It reviews the merits of various sustainability and environmental metrics and applies these to 27 countries that are ranked low, medium or high on the human development index. It assesses their resource capacities and the environmental impacts, both within and outside their country boundaries, from consuming food, water, and energy. It explores how well the available country-level indices enlighten us regarding our ability to accurately measure the continued sustainability of food, water, and energy for future generations. The authors discuss both the commonality and uniqueness of several countries' food, water, and energy stories as a process to identify the links between resource uses and sustainability at a country level. The final section uses the lessons derived from the earlier analyses of resource consumption to explore the importance of geography, climates and sustainable management of forests and other natural resources for building resilient societies in the future.

Toral Patel-Weynand is an Affiliate Associate Faculty at the University of Washington (UW) and an Associate of the Forest Systems and Bioenergy, University of Washington. She has been a biologist in the U.S. Geological Survey, BRD/Biological Informatics group. She served as co-lead on the Pacific Biodiversity Information Facility and the Ocean Biogeographic Information Network and work closely with Japan, Australia and New Zealand and Pacific Island Countries both bilaterally and in multilateral fora on biological data sharing. She also served as the U.S. delegation lead to United Nations Environment Programme on Strengthening the Scientific Base of UNEP. She has co-authored or edited several books.

Maura Shelton is a Research Associate with the Forest Systems and Bioenergy in the College of Forest Resources at the University of Washington. She is presently an NSF IGERT Bioenergy Fellow developing geospatial techniques to determine appropriate sites from biomass removal that include cultural attributes.

Daniel J Vogtis Associate Professor in Soils and Ecosystem Ecology of the College of Forest Resources at the University of Washington. He is an internationally-recognized scholar with over 50 author credits. He is also currently a senior consultant of Interforest, LLC, a sustainable forestry consulting firm, and a partner in a start-up bioenergy company, Renewol, which employs a mobile generator that uses low quality wood and cellulosic waste to produce methanol.

John C. Gordon is Chairman of Interforest, LLC, a sustainable forestry consulting firm, and a founder of the Candlewood Timber Group, Inc., a sustainable forestry company with forestland and operations in Argentina. He is also Pinchot Professor Emeritus of Forestry and Environmental Studies at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where he was Dean from 1983-1992, and again in 1997-98. He has authored, coauthored or edited over 150 papers and books. He also is currently a partner in two start-up companies, Renewol, a bioenergy company producing a mobile methanol generator to use low quality wood and cellulosic waste, and Maximum Yield Associates, which does global searches for productive forest sites and advises on increasing forest plantation yields.

Calvin T Mukumoto is the President of Renewol LLC, a start-up company producing a mobile methanol generator to use low quality wood and cellulosic wastes, and the Chief financial Officer for TSS Consultants. He is an experienced manager working at the senior executive level providing strategic business planning, business viability assessments, capital budget analysis, marketing, interim management, contract negotiation, project management, information systems development and turnaround management services

Asep S Suntana is a Research Associate in the Forest Systems and Bioenergy program at the University of Washington. He was one of the co-founders of the Indonesian Ecolabelling Institute Foundation (Yayasan Lembaga Ekolabel Indonesia/YLEI) in 1998 and also a Co-founder of RMI-the Indonesian Institute for Forest and Environment in 1992.

Patricia A Roads is the Communications Director for the Center for Adaptive Policies in Ecosystems International, a non-profit organization originally based in Washington and now in Iceland. She has considerable experience in publishing and writing op-ed pieces for the lay media as well as for the scientific media outlets on energy, use of forest materials for energy, rural community recovery efforts after disturbances and social adaptation to them. She has co-authored several publications and been an editor on publications produced by the Indonesian Institute for Forest