SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION 3 (2015) 34–44 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Sustainable Production and Consumption journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/spc Selection and identification of the indicators for quickly measuring sustainability in micro and small furniture industries Alexandre André Feil ∗ , Daniela Muller de Quevedo, Dusan Schreiber Universidade Feevale, Pós-Graduação em Qualidade Ambiental, Endereço: ERS-239, 2755, CEP 93352-000, Vila Nova, Novo Hamburgo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil ABSTRACT The continued existence of life on the planet depends on the quality of the environment, which is responsible for providing humanity’s basic resources. The concept of sustainability was thought up in order to create conditions for protecting the environment. It is founded on three main aspects, namely, social, economic, and environmental. Thus, the aim of this study is to identify and select a set of indicators in order to measure the industrial sustainability of the micro and small-sized furniture industry in particular. This study follows the qualitative/quantitative exploratory method, so the text mining technique was used in the literature review, and the Delphi method was used in the application of the survey, and in its analysis, the level of consensus and weighted average. The results present a set of twelve environmental indicators, seven social and seven economic, with a cut-off criterion for the environmental and social indicators in level of consensus ≥ 0.7 and weighted average ≥ 4.5, and for the economic indicators in LC ≥ 0.5 and WA ≥ 4.2. The selected indicators are in line with the desired qualities and necessary characteristics to make these industries more sustainable. It is concluded that the proposed set of indicators entails a holistic view which covers the triple bottom line, selected based on the criterion for quick measurement of sustainability and its specific application in micro and small furniture industries. Keywords: Indicators selection model; Sustainability indicators; Delphi method; Text mining technique; Rapid assessment c ⃝ 2015 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The transformations our planet is facing have disrupted the environmental balance, and human beings are the main cause of these changes, which include deforestation, ex- tinction of animal species, pollution (of the water, soil, and air), greenhouse gases, changes in climate, global warming, exhausting of natural resources, and more. To Krajnc and Glavic (2003), these changes were brought on by unsustain- able production and consumption on a global scale. The sub- ject of sustainability, in particular, is therefore essential in ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: alexandre.feil1@gmail.com (A.A. Feil), danielamq@feevale.br (D.M. de Quevedo), dusan@feevale.br (D. Schreiber). Received 13 June 2015; Received in revised form 19 August 2015; Accepted 24 August 2015; Published online 7 September 2015. mitigating damage that human beings cause the environment (Chen et al., 2013). The aim of sustainability here is to encourage industries to measure and evaluate their pollution levels, and to identify the direction and changes necessary to reach sustainable equilibrium (Erol et al., 2009). The obstacle pointed out by Linnenluecke and Griffiths (2010) concerns the lack of knowledge of sustainable practices and measurement. Measuring sustainability with the use of performance in- dicators is the most effective way to go about it (Staniskis and Arbaciauskas, 2009). However, the identification and selection http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2015.08.006 2352-5509/ c ⃝ 2015 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.