To provide tabular data on environmental conditions (elevations, climate, coastal) in which people reside.

To provide estimates of urban and rural populations and land areas in the low elevation coastal zone.

To provide quantitative metrics for evaluating a country's environmental performance in different policy categories relative to clearly defined targets.

To make the acquisition, comparison and analysis of sustainability indicators easier by compiling them in a single database, incorporating multiple country codes, and condensing the indicator descriptions into short methodological summaries in an accompanying data dictionary.

To help assess a country's demand on and supply of biological capital.

To provide population estimates, gross domestic product, and surface area data to be used in conjunction with the sustainability indicators included in the compendium.

To provide high spatial resolution subnational estimates of poverty and inequality for use by a wide user community for interdisciplinary studies of poverty, inequality and the environment.

To provide a global subnational map of the prevalence of underweight children that can be used by a wide user community in interdisciplinary studies of health, poverty and the environment.

To provide a global subnational map of infant mortality rate estimates that can be used by a wide user community in interdisciplinary studies of health, poverty and the environment.

To preserve access to the original set of socioeconomic and natural resource scenarios used by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) and other related research.

To provide a vector (point) version of the input administrative units used in GPWv3 for use in data integration.

To create a comparative index of national-level environmental sustainability and to provide a mechanism for making environmental management more quantitative, empirically grounded and systematic.

To provide tabular data on human appropriation of net primary productivity by country.

To provide insights into the processes that can negatively influence the sustainable development of countries, with particular reference to vulnerability to natural hazards.

To provide data on country-level GDP per capita and downscaled projections based on the SRES A1, A2, B1, B2 marker scenarios.

To provide data on country-level population and downscaled projections based on the SRES B2 marker scenario.

To provide data on country-level population and downscaled projections based on the SRES A1, B1, and A2 marker scenarios.

To provide tabular data on environmental conditions (elevations, climate, coastal) in which people reside.

To provide a comparative index of national-level environmental sustainability covering a number of sustainability dimensions.

To provide data to gauge broad similarities and differences of national progress on sustainability of countries, over time and relative to other nations.