Sustainable development is a popular and important concept, but one that is open to a variety of interpretations. The Joint UNECE/Eurostat/OECD Working Group on Statistics on Sustainable Development (2005-2008) made a breakthrough in this area by reaching a common understanding on the principles of how to measure sustainability. It also started to develop a small core set of indicators that would be comparable between countries. The outcome of this work is presented in the publication on Measurement Sustainable Development issued in 2009.

The Joint UNECE/Eurostat/OECD Task Force on Measuring Sustainable Development was established in 2008 to continue the work of the previous Working Group on Statistics for Sustainable Development. The Task Force will further pursue the conceptual development of the capital approach in identifying indicators to present the long-term dimension of sustainable development. In addition, indicators to present the distributional aspects under each capital indicator will be considered in order to respond to the needs of the policy makers.

 The draft report of the Joint UNECE/Eurostat/OECD Task Force is currently in electronic consultation. The deadline for comments and feedback is 25 January 2013.