ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we introduced some of the narratives of sustainability and their conceptual underpinnings. In this chapter we take a selective look at the ways that these narratives have been put into practice. We begin with the idea of measuring sustainability, introduced in Chapter 3, and examine how approaches based in the biophysical sciences may differ from those in the social sciences. As a consequence of the ambiguity surrounding the concept of sustainability, and therefore what to measure, many attempts at measuring sustainability have emerged. The very large number of measures and indicators raises normative questions about what to measure, using what standards, and how to compare across contexts and scales. In the last three sections, we take an explicit look at sustainability from justice, governance, and globalization perspectives.
