Uso de indicadores para determinar la sostenibilidad de tres proyectos productivos de universidades en Costa Rica

Use of indicators to determine sustainability in three university production projects in Costa Rica. We implemented a matrix of indicators to estimate and compare the level of sustainability of three milk production projects in university facilities in San Carlos, Guacimo and Turrialba, Costa Rica. The method had several stages: determination of current and reference values for indicators, standardization, weighting, aggregation and graphing. We generated an aggregated index of sustainability that evaluated the development of herds in four dimensions: technical, ecological, economic and social development. The extreme index values were 0 (minimum) and 1 (optimal). The average relative yield was higher in the technical dimension (0,36), followed by the economic (0,25), ecological (0,24) and social (0,15) dimensions (herds varied). The PP-UCR presented a more balanced performance among dimensions: it presented the best performance in the technical dimension (0,22), followed by the economic dimension (0,19), ecological (0,16) and social (0,12). The PP-EARTH presented the lowest value, 0,11 in the ecological dimension, followed by social 0,10, technical 0,08 and economic 0,01. The top project was PP-UCR with an aggregated sustainability index of 0,70, followed by the PP-ITCR with 0,58. The methodology allowed identification of the areas that need further attention from the point of view of sustainable development.