A Novel Approach to Evaluating Sustainable Development
Zoran Radojicic
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Laboratory for Statistics, Jove Ilica 154, 11000 Belgrade (Serbia)
Sonja Isljamovic
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Laboratory for Statistics, Jove Ilica 154, 11000 Belgrade (Serbia)
Natasa Petrovic
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Laboratory for Statistics, Jove Ilica 154, 11000 Belgrade (Serbia)
Veljko Jeremic
jeremicv@fon.rsUniversity of Belgrade, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Laboratory for Statistics, Jove Ilica 154, 11000 Belgrade (Serbia)
Abstract
Sustainable development is a difficult issue to measure and there is no one method agreed upon. In this article a statistical method, which synthesizes many indicators into one quantitative indicator is proposed. 27 member states of the European Union has been analyzed. The results have demonstrated that Sweden and Denmark are the two top EU countries concerning sustainable development. On the other hand, the newest EU members, such as Latvia, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania and Slovakia, remain at the bottom of the ranking. It is a challenge for the EU, since it has the ambition to take a lead on sustainable development on the global level.
It should be emphasized, that the proposed statistical method can be applied to all other regions of the world and can provide useful information as to whether the world is actually moving towards the goals of sustainable development.
Keywords:
sustainable development, I-distance method, ranking of countriesReferences
A-LAGILLI S., JEREMIC V., SEKE K., JEREMIC D., RADOJICIC Z., 2011, Evaluating the health of nations: a Libyan perspective, in: Libyan Journal of Medicine, vol. 6, article 6021, doi: 10.3402/ljm.v6i0.6021.
Google Scholar
BRUNI M.E., GUERRIERO F., PATITUCCI V., 2011, Benchmarking Sustainable Development via Data development Analysis: an Italian case study, in: International Journal of Environmental Research, vol. 5, no 2, p. 47-56.
Google Scholar
DURBIN P. T., Humanitarian Motives for Sustainable Development in a Global Economy: An Essay, in: Problemy Ekorozwoju/ Problems of Sustainable Development, vol. 5, no 1, p. 9-13.
Google Scholar
EU ENERGY POLICY, 2010, http://www.energy.eu/renewables/eu-charts/RE-in-final.html (31.08.2011).
Google Scholar
EUROSTAT, 2010, http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/sdi/indicators/ (8.06.2011).
Google Scholar
DAVIDSON E.A., You can’t eat GNP: Economics as if ecology mattered, Peresus, Cambridge 2000.
Google Scholar
GREENWOOD D., 2004, A Foucaultian analysis of environmental education: Toward the socioecological challenge of the Earth Charter, in: Curriculum Inquire, vol. 34, no 1, p. 71-107.
Google Scholar
HU J., XIAO Z.B., ZHOU R.J., DENG W.J., WANG M.X., MA S.S., 2011, Ecological utilization of leather tannery waste with circular economy model, in: Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 19, no 2-3, p. 221-228.
Google Scholar
IVANOVIC B., A method of establishing a list of development indicators, United Nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, Paris 1973.
Google Scholar
IVANOVIC B., Classification Theory, Institute for Industrial Economic, Belgrade, 1977.
Google Scholar
IVANOVIC B., FANCHETTE S., Grouping and ranking of 30 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, Two distance-based methods compared, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Paris 1973.
Google Scholar
JEREMIC V., RADOJICIC Z., 2010, A New Approach in the Evaluation of Team Chess Championships Rankings, in: Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports., vol. 6, no 3, article 7.
Google Scholar
JEREMIC V., BULAJIC M., MARTIC M., RADOJICIC Z., 2011a, A fresh approach to evaluating the academic ranking of world universities, in: Scientometrics, vol. 87, no 3, p. 587-596.
Google Scholar
JEREMIC V., ISLJAMOVIC S., PETROVIC N., RADOJICIC Z., MARKOVIC A., BULAJIC M., 2011b, Human development index and sustainability: What’s the correlation?, in: Metalurgia International, vol. 16, no 7, p. 63-67.
Google Scholar
JEREMIC V., VUKMIROVIC D., RADO-JICIC Z., DJOKOVIC A., 2011c, Towards a framework for evaluating ICT infrastructure of countries: a Serbian perspective, in: Metalurgia International, vol. 16, no 9, p. 15-18.
Google Scholar
JEREMIC V., MARKOVIC A., RADOJICIC Z., 2011d, ICT as crucial component of socio-economic development, in: Management, vol. 16, no 60.
Google Scholar
JEREMIC V., SEKE K., RADOJICIC Z., JEREMIC D., MARKOVIC A., SLOVIC D., ALEKSIC A., 2012, Measuring health of countries: a novel approach, in: HealthMED, vol. 6, no 1.
Google Scholar
KRAS E., 2011, The Deep Roots of Sustainability, in: Problemy Ekorozwoju/Problems of Sustainable Development, vol. 6, no 1, p. 11-30.
Google Scholar
MIHAILOVIC N., BULAJIC M., SAVIC G., 2009, Ranking of banks in Serbia, in: YUJOR, vol. 19, no 2, p. 323–334.
Google Scholar
MIHCI H., MOLLAVELIGIU S., 2011, An Assessment of Sustainable Agriculture in the OECD Countries with Special Reference to Turkey, in: New Medit, vol. 10, no 2, p. 4-17.
Google Scholar
MITCHELL R.B., 2006, The effectiveness of international environmental regimes – problem structure, institutional design, and the relative effectiveness of international environmental agreements, in: Global Environmental Politics, vol. 6, no 3, p. 72-88.
Google Scholar
MOFFAT I., HANLEY N., WILSON M.D., Measuring and Modeling Sustainable Development, The Parthenon Publishing Group, Bristol 2001.
Google Scholar
MUNDA G., NARDO M., 2009, Non-compensatory/nonlinear composite indicators for ranking countries: a defensible setting, in: Applied Economics, vol. 41, no 12, p. 1513-1523.
Google Scholar
NESS B., URBEL-PIIRSALU E., ANDER-BERG S., OLSSON L., 2007, Categorizing tools for sustainability assessment, in: Ecological Economics, vol. 60, p. 498-508.
Google Scholar
PAWŁOWSKI A., 2009, The Sustainable Development Revolution, in: Problemy Ekorozwoju/ Problems of Sustainable Development, vol. 4, no 1, p. 65-76.
Google Scholar
PETROVIC N., ISLJAMOVIC S., JEREMIC V., 2010, Zero waste as a new concept for sustainable development, in: Management, vol. 15, no 57, p. 39-45.
Google Scholar
PETROVIC N., ISLJAMOVIC S., JEREMIC V., VUK D., SENEGACNIK M., 2011a, Ecological Footprint as indicator of students environmental awareness level at Faculties of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade and University of Maribor, in: Management, vol. 16, no 58, p. 15-21.
Google Scholar
PETROVIC N., DRAKULIC M., VUJIN V., DRAKULIC R., JEREMIC V., 2011b, Climate changes and green information technologies, in: Management, vol. 16, no 59, p. 35-43.
Google Scholar
PITT C., GRECO G., POWELL JACKSON T., MILLS A., 2011, Countdown to 2015: assessment of official development assistance to maternal, newborn, and child health, 2003-08, in: Lancet, vol. 376, no 9751, p. 1485-1496.
Google Scholar
POLIMENI J.M., 2011, Factor Five: Transforming the Global Economy Through 80% Improvements in Resource Productivity, in: Ecological Economics, vol. 70, no 6, p. 1240-1241.
Google Scholar
POPE G,. ANNANDALE D., MORRISON-SAUNDERS A., 2004, Conceptualising sustainability assessment, in: Environmental Impact Assessment Review, vol. 24, p. 595-616.
Google Scholar
REDCLIFT M. R., 2009, Sustainable Development (1987 – 2005) – an Oxymoron Comes of Age, in: Problemy Ekorozowju/ Problems of Sustainable Development vol. 4, no 1, p. 33-50.
Google Scholar
ROPKE I., 2005, Trends in the development of ecological economics from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, in: Ecological Economics, vol. 55, no 2, p. 262-290.
Google Scholar
STEINBERGER J.K., KRAUSMANN F., EISENMENGER N., 2010, Global patterns of materials use: A socioeconomic and geophysical analysis, in: Ecological Economics, vol. 69, no 5, p. 1148-1158.
Google Scholar
QUENTAL N., LOURENCO J., NUNES DA SILVA F., 2011, Sustainable Development Policy: Goals, Targets and Political Cycles, in: Sustainable Development, vol. 19, p. 15-29.
Google Scholar
The Earth Charter, 2008, http://earth charterinaction.org/2000/10/the_earth_charter.html (28.V.2011).
Google Scholar
TUZIAK A., 2010, Socio-economic aspects of sustainable development on global and local level, in: Problemy Ekorozwoju/Problems of Sustainable Development, vol. 5, no 2, p. 39-49.
Google Scholar
UNDSD – United Nations Division for Sustainable Development, 2008, National Sustainable Development Strategies: the Global Picture, http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/natlinfo/nsds/nsds_map2008.pdf (12.05.2011).
Google Scholar
UNEP – United Nations Environment Program, Global Environment Outlook 4: Environment for Development, Progress, Valletta 2007.
Google Scholar
WCED – World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1987.
Google Scholar
ZHONG W., YUAN W., LI S.X., HUANG Z.M., 2011, The performance evaluation of regional R&D invest-ments in China: An application of DEA based on the first official China economic census data, in: Omega, vol. 39, no 4, p. 447-455.
Google Scholar
Authors
Zoran RadojicicUniversity of Belgrade, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Laboratory for Statistics, Jove Ilica 154, 11000 Belgrade Serbia
Authors
Sonja IsljamovicUniversity of Belgrade, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Laboratory for Statistics, Jove Ilica 154, 11000 Belgrade Serbia
Authors
Natasa PetrovicUniversity of Belgrade, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Laboratory for Statistics, Jove Ilica 154, 11000 Belgrade Serbia
Authors
Veljko Jeremicjeremicv@fon.rs
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Laboratory for Statistics, Jove Ilica 154, 11000 Belgrade Serbia
Statistics
Abstract views: 10PDF downloads: 3
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.