I'm not sure what you mean specifically by "weak sustainability."  For example, a well sited article on weak sustainability in relationship to economic development is

Pearce, D. W., & Atkinson, G. D. (1993). Capital theory and the measurement of sustainable development: an indicator of “weak” sustainability. Ecological economics, 8(2), 103-108.

See also: Gutés, Maite Cabeza. "The concept of weak sustainability." Ecological economics 17, no. 3 (1996): 147-156.

These concepts can also be applied to the environmental sustainability and to the intersection of economic and environmental sustainability. 

Munda, Giuseppe. "“Measuring sustainability”: a multi-criterion framework." Environment, Development and Sustainability 7, no. 1 (2005): 117-134.

Do a google scholar search: measuring weak sustainability.

I'm not sure what you mean specifically by "weak sustainability."  For example, a well sited article on weak sustainability in relationship to economic development is

Pearce, D. W., & Atkinson, G. D. (1993). Capital theory and the measurement of sustainable development: an indicator of “weak” sustainability. Ecological economics, 8(2), 103-108.

See also: Gutés, Maite Cabeza. "The concept of weak sustainability." Ecological economics 17, no. 3 (1996): 147-156.

These concepts can also be applied to the environmental sustainability and to the intersection of economic and environmental sustainability. 

Munda, Giuseppe. "“Measuring sustainability”: a multi-criterion framework." Environment, Development and Sustainability 7, no. 1 (2005): 117-134.

Do a google scholar search: measuring weak sustainability.

Thank you for the response

Hello,

Just for the sake of comprehensiveness on GS, you can find genuine savings data compiled by the world band over there:

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.ADJ.SVNG.GN.ZS

And we have a survey article available, where you can find some extra references.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joes.12120/abstract

Best of luck,

Louis Dupuy

Thank Louis Dupuy

There are a number of indices that measure sustainability from different perspectives. For instance, the income inequality index (Gini) suggests that larger income gaps between the richest and poorest citizens may presage instability. 

There are ways to measure values and check if its weak of strong. There are business houses that have looked at quantification of the values of sustainability mechanisms. They call it "True Value" by PricewaterhouseCoopers and "True Cost" by KPMG and Ernst and Young.These are in the web. At the end of the say, it is not weak or strong, the gauge should be "it is appropriate " based on the context and requirements of the activity or operation.

Dear Dr. Ovat, 

I was working few minutes ago with this subject in my class. I think you can find sound answers in the article "Modelling sustainability: from applied to

involved modelling", Francis Lalöe, Social Science Information © 2007 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), 0539–0184

DOI: 10.1177/0539018407073659 Vol 46(1), pp. 87–107; 073659.

In this paper, Lalöe discusses the concepts and example of weak sustainability - that takes place when trade-offs between different categories of capitals - ecological, economic, for instance - are allowed. Weak sustainability is an expression that intends to mean exchanges of natural capital stocks by other types of capital, as financial, when people deal with transactive aspects of sustainability. I am particularly reluctant to such kind of trade-off because I think it turns every good subject to monetary assessment and able to be negotiated only under material bases, and denies the possibility of natural stocks preservation, and the possibility of phronesis and ethos as values in themselves, as contemplative values, or values not submitted to human transaction. Also, I think you can find a good source of reflexion in the article of Garret Hardin, "The Tragedy of the COmmons", as a criticism of the idea (not stated as such) of waek sustainability - please, look at: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/162/3859/1243.full.pdf

Thanks

Dear Ovat, this is very interesting question. I know very interesting article about this issue called: "Measuring Weak Sustainability for the future: Calculating Genuine Saving with population change by an integrated assessment model".

http://www.webmeets.com/files/papers/EAERE/2009/417/submit2.pdf

Also, I offer you this article, it is very interesting.

Dear Eteri, Thanks for taking out time to contribute to my question. the links and article are valuable

Weak sustainability is measured by Genuine Savings, this is a sustainable development measure. There is a related welfare measure Green Net National Product see Hamilton and Clemes (1999) available here http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.452.7532&rep=rep1&type=pdf.

Both of those indicators are derived from neoclassical economic theory. There are many alternative indicators such as the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare and Genuine Progress Indicator but these suffer from a lack of theoretical rigor see Neumayer (1999) available here https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=163128.