scholarly journals A mega-index for the Americas and its underlying sustainable development correlations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Ross Shaker
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Geometric Mean ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Indicators

Indicators and their composite indices have been embraced as development tools for guiding humanity toward a sustainable destination. In response, public and private organizations have generated hundreds of these metrics, making their application overwhelming to policymakers, planners, and scientists. Past reviews have revealed that a majority of common development indices have theoretical or quantitative shortcomings, supporting that there is no consensus regarding their theoretical basis, design, use, thresholds-of-effect, or validation. In response, this study was designed around four guiding research questions: (i) What are the underlying development themes within a collection of established sustainability indices, and what distinguishes winning locations from losing ones? (ii) Are the three major divisions of sustainability (economic growth, social equity, environmental integrity) equally represented by current sustainable development measuring initiatives? (iii) Could just a few common and freely available indicators capture all present dimensions of sustainable development? (iv) Would a new sustainable development mega-index research paradigm improve humanity’s ability to assess progress toward sustainability? Those questions were investigated using data from 30 mostly contiguous Western Hemisphere nations and three amassing methodological objectives. First, 31 known indices were reduced into underlying dimensions (factors) of sustainable development. Next, those factors were combined (aggregated) into the first mega-index of sustainable development (MISD). Finally, 11 common development indicators were explored regarding collinearity and explanatory power of the sustainable development dimensions and MISD. Seven latent dimensions (sub-metrics) captured over 85% of the variation of the original 31 indices, with socioeconomic themes dwarfing environmental ones. The factors conveyed: (F1) socioeconomic well-being synergies; (F2) economic freedom and democracy; (F3) environmentally efficient happiness; (F4) ecosystem wellbeing; (F5) peace to economic vulnerability tradeoff; (F6) natural resources protection; and (F7) environmental stewardship and risk resilience. MISD is the geometric mean of the seven sub-metrics,which were directed toward sustainability, and rescaled (normalized) 0 (worst case) to 100 (best case). Geographically, this study ranked Belize best overall, followed by Guyana, Panama, Uruguay, and Canada; Barbados ranked worst, preceded by Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, and Cuba. Winning countries were characterized by low population density, increased forestland, decreased urban, and larger country area. Child mortality and population growth rate remained negative predictors of socioeconomic conditions; however per-capita CO2 sacrificed ecological integrity for improved human well-being. Mega-index creation will serve as an important scientific stepping-stone for improving accuracy and simplifying valuations of sustainable development, thus others should follow.

scholarly journals A mega-index for the Americas and its underlying sustainable development correlations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Ross Shaker
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Geometric Mean ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Indicators

Indicators and their composite indices have been embraced as development tools for guiding humanity toward a sustainable destination. In response, public and private organizations have generated hundreds of these metrics, making their application overwhelming to policymakers, planners, and scientists. Past reviews have revealed that a majority of common development indices have theoretical or quantitative shortcomings, supporting that there is no consensus regarding their theoretical basis, design, use, thresholds-of-effect, or validation. In response, this study was designed around four guiding research questions: (i) What are the underlying development themes within a collection of established sustainability indices, and what distinguishes winning locations from losing ones? (ii) Are the three major divisions of sustainability (economic growth, social equity, environmental integrity) equally represented by current sustainable development measuring initiatives? (iii) Could just a few common and freely available indicators capture all present dimensions of sustainable development? (iv) Would a new sustainable development mega-index research paradigm improve humanity’s ability to assess progress toward sustainability? Those questions were investigated using data from 30 mostly contiguous Western Hemisphere nations and three amassing methodological objectives. First, 31 known indices were reduced into underlying dimensions (factors) of sustainable development. Next, those factors were combined (aggregated) into the first mega-index of sustainable development (MISD). Finally, 11 common development indicators were explored regarding collinearity and explanatory power of the sustainable development dimensions and MISD. Seven latent dimensions (sub-metrics) captured over 85% of the variation of the original 31 indices, with socioeconomic themes dwarfing environmental ones. The factors conveyed: (F1) socioeconomic well-being synergies; (F2) economic freedom and democracy; (F3) environmentally efficient happiness; (F4) ecosystem wellbeing; (F5) peace to economic vulnerability tradeoff; (F6) natural resources protection; and (F7) environmental stewardship and risk resilience. MISD is the geometric mean of the seven sub-metrics,which were directed toward sustainability, and rescaled (normalized) 0 (worst case) to 100 (best case). Geographically, this study ranked Belize best overall, followed by Guyana, Panama, Uruguay, and Canada; Barbados ranked worst, preceded by Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, and Cuba. Winning countries were characterized by low population density, increased forestland, decreased urban, and larger country area. Child mortality and population growth rate remained negative predictors of socioeconomic conditions; however per-capita CO2 sacrificed ecological integrity for improved human well-being. Mega-index creation will serve as an important scientific stepping-stone for improving accuracy and simplifying valuations of sustainable development, thus others should follow.

scholarly journals Reflecting Disaster Risk in Development Indicators

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junko Mochizuki ◽  
Asjad Naqvi
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Risk Reduction ◽  
Disaster Risk Reduction ◽  
National Level ◽  
Disaster Risk ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Global Agenda

Disasters triggered by hazards, such as floods, earthquakes, droughts, and cyclones, pose significant impediments to sustainable development efforts in the most vulnerable and exposed countries. Mainstreaming disaster risk is hence seen as an important global agenda as reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) 2015–2030. Yet, conventional development indicators remain largely negligent of the potential setbacks that may be posed by disaster risk. This article discusses the need to reflect disaster risk in development indicators and proposes a concept disaster risk-adjusted human development index (RHDI) as an example. Globally available national-level datasets of disaster risk to public and private assets (including health, educational facilities, and private housing) is combined with an estimate of expenditure on health, education, and capital formation to construct an RHDI. The RHDI is then analyzed across various regions and HDI groups, and contrasted with other HDI variants including inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI) and the gender-specific female HDI (FHDI) to identify groups of countries where transformational disaster risk reduction (DRR) approaches may be necessary.

scholarly journals Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): Implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Romania

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 2156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Firoiu ◽  
George H. Ionescu ◽  
Anca Băndoi ◽  
Nicoleta Mihaela Florea ◽  
Elena Jianu
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
National Level ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
2030 Agenda ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Implementation Status

Romania needs a change of the current development paradigm to face the challenges of the 21st century. As a member of the European Union, leaders in Romania are is interested in implementing the principles of sustainable development at a national level to reduce development gaps, to increase citizens’ well-being, and to preserve a clean environment. The purpose of this research is to determine the implementation status of the 2030 Agenda sustainable development goals (SDG) in Romania and to explore to what extent Romania will be able to reach, for the 2030 horizon, EU average values for the selected indicators. The research is based on 107 indicators that monitored the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Eurostat database (sustainable development indicators) was the source of data in terms of their availability and integrity. The research results showed that the implementation status of SDG is sub-optimal. In the case of 40 indicators out of the 107 analyzed, forecasts indicate the possibility of reaching the EU average values by 2030. However, the country can remain on the path to sustainable development only by involving all stakeholders and increasing concrete and well-targeted measures to improve SDG indicators.

Sustainable Development Indicators

2013 ◽  
pp. 312-334
Author(s):  
Mihai Mieila ◽  
Valerica Toplicianu
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Material Wealth ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
Sustainable Development Indicators ◽  
Comprehensive Development ◽  
Scientific Challenge

Since the economic development ceased to represent by itself the main issue in achieving human well-being—at least for western societies—scientists have discovered that the sustainability may represent an even more significant threat for human civilisation in a fundamental sense, almost irrespective of material wealth. Sustainability assumes that the economic development is deployed in compliance with the other facets of human demand for well-being: preservation of biodiversity and climate, the human rights, the integrate approach of distributional justice, etc. Evaluation of development sustainability represents a real scientific challenge, proved by the wide variety of indicators in existing national and international sets. The Sustainable Development Indicators (SDIs) are the practical tool that address the balance between the development and sustainability, ensures evaluation and translation of knowledge into meaningful and manageable units of information to support analyses and research, and to inform planning and decision-making. There are pointed out the fundamentals of SDIs design and theoretic specific frameworks. As the majority of indicators are applicable straightforward, the main focus in presentation is upon the calculation algorithm of aggregate SDIs. In this respect, the chapter comprises the estimation algorithm of capital components of wealth; also, there are introduced the human life quality and environmental indicators, that can represent a suitable complement of wealth measurement, for a comprehensive development in agreement with the surrounding nature, society, and respect for future generations.

Challenges of the Crisis: How to Measure Sustainable Development?

2015 ◽  
pp. 147-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Bobylev ◽  
N. Zubarevich ◽  
S. Solovyeva
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Environmental Indicators ◽  
Calculation Methods ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Index ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
Sustainable Development Indicators ◽  
Adjusted Net Savings

The article emphasizes the fact that traditional socio-economic indicators do not reflect the challenges of sustainable development adequately, and this is particularly true for the widely-used GDP indicator. In this connection the elaboration of sustainable development indicators is needed, taking into account economic, social and environmental factors. For Russia, adaptation and use of concepts and basic principles of calculation methods for adjusted net savings index (World Bank) and human development index (UNDP) as integral indicators can be promising. The authors have developed the sustainable development index for Russia, which aggregates and allows taking into account balanced economic, social and environmental indicators.

scholarly journals Sustained sustainable development actions of China from 1986 to 2020

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bingsheng Liu ◽  
Tao Wang ◽  
Jiaming Zhang ◽  
Xiaoming Wang ◽  
Yuan Chang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Development Levels ◽  
The Right ◽  
Resource Conditions

AbstractAchieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a long-term task, which puts forward high requirements on the sustainability of related policies and actions. Using the text analysis method, we analyze the China National Sustainable Communities (CNSCs) policy implemented over 30 years and its effects on achieving SDGs. We find that the national government needs to understand the scope of sustainable development more comprehensively, the sustained actions can produce positive effects under the right goals. The SDGs selection of local governments is affected by local development levels and resource conditions, regions with better economic foundations tend to focus on SDGs on human well-being, regions with weaker foundations show priority to basic SDGs on the economic development, infrastructures and industrialization.

scholarly journals Sustainable AI: AI for sustainability and the sustainability of AI

AI and Ethics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aimee van Wynsberghe
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Computing Power ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Sociotechnical System ◽  
Societal Values ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractWhile there is a growing effort towards AI for Sustainability (e.g. towards the sustainable development goals) it is time to move beyond that and to address the sustainability of developing and using AI systems. In this paper I propose a definition of Sustainable AI; Sustainable AI is a movement to foster change in the entire lifecycle of AI products (i.e. idea generation, training, re-tuning, implementation, governance) towards greater ecological integrity and social justice. As such, Sustainable AI is focused on more than AI applications; rather, it addresses the whole sociotechnical system of AI. I have suggested here that Sustainable AI is not about how to sustain the development of AI per say but it is about how to develop AI that is compatible with sustaining environmental resources for current and future generations; economic models for societies; and societal values that are fundamental to a given society. I have articulated that the phrase Sustainable AI be understood as having two branches; AI for sustainability and sustainability of AI (e.g. reduction of carbon emissions and computing power). I propose that Sustainable AI take sustainable development at the core of its definition with three accompanying tensions between AI innovation and equitable resource distribution; inter and intra-generational justice; and, between environment, society, and economy. This paper is not meant to engage with each of the three pillars of sustainability (i.e. social, economic, environment), and as such the pillars of sustainable AI. Rather, this paper is meant to inspire the reader, the policy maker, the AI ethicist, the AI developer to connect with the environment—to remember that there are environmental costs to AI. Further, to direct funding towards sustainable methods of AI.

scholarly journals Integrating Sustainable Development and Children’s Rights: A Case Study on Wales

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 100
Author(s):  
Rhian Croke ◽  
Helen Dale ◽  
Ally Dunhill ◽  
Arwyn Roberts ◽  
Malvika Unnithan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Deliberative Processes

The global disconnect between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), has been described as ‘a missed opportunity’. Since devolution, the Welsh Government has actively pursued a ‘sustainable development’ and a ‘children’s rights’ agenda. However, until recently, these separate agendas also did not contribute to each other, although they culminated in two radical and innovative pieces of legislation; the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure (2013) and the Well-being and Future Generations (Wales) Act (2015). This article offers a case study that draws upon the SDGs and the CRC and considers how recent guidance to Welsh public bodies for implementation attempts to contribute to a more integrated approach. It suggests that successful integration requires recognition of the importance of including children in deliberative processes, using both formal mechanisms, such as local authority youth forums, pupil councils and a national youth parliament, and informal mechanisms, such as child-led research, that enable children to initiate and influence sustainable change.

scholarly journals Biology in the 21st-Century: Transformation in biology science and education in supporting the sustainable development goals

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yudha Gusti Wibowo ◽  
Ali Sadikin
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Biology Education ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Good Health ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
New Biology ◽  
Zero Hunger

The transformation in education must be directed in accordance with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) program. This article aimed to discuss the potential support of New Biology in achieving the formulated SDGs. This literature review covered 31 articles which were published since 2010 to 2019. The keywords used to collect the data were new biology, future biology, biology education, biological science, and biology. The review results informed that New Biology can potentially enact five goals of SDGs, i.e. goal 2 (Zero Hunger), goal 3 (Good Health and Well-being), goal 4 (Quality Education), goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), and goal 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy). By considering the findings, it is suggested to promote New Biology approach in Indonesian educational system.

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