Exploring the role of local community perceptions in sustainability measurements

Abstract

Measuring sustainability is an integral part of decision-making processes in order to promote sustainable development. The present paper focuses on sustainability indicators as these are measured on local level and explores two main issues: firstly, the subjective measurement of indicators focusing especially on social dimensions of sustainability, secondly, the incorporation of local perceptions in sustainability assessments. These two issues are explored in the Asopos River basin in Greece, an area where significant environmental degradation has been observed in the past decades and is also under financial pressure due to the ongoing national recession. A large-scale research study was conducted measuring environmental, economic and social indicators while, at a second stage, a model was developed, estimating new indicators that incorporate local communities' perceptions on what they considered as important for their area. The results of the study reveal that the most important indicators for the sustainable development of the area, according to locals' perceptions, are environmental quality as well as quality of life. By contrast, trust in local and central institutions and also local enterprises were not considered as important by locals. These results illustrate the importance of combining global and national scale assessment with locally focused social measurements of sustainability in order to better understand what is important for local communities prior to embarking on public policy planning.

Perception of Sustainable Development in a Local World Heritage Perspective

“…Thirdly, our study supports the findings by several studies [8,9,15,37] that sustainability issues perceived as most important by stakeholders are topics very close to people's lives. They are visible important to their expressed perceptions of sustainability.…”

“…Where there are concerns about employment, employment is an important ingredient in a sustainable future. These findings are supported by Jones et al [37], who found that local residents rated employment as the most important factor for sustainable development in their community. Tiani and Charnacle [38] underlined that there is a certain agreement across different stakeholder groups about the criteria of sustainability, but that there are differences in the weighting of issues.…”

Sustainability Assessment through Urban Accessibility Indicators and GIS in a Middle-Sized World Heritage City: The Case of Cáceres, Spain

“…Measuring sustainability through urban indicators is an integral part of decisionmaking processes to promote sustainable development at the local level [78]. In this sense, at the international level, a normative approach was proposed based on using indicators to measure the performance management of city services and quality of life [79].…”

Corporate Social Responsibility Programs and Community Perceptions of Societal Progress in Bangladesh: A Multimethod Approach

“…Halme and Laurila (2009) stated that environmental protection could undertake different forms depending on whether the corporation is philanthropically oriented or whether it pursues to assimilate environmental issues or takes an innovative approach. N. Jones et al (2019) revealed that the most critical indicators for the sustainable development of the country, according to community perceptions, are environmental quality and quality of life. Thus, no corporation can survive in the absence of oxygen production, freshwater supply, and fertile soil (Whiteman et al, 2013).…”