PROCEDURE FOR DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF SYSTEMS ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS LOCAL SCALE. CASE STUDY CENTRAL UNIVERSITY "MARTA ABREU" OF THE VILLAS

Abstract

A study of the main systems of sustainability indicators is realized: Commission of Sustainable Development of the United Nations, Organization for the Cooperation and economic Development (OECD), Statistical Office of the European Communities. (EUROSTAT), Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), Division of statistics of the UN, (UNSD), and others initiatives. (Quiroga, 2001). In order to optimize efforts and time in the pickup of the data and the
information processing a screening of all the variables including in the different systems was defined an Index of Relative importance, by means of this index define more significant the
environmental variables on global scale. Later the indicators are defined to evaluate in each one of the environmental variables, this is based on the environmental diagnosis of the region that is evaluate. For the mathematical processing the professional software Mesarovic Globesigth has been used, which has been donated by the Chair of sustainability of UNESCO in Catalonia, (Sureda B, 2002). The method is being applied in the campus of the Central University “Marta Abreu” de Las Villas, but it can be extrapolated to other regions and organizations of the country. In summary a method permit to evaluate the environmental sustainability on local scale and serves as instrument in the decision making at different levels, allows to evaluate a territory or organization environmentally, as well as the projects of this type which they are carried out in the region and constitutes an element more in the environmental education of all the social actors. The systems of indicators obtained by this method are in correspondence with the main indicators that are reported in our national system of environmental indicators.