Towards a Framework for Evaluating Sustainable Society Index

Abstract

The Sustainable Society Index describes social progress along three dimensions: human, environmental and economic. Being a composite indicator, its aim is to be a comprehensive and quantitative measure of sustainability and a quality of life of a nation. The objective of this paper is to offer a new approach to a framework for objective evaluation of the SSI. To this end we have improved the SSI by implementing a statistical I-distance method that synthesizes several indicators into one quantitative indicator. The applied I-distance method offers the possibility to obtain an optimal set of variables for future revisions of the Sustainable Society Index. In addition, the differences in ranks between countries have been discussed. We hope that our results may initiate further studies concerning the framework of the Sustainable Society Index.

Keywords

• Country’s welfare
• I-distance
• Ranking of countries
• Sustainable development
• Sustainable Society Index