Estimating sustainability gaps: methods and preliminary applications for the UK and the Netherlands

This paper sets out and applies a new methodology for determining whether or not economic activity is environmentally sustainable. By comparing current environmental impacts with standards of environmental sustainability, it calculates the ‘sustainability gaps’ (SGAPs) with respect to different environmental impacts. For the UK, SGAPs are computed for CO2, SO2, and other air pollutants. Across none of these environmental themes can current UK...