The main aim of this research project is the development of an innovative Sustainability Performance Evaluation Framework for the Public Sector (PS), allowing the integration of operational and strategic levels, including operational activities (e.g water, materials and energy consumption, waste production, air emissions), public policies and strategies, mandatory regulations and voluntary practices or standards.

Specific goals are: (i) The characterization of sustainability profile of the PS; (ii) The development of a sustainability self-assessment framework for public services backed by a checklist approach and indicators. A national case study – Portuguese PS – will be used to evaluate the usefulness, credibility and accuracy of this methodology; (iii) The definition of a set of criteria to give the label “sustainable public service”; (iv) The development of an interactive guidebook to support the use of the self assessment framework and to present guidelines for the implementation of sustainability good practices for each topic of the framework; (v) The development of a web-based graphical interface for sustainability performance benchmarking of PS organizations and for the publication and communication of result with all stakeholders involved.

This study wants to contribute to the ongoing debate about frameworks for PS public sector-sustainability integration, including to how to evaluate the evaluations, as a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of an evaluation, and conclusions about its overall utility, accuracy, validity, feasibility and propriety.