Monitoring for sustainable development: a systemic framework

'Sustainable development' is a widely used, but less practised, complex term. Using the idea of 'Viability Loops' (VL) based on a System Dynamics (SD) approach and considering sustainability as an ideal for development efforts, this paper argues that sustainable development should be considered as an unending process rather than a state. Thus, a systemic framework is proposed to 'monitor' systems for sustainable development, rather than 'measuring' their sustainability. Then, it is shown that a set of theoretically anticipated VL, in the form of a market-technology balancing mechanism, do not function in practice owing to a lack and/or distortion of information.