ABSTRACT
Sustainability has undoubtedly become an almost consensual normative horizon, in the academic and policy making spheres, despite its numerous interpretations. No consensus has been reached on a definition and there is heterogeneity on the matter. However, ecological economics proposes a specific ontological standpoint regarding sustainability, which is well encapsulated in the picture of three concentric circles—the economy is part of a social system which is itself a part of ecosystems and the biosphere—conveying the idea of an ordered hierarchical system (Spash, 2012: 43–44). Such a preanalytic vision bears consequences for the type of indicators used to assess sustainability.
