{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,11]],"date-time":"2026-05-11T01:42:02Z","timestamp":1778463722206,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":61,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,17]],"date-time":"2021-12-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1639699200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Sustain."],"abstract":"<jats:p>A novel thermodynamic approach to the quantification of the \u201cdegree of sustainability\u201d is proposed and discussed. The method includes a rigorous -and innovative- conversion procedure of the so-called externalities that leads to their expression in terms of the exergy of their equivalent primary resources consumption. Such a thermodynamic approach suggests a detailed re-evaluation of the concept of sustainability because it is well-known that the Second Law strictly negates the possibility for any open and evolving system to maintain itself in a \u201csustainable\u201d state without availing itself of a continuous supply of low-entropy (i.e., high specific exergy) input. If a human society is modeled as an open system, its capacity to \u201cgrow sustainably\u201d depends not only on how it uses non-renewable resources, but also on the rate at which it exploits the renewable ones. The necessary inclusion of different forms of energy- and material flows in such an analysis constitutes <jats:italic>per se<\/jats:italic> an argument in favor of a resource-based exergy metrics. While it is true that the thermodynamically oriented approach proposed here neglects all of the non-thermodynamic attributes of a \u201csustainable system\u201d (in the Bruntland sense), it is also clear that it constitutes a rigorous basis on which different physically possible scenarios can be rigorously evaluated. Non-thermodynamic indicators can be still used at a \u201csecond level analysis\u201d and maintain their usefulness to indicate which one of the \u201cthermodynamically least unsustainable\u201d scenarios is most convenient from an ethical or socio-economic perspective for the considered community or for the society as a whole. The proposed indicator is known as \u201cExergy Footprint,\u201d and the advantages of its systematic application to the identification of \u201csustainable growth paths\u201d is discussed in the Conclusions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/frsus.2021.739395","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,17]],"date-time":"2021-12-17T08:59:35Z","timestamp":1639731575000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":14,"title":["A Thermodynamic Measure of Sustainability"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"2","author":[{"given":"Enrico","family":"Sciubba","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"2767","DOI":"10.3390\/en14102767","article-title":"Extended Exergy Analysis (EEA) of Italy, 2013-2017","volume":"14","author":"Biondi","year":"2021","journal-title":"Energies"},{"key":"B2","volume-title":"The Second Law of Thermodynamics (Theoretical Physics and Philosophical Problems)","author":"Boltzmann","year":"1905"},{"key":"B3","volume-title":"Die Bewertung W\u00e4rmetechnischer Prozesse mit Hilfe der Exergie, in Energie und Exergie","author":"Bosnjakovic","year":"1965"},{"key":"B4","volume-title":"The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth, Proc. 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