Sustainable development aims to use resource in a way so that, human needs could be fulfilled in present as well as future. The prime elements of sustainable development are economy, society and environment. Steps are being taken by governments to ensure sustainable development across the entire spectrum. But to ensure the process of sustainable development is being implemented in the planned way, indicators are used.
To get better understanding about the term ‘Sustainable development indicators’, we need to understand ‘indicator’ first. Indicator is basically a parameter which gives needed information about the event. These indicators are used as performance tabs or checks. In order to bring sustainable economic development, several projects are executed and numerous resources are used. In those cases, indicators are used to measure performance which provides useful insight about the desirable changes and process implementation.
These indicators are used in measuring sustainable environmental, social and economical development processes. If we talk about sustainable social indicators; employment rate, literacy rate, poverty ratio, population growth rate, safe drinking water, population density, infant mortality rate, fertility rate, GDP spent on education, life expectancy at birth (years), GNP spent on health, environmentally related diseases, rate of growth of urban population, vehicles in use and calorie intake per capita are the prime indicators which help in measuring sustainable social development.
The economic indicators of sustainable development are gross exports and imports, GDP growth rate, reserves of natural resources and annual energy consumption per capita. There are separate economic institutional indicators which are sum total of steps taken by the government for natural environmental and projects related to both urban and sustainable development.
Similarly, to measure sustainable environment development, indicators being used are; detection and usage of ground waster resources, assorting and treatment in urban areas, waste water generation, pesticide and fertilizer usage, groundwater potential, rate of deforestation, waste water generation, municipal solid waste management, marine fish catch, land use pattern, forest cover, per capita carbon dioxide emissions, population of live stock, wood energy resources, rate of extinction of protected species, and production & consumption of ozone depleting substances etc.