Against the background of the UN and German green economy concept and the German sustainability
strategy, we developed the sustainability gap index (SGI) as a measuring framework for monitoring the
transformation process of German society in an indicatorͲbased ex post integrated assessment approach.
The sustainability gap index (SGI) enables us to deliver data about the current status of sustainability to
inform political decision makers and the public about the progress of the German socioͲeconomic and
ecological transition in the context of the German green economy.
Based on our results, policy makers can learn about the current sustainable development of society, i.e.
whether normative and derived sustainability orders are congruent. If not, they can decide whether to
intervene in all political themes simultaneously, or if they wish to promote themes with the greatest
distance from sustainable development or the shortest distance from sustainable societal development.
They can also decide whether they wish to develop measures to reduce the heterogeneity of the
development in the themes to achieve a homogenous green economy development.