As mudanças na mensuração da sustentabilidade no paradigma da Civilização Ecológica: uma análise sobre a província de Guizhou

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the paradigm shift for assessing environmental sustainability in the context of Ecological Civilization in China. To this end, a case study of Guizhou, one of the provinces with the highest poverty rates and lowest urbanization in the country, was carried out. The theoretical framework underpinning this analysis is based on the sociological theory of Risk Society by Beck (2000, 2010, 2011) and the discussions about the recent transformations of the concept of the Chinese Ecological Civilization (Pan, 2016; Zhang, 2021; Weins et al., 2023). The research fulfills exploratory purposes and adopts bibliographic and documentary analysis and selection for the understanding of the topic and the case study. Early results indicate that the indicators and assessment tools of Ecological Civilization in the province have a qualitative rather than quantitative approach, combined with widely adopted data measurement methodologies, such as Fuzzy, TOPSIS and AHP multi-criteria decision methods. The study points to alternative paths in the sustainability debate.