A Novel Approach to Evaluating Sustainable Development

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.