The Composite Sustainability Indicator methodology provides a foundation for sustainability evaluation at the system (industrial) level that integrate seven aspects of sustainability: social, socio-economic, economic, eco-efficiency, environmental, socio-environmental and institutional. It incorporated multi-criteria analysis principles and an empirical “indicator-scoring” mechanism that integrated these seven aspects into a holistic evaluation of an industry’s sustainability at the system level that can be tailored to specific industries and operations.  It can be used to demonstrate the economic benefits for pollution prevention, substitution of materials, and use of mass and energy balances in the design of sustainable systems. The framework adequately takes into consideration the various types of sustainability within industrial systems. It considers indicators that provide descriptions of the systemic nature of the industry, instead of focusing on indicators that provide a one-dimensional, piecewise evaluation of economic performance and environmental compliance.