This paper presents an Institutional Multi-factor Performance Assessment Criteria (IMPACT) Model, which will be used to test the performance of metropolitan governance institutions that are composed of Multi-Scalar Large Institutional Networks (MSLIN).

Exploring a rationale for limiting the term ‘sustainability’ to the project of sustaining the planetary ecology, this paper argues that ‘sustainability’ has been stripped of meaning by overuse and misuse in the interests of sustaining nothing but the status quo.

Much has been written about ‘sustainability’ and, as a result the discourse is replete with uncertainties, contradictions and confusion. This paper focuses on a single sustainability problem and the change in planning required to confront it.