Monday, June 23, 2008

Sustainability Evaluation Checklist (SEC)

A sustainability evaluation checklist (SEC) was developed within the realm of my dissertation. Over 100 sustainability and evaluation experts and practitioners around the world provided their feedback for improving the original checklist. Thanks to their input, the new and revised version of the checklist is shared on

http://www.sustainabilityeval.net/


Sustainability can be evaluated as an element in its own right or as part of a more comprehensive evaluation. Linkages to process, outcome, and impact evaluations exist. Sustainability is inherent in:

  • Persistence of the institution
  • Persistence of program activities, services, interventions (this includes transferability to other contexts or replication of programming)
  • Persistence of resulting changes for individuals (humans), society (e.g., culture, institutions, etc.), economy, and the environment

The SEC is a continuous work in progress and will be revised according to new insights, feedback, and (of course) available time and resources. If you use the SEC, please share your experience with me:

  • What works?
  • What doesn’t work?
  • Do you have any cases or examples that could be shared with users of the SEC?