This article aims to evaluate the environmental sustainability of municipalities involved in the cultivation of sugar cane in the state of São Paulo, in the corresponding period of the 2007/2008 season. It is intended to contribute to researches on the subject, which are important for establishing public policies for the environmental management of natural resources in Brazil. The methodology involves building a Sustainability Assessment System (SAS) composed of indicators of socioeconomic and environmental dimensions of the 306 municipalities with the area planted with sugar cane over 5,000 hectares. The text shows that municipalities that invest in practices and effective instruments for environmental management are the ones with the best performance.
Environmental sustainability; Sugar cane; Public policy; Environmental management
