Evaluating Sustainability: a Need for Standards

Abstract

Sustainability is one of the most used words in relation to business activity and reporting at 
present, but its meaning is vague. We argue that its use is based upon the concepts of steward
ship and of the firm as going concerned, coupled with the traditional view of the transforma
tional process of a business. We further argue that this is problematic in the present global envi
ronment when stewardship of resources is becoming paramount. We therefore argue that sus
tainability is actually based upon efficiency in the transformational process and equity in the 
distribution of effects. We therefore argue for the need for standards in analysing and measur
ing sustainability and outline a more complete model which recognises distributional implica
tions, and is developed into a model of operationalisability