How to measure and evaluate progress in achieving the “overarching objective” of sustainable production and consumption?

At the 1992 Earth Summit, world leaders acknowledged that unsustainable production and consumption patterns are the major cause of environmental degradation. These patterns drive climate change, biodiversity loss, and other global crises. In 2002 the World Summit on Sustainable Development identified sustainable production and consumption as one of the “overarching objectives” of sustainable development. However, to achieve this objective — to develop appropriate policies, programs, and criteria for critical decisionmaking — we need scientific consensus on how to define, measure, and evaluate progress. If this “overarching objective” is to be taken serious by the international community as a global priority it needs to be grounded in meaningful, operational definitions and measures.