Purpose: – The purpose of this paper is to propose a sustainability measurement and scoring system for assessing the efforts of organizations at meeting sustainability targets. Using technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) as the basic framework, the proposed method incorporates all three sustainability dimensions – economic, environmental and social – to establish a threshold below which an organization is considered to have failed a sustainability test. In Addition, an introduction of a time-independent threshold enables a clearer comparison of performance of organizations over time. The proposed method includes plots for visualizing the sustainability performance of organizations under review. Design/methodology/approach: – The proposed method first assigns target values to a hypothetical organization. TOPSIS is then used to generate composite scores in which the score of the hypothetical organization is set as the threshold below which organizations are deemed to have failed a sustainability test. Using the square of the closeness coefficient of TOPSIS, the final composite score is decomposed into three components to reflect the contribution of the three dimensions of sustainability to serve as a guide to determining which dimension to focus on for improvement. A relative comparison score is then proposed to track the performance of organizations over time. Findings: – The proposed method with its ability to set a threshold is able to determine organizations that have passed a sustainability test from those that have failed. The tracking of organizational performance over time also serves to highlight progress being made by organizations to meet an agreed sustainability target. Results from the application of the proposed method for evaluating sustainability of banks under the three dimensions of sustainability highlight its practical applicability. The proposed method can also be applied to a wide range of comparison problems including make-or-by decisions and award selection. Practical implications: – As most industries and organizations become conscious of the pressure to adopt sustainable practices, the proposed measuring system would help identify those that are meeting sustainability targets as well as to track their progress over time. Originality/value: – Most sustainability measurement indicators rarely have thresholds to determine whether an organization has met or failed to meet a sustainability test other than ranking them from top to bottom. The proposed method provides a threshold as well as a procedure for tracking the sustainability performance of organizations over time.

Sub-Saharan Africa consumes far less energy per capita than world energy use per capita, yet energy efficiency is far lower in Africa. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has been active in developing an energy efficiency policy aiming to improve efficiency levels in the region to be comparable to world levels. However, benchmarks used for the policy are based on traditional efficiency and intensity ratios. We examine the energy efficiency and energy productivity changes of ECOWAS members using nonparametric non-radial efficiency and dynamic productivity assessment techniques that take into consideration undesirable outputs. We find differences in the nature and levels of energy efficiency and sources of inefficiency among member states. We also observe that the major source of energy productivity growth in the region mainly relates to technical changes outside direct state control. There is a need for institutionalization of energy efficiency in the region by considering country-specific policies.

Community energy initiatives play a significant role at the grassroots level in the transition to Renewable Energy Communities and a low-carbon economy. However, these initiatives are hampered by multiple barriers at the market, institutional, organisational, and individual level. Funding cuts of state-supported feed-in tariff (FiT) policy in major markets such as Germany, Japan, China and the additional capping of the number of new installations that could be accredited under the FiT scheme in the UK. In light of these market changes and the need to accelerate the development and growth through the creation of new and/or complementary future community energy models consisting of private investors, a detailed understanding of the dynamics of community energy investor characteristics and socio-psychological motivations is increasingly important. First, a review is conducted including the theories that underpin and explain the factors that affect investor behaviour, after which a conceptual framework to examine investor behaviours towards socially responsible community energy initiatives is developed. The framework is used as the basis to construct and administer a survey involving sampling of 295 UK investors in community energy initiatives and the subsequent statistical analysis of the survey data and discussions of the findings. The results first capture the differences among investors with differing regional affect and investment behaviours. The study also provides the needed insight into better understanding the dynamics of investor characteristics and motivations of community energy initiatives. Results also indicate that investors are predominantly ethically-oriented, particularly toward environmental concerns. Additionally, community and social factors also appear to play significant roles in investor participation while financial orientation is least dominant.