A Multivariate Approach in Measurement of the Sustainable Development of European Countries

Abstract

Due to the rising importance and popularity of the concept of sustainable development, a huge number of various methodologies and concepts for measuring sustainability have evolved in the last few decades.  However, there are still challenges and issues that should be solved, suggesting the need for new approaches and sustainability metrics to be developed and proposed. The main goal of this paper is the present possibilities of application of I-distance methodology to measurement of the sustainable development as it could address some of the actual challenges related to subjective nature of usually applied normalization, weighting and aggregation methods.The proposed I-distance methodology was applied on a set of European countries. A twofold approach provided a deeper insight into not only domain dynamics, but also into total score dynamic. It can support policy makers to identify key indicators and focus the policy areas where appropriate policy measures would have the most significant influence on the overall positioning of the country.