Indicators of Sustainable Development

Indicators & Objectives

Indicators by key word

Indicator quick links

The UK Government's core indicators of sustainable development Quality of life counts, first published in December 1999, have been brought together again with updated data and assessments of progress.

The Quality of life counts update leaves much of the explanatory material to the 1999 report and provides updates to the indicators only: Quality of life counts (1999) provides all the background details for the indicators and explains how they are linked to the 1999 sustainable development strategy (See especially sections 'Criteria for sustainable development - framework and models' and 'Consultation to develop the indicators' for information about the establishment of the indicators and the QoLC structure).

Within Quality of life counts the indicators are grouped into 6 themes and 18 families based on the structure and objectives of the 1999 Strategy A better quality of life: a strategy for sustainable development in the UK (May 1999). There is also an additional group of 16 indicators providing further analysis of the relationship between issues and their decoupling.

The 2004 update has been made available in Adobe Acrobat format for downloading. Microsoft Excel© files containing the indicator data can also be accessed below.

A PDF version of the entire document is available:

Quality of Life Counts 2004 Update (Note this is over 150 pages in length)