stakeholders to be conducted
providing an approach which allows engagement of people across a wide spectrum of knowledge ranging from experts to policy makers to members of the general public. The main tools used within such processes are: Foresighting; Backcasting; Envisioning; Bottom-up approaches; Transition management. Three projects were recently funded under the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) under its call Foresight to enhance behavioural and societal changes enabling the transition towards sustainable paths in Europe. Each project considers a different aspect of low carbon futures employing multi-level stakeholders to create a future and the pathways to obtain it. The projects are as follows: (1) CRISP (CReating Innovative Sustainability Pathways) CRISP relies on the use of multi-disciplinary approaches to create the desired sustainable low carbon futures that members of civil society, including school children, would like to see. It employs transition management as its guiding framework to clarify the interaction of agency and structure in the context of bottom-up initiatives. The value of this research is that it will recommend new policy mixes and co-operation mechanisms to overcome the barriers to change ([Link] (2) INCONTEXT (Individuals in Context: Supportive Environments for Sustainable Living) InContexts focus is to study both the internal and external contexts in which change occurs. Through the use of multi-disciplinary approaches insights into the role played by social norms, policies and infrastructure (external context) and needs, values and priorities (internal context) can be gauged within the agency-structure debate. The projects main output is to help inform policies that can support internal changes required for sustainable action ([Link] (3) LOCAW (Low Carbon at Work: Modelling agents and organisations to achieve transition to a low carbon Europe) LOCAWs aim is to gain insight into the drivers and barriers of sustainability practices within the work place across different organizations within the EU. The multidisciplinary approach is used to create the desirable low-carbon futures, map the alternative pathways and gain insight into how cooperative interaction needs to be supported to encourage sustainable development. This latter point is predominately investigated through the use of agent based modelling ([Link]