This paper evaluates the robustness of rankings obtained from composite indices that combine information from two or more components via a weighted sum. It examines the empirical prevalence of robust comparisons using the method proposed by Foster, McGillivray and Seth (2010). Indices examined are the Human Development Index, the Index of Economic Freedom and the Environmental Performance Index. Key theoretical results demonstrate links between the prevalence of robust comparisons, Kendall's correlation coefficient, and statistical association across components. Implications for redundancy among index components are also examined.

The role of Corporate Social Responsibility in the business world has developed from a fig leaf marketing front into an important aspect of corporate behavior over the past several years. Sustainable strategies are valued, desired and deployed more and more by relevant players in many industries all over the world. Both research and corporate practice therefore see CSR as a guiding principle for business success. The “Encyclopedia of Corporate Social Responsibility” has been conceived to assist researchers and practitioners to align business and societal objectives. All actors in the field will find reliable and up to date definitions and explanations of the key terms of CSR in this authoritative and comprehensive reference work. Leading experts from the global CSR community have contributed to make the “Encyclopedia of Corporate Social Responsibility” the definitive resource for this field of research and practice.

Assessing and Measuring Environmental Impact and Sustainability answers the question “what are the available methodologies to assess the environmental sustainability of a product, system or process?” Multiple well-known authors share their expertise in order to give a broad perspective of this issue from a chemical and environmental engineering perspective. This mathematical, quantitative book includes many case studies to assist with the practical application of environmental and sustainability methods. Readers learn how to efficiently assess and use these methods. This book summarizes all relevant environmental methodologies to assess the sustainability of a product and tools, in order to develop more green products or processes. With life cycle assessment as its main methodology, this book speaks to engineers interested in environmental impact and sustainability. Helps engineers to assess, evaluate, and measure sustainability in industry Provides workable approaches to environmental and sustainability assessment Readers learn tools to assess the sustainability of a process or product and to design it in an environmentally friendly way

Published to coincide with the Fourth United Nations Environmental Assembly, UN Environment's sixth Global Environment Outlook calls on decision makers to take bold and urgent action to address pressing environmental issues in order to protect the planet and human health. By bringing together hundreds of scientists, peer reviewers and collaborating institutions and partners, the GEO reports build on sound scientific knowledge to provide governments, local authorities, businesses and individual citizens with the information needed to guide societies to a truly sustainable world by 2050. GEO-6 outlines the current state of the environment, illustrates possible future environmental trends and analyses the effectiveness of policies. This flagship report shows how governments can put us on the path to a truly sustainable future - emphasising that urgent and inclusive action is needed to achieve a healthy planet with healthy people. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The 1991-1992 Green Index presents a complete report card on the environment of all 50 states.

This book describes EnvStats, a new comprehensive R package for environmental statistics and the successor to the S-PLUS module EnvironmentalStats for S-PLUS (first released in 1997). EnvStats and R provide an open-source set of powerful functions for performing graphical and statistical analyses of environmental data, bringing major environmental statistical methods found in the literature and regulatory guidance documents into one statistical package, along with an extensive hypertext help system that explains what these methods do, how to use these methods, and where to find them in the environmental statistics literature. EnvStats also includes numerous built-in data sets from regulatory guidance documents and the environmental statistics literature. This book shows how to use EnvStats and R to easily: * graphically display environmental data * plot probability distributions * estimate distribution parameters and construct confidence intervals on the original scale for commonly used distributions such as the lognormal and gamma, as well as do this nonparametrically * estimate and construct confidence intervals for distribution percentiles or do this nonparametrically (e.g., to compare to an environmental protection standard) * perform and plot the results of goodness-of-fit tests * compute optimal Box-Cox data transformations * compute prediction limits and simultaneous prediction limits (e.g., to assess compliance at multiple sites for multiple constituents) * perform nonparametric estimation and test for seasonal trend (even in the presence of correlated observations) * perform power and sample size computations and create companion plots for sampling designs based on confidence intervals, hypothesis tests, prediction intervals, and tolerance intervals * deal with non-detect (censored) data * perform Monte Carlo simulation and probabilistic risk assessment * reproduce specific examples in EPA guidance documents EnvStats combined with other R packages (e.g., for spatial analysis) provides the environmental scientist, statistician, researcher, and technician with tools to “get the job done!”

This publication launches the Inclusive Green Growth Index, a new comprehensive metric that captures the key dimensions of economic growth, social equity, and environmental sustainability. The index's 28 performance indicators cover various aspects of growth and policy outcomes in areas where higher investment will advance better quality of growth and living standards. Designed as an easy-to-use guide for policy makers and stakeholders in development, the Inclusive Green Growth Index builds on current measures and indices. It is a powerful tool for assessing a country’s progress in achieving its development goals.