| Measurement-based approaches | Process-oriented approaches | |
| Theoretical conceptual framework | Sustainable development targets and goals, 3 dimensional approach (social, economic, environmental) |
Dynamic systems
Complex adaptive systems |
| Focus of attention | Benchmarking and ranking | Identify and understand key drivers for sustainability |
| Main goal | Judge success in relation to the attainment of a target or goal | Explore potential future scenarios |
| Methodological approaches |
Composite
indices Goal-oriented frameworks |
System attribute-based frameworks |
| Main instruments | Quantitative, reliable, and verifiable indicators | Quantitative and soft modeling approaches, Narratives |
| Timing of the assessment | Ex post | Ex ante (planning) |
| Duration | Short-term assessments | Long-term assessments |
| Archetypical examples |
FESLM (Smyth and Dumanski
1993) CIFOR framework (Prabhu et al. 1999) Stockle et al. (1994) framework |
AMESH (Waltner-Toews and Kay
2005) Resilience analysis (Walker et al. 2002) Ostrom (2009) framework |