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Short abstract:

To what extent is sustainability assessment fundamentally limited in terms of its transformative potential? This paper seeks to problematise and politicise methods of measurement in the hope of opening space for new ways of doing.

Long abstract:

Sustainability assessment presents a vast paradigm of tools, frameworks, indicators, and methodologies for aiding the transition towards a normatively conceived ‘better’ society. To realise change we need to be able to measure transformative progress, to make sure we are going in the right direction, and adjust our trajectory if necessary. This logic is embraced, largely uncritically, across sustainability research. Yet after four decades of sustainability assessment, transformation is not forthcoming. There is no agreement on what sustainability is, let alone how to measure it.

Measurement challenges are well documented within the sustainability assessment literature, from technical challenges such as barriers to data collection, to epistemological questions surrounding the quantification of subjective concepts like happiness. Yet the choice of what gets measured (and consequently what does not) is inherently political, a core observation which is often lost in the minutiae of developing new assessment methods.

Drawing on literature on the history and philosophy of measurement, and reflecting on two empirical attempts to develop sustainability assessment frameworks, this paper presents a provocation: is sustainability assessment necessary? Does it inhibit transformative potential? And does it offer us anything beyond an incrementalist adjustment to the status quo? Can we transform methods of measurement, or is this a futile endeavour?