Evaluation of Basic Environment Plan using Sustainable Development Indicators in Japan

Abstract

Various nations and international organizations have adopted the theme based framework as the theoretical one for sustainable development indicators (SDIs). However, the difficulty in grasping an overall direction towards the sustainable development is a disadvantage of the theme based framework. Using the SDIs adopted in the Environmental Basic Plan of Japan, the present study aimed to comprehensively evaluate directions towards the sustainable development. As a result, it was revealed that an overall direction toward the sustainable development could be evaluated using evaluation methods presented by Eurostat (2014). It was also shown that, from the viewpoint of usefulness, it is valid to set the threshold value to 0.5 or 1.0 in these methods.