Nowadays, the development of a sustainable indicators' framework towards the sustainable energy policy making should be characterized by clarity and transparency. Even though the energy policy making has been the subject of many researchers, studies proposing an appropriate framework of sustainable indicators that have to be used are not present in the international literature. The purpose of the current paper is to present an integrated review of the methodologies and the related activities of the energy indicators and to recommend an operational framework of appropriate indicators supporting thus the policy makers/analysts/citizens towards a sustainable energy policy making. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.