Towards a sustainability indicator for production systems

An important goal of (inter) national environmental policy is to realize a sustainable development. However, the implications of sustainability for society are not yet fully understood. This paper contributes to the interpretation and elaboration of the concept of sustainability. It outlines a procedure to measure the sustainability of production systems. The method presented in this paper is not an instant recipe to measure sustainability. However, it indicates the social and scientific barriers that are to be overcome in order to understand, elaborate and measure sustainability.