Over the thirteen years since the Brundtland Commission's original formulation of the concept of Sustainable Development, we have learned that sustainable development calls for us to apply our current best management practices and tools in an appropriately larger context. Businesses who concentrate their listening on customers and shareholders have tuned their antennae to broader concerns of stakeholders, activists and communities. Governments and non-government organizations have expanded their circles of concern in a similar manner.

The planning, operational management and control processes that traditionally have served organizations well in their pursuit of economic and financial goals can be applied equally to environmental and social performance. Organizations have extended their incentives to reinforce and reward progress towards a broad set of goals. The greatest incentive, however, for an increasing number of organizations, is the competitive advantage and differentiation gained as customers, the public, and other stakeholders recognize and value progress towards sustainable development.

As is the case for well-established financial reporting practices, the periodic reporting of progress towards sustainable development, by nations or organizations, is a key step in ongoing dialogue with stakeholders. Truth be told, however, such reporting is sporadic, non-standardized, and idiosyncratic. Economic models defining the costs and benefits of sustainability using real world, organizational practices data are exceeding rare.

Globally, we are making progress towards sustainable development - although not enough, and not as fast as we need to. There are too few companies willing to offer time series data on essential measures or elements of their sustainability-related practices. While there are corporations that are part of international dialogues on experimenting with protocols-- the GRI, for example-- these are disclosure rather than benchmark standards.

There are technical uncertainties about how to present measurable site or operational data within the context of regional ecosystem data. No significant international company has offered to eschew self-congratulatory self-audit prose in favour of co-operative and consensual, international technical leadership.