IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v70y2011i3p475-486.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comparing region-specific sustainability assessments through indicator systems: Feasible or not?

Author

Listed:
  • van Zeijl-Rozema, Annemarie
  • Ferraguto, Ludovico
  • Caratti, Pietro

Abstract

Numerous indices help us to compare country and local performance in the field of human development, globalization and sustainable development. Obvious problems arise, such as data availability and data quality. A less obvious issue is that such sets and indices do not permit the inclusion of specific characteristics or discourses that are important in a country or region. This paper investigates the possibility of comparing regional sustainability assessments in four case studies, where the indicators vary from region to region, but the method of making the assessment is similar. The concepts of weak and strong comparability were used in this analysis. Comparability of sustainable development between different regions is not an issue of rigid comparison of indicator by indicator. It should take into account regional specifics. The resulting shift from strong to weak comparability should not be seen as a lessening of the quality of the assessment and decreasing comparability. Rather than focusing on individual indicators within frameworks that do not permit inclusion of regional developments, this approach allows to look at the broader picture of regional dynamics. It reveals specific regional weaknesses that need attention, and possible areas for building alliances between regions, thus creating a more sustainable Europe.

Suggested Citation

  • van Zeijl-Rozema, Annemarie & Ferraguto, Ludovico & Caratti, Pietro, 2011. "Comparing region-specific sustainability assessments through indicator systems: Feasible or not?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 475-486, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:70:y:2011:i:3:p:475-486
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921-8009(10)00384-8
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bohringer, Christoph & Jochem, Patrick E.P., 2007. "Measuring the immeasurable -- A survey of sustainability indices," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 1-8, June.
    2. Caratti, Pietro & Ferraguto, Ludovico & Riboldi, Chiara, 2006. "Sustainable Development Data Availability on the Internet," Sustainability Indicators and Environmental Valuation Working Papers 12226, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    3. Giuseppe Munda, 2005. "“Measuring Sustainability”: A Multi-Criterion Framework," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 117-134, January.
    4. Boulanger, Paul-Marie & Brechet, Thierry, 2005. "Models for policy-making in sustainable development: The state of the art and perspectives for research," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 337-350, November.
    5. Joachim H. Spangenberg, 2005. "Economic sustainability of the economy: concepts and indicators," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 8(1/2), pages 47-64.
    6. Martinez-Alier, Joan & Munda, Giuseppe & O'Neill, John, 1998. "Weak comparability of values as a foundation for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 277-286, September.
    7. Phillis, Yannis A. & Andriantiatsaholiniaina, Luc A., 2001. "Sustainability: an ill-defined concept and its assessment using fuzzy logic," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 435-456, June.
    8. Jasper Grosskurth & Jan Rotmans, 2005. "The Scene Model: Getting A Grip On Sustainable Development In Policy Making," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 135-151, January.
    9. Hueting, Roefie & Reijnders, Lucas, 2004. "Broad sustainability contra sustainability: the proper construction of sustainability indicators," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3-4), pages 249-260, October.
    10. Stefano Pareglio & Alessandro Vaglio & Marco Grasso & Stefania Migliavacca & Enzo Di Giulio, 2005. "Modelling sustainable human development in a capability perspective," Public Economics 0504008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Heinz-Herbert Noll, 2002. "Towards a European System of Social Indicators: Theoretical Framework and System Architecture," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 47-87, June.
    12. Reed, Mark S. & Fraser, Evan D.G. & Dougill, Andrew J., 2006. "An adaptive learning process for developing and applying sustainability indicators with local communities," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 406-418, October.
    13. Phil Mcmanus, 2008. "Mines, Wines and Thoroughbreds: Towards Regional Sustainability in the Upper Hunter, Australia," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(9), pages 1275-1290.
    14. Caratti, Pietro & Ferraguto, Ludovico, 2008. "Analysing Regional Sustainability Through a Systemic Approach: The Lombardy Case Study," Sustainability Indicators and Environmental Valuation Working Papers 37670, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    15. Mendoza, Guillermo A. & Prabhu, Ravi, 2006. "Participatory modeling and analysis for sustainable forest management: Overview of soft system dynamics models and applications," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 179-196, November.
    16. Graymore, Michelle L.M. & Sipe, Neil G. & Rickson, Roy E., 2008. "Regional sustainability: How useful are current tools of sustainability assessment at the regional scale?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 362-372, October.
    17. Kevin Morgan, 2004. "Sustainable regions: Governance, innovation and scale," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(6), pages 871-889, September.
    18. Rodrigo Jiliberto Herrera, 2006. "A new system epistemology for sustainable development analysis," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 9(3), pages 211-226.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arbolino, Roberta & Boffardi, Raffaele & Lanuzza, Francesco & Ioppolo, Giuseppe, 2018. "Monitoring and evaluation of regional industrial sustainability: Evidence from Italian regions," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 420-428.
    2. L. Hay & A. H. B. Duffy & R. I. Whitfield, 2017. "The S‐Cycle Performance Matrix: Supporting Comprehensive Sustainability Performance Evaluation of Technical Systems," Systems Engineering, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(1), pages 45-70, January.
    3. Olafsson, Snjolfur & Cook, David & Davidsdottir, Brynhildur & Johannsdottir, Lara, 2014. "Measuring countries׳ environmental sustainability performance – A review and case study of Iceland," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 934-948.
    4. Halla, Pekka & Merino-Saum, Albert, 2021. "Conceptual frameworks for urban sustainability indicators - an empirical analysis," SocArXiv vayq7, Center for Open Science.
    5. Tomás B. Ramos, 2019. "Sustainability Assessment: Exploring the Frontiers and Paradigms of Indicator Approaches," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-14, February.
    6. Gunnarsdottir, I. & Davidsdottir, B. & Worrell, E. & Sigurgeirsdottir, S., 2020. "Review of indicators for sustainable energy development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Castellani, V. & Sala, S., 2010. "Sustainable performance index for tourism policy development," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 871-880.
    2. Ferng, Jiun-Jiun, 2014. "Nested open systems: An important concept for applying ecological footprint analysis to sustainable development assessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 105-111.
    3. Gómez-Limón, José A. & Sanchez-Fernandez, Gabriela, 2010. "Empirical evaluation of agricultural sustainability using composite indicators," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 1062-1075, March.
    4. Attardi, Raffaele & Cerreta, Maria & Sannicandro, Valentina & Torre, Carmelo Maria, 2018. "Non-compensatory composite indicators for the evaluation of urban planning policy: The Land-Use Policy Efficiency Index (LUPEI)," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 264(2), pages 491-507.
    5. Allain, S. & Plumecocq, G. & Leenhardt, D., 2018. "Spatial aggregation of indicators in sustainability assessments: Descriptive and normative claims," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 577-588.
    6. Eleonora Bottani & Maria Carmen Gentilotti & Marta Rinaldi, 2017. "A Fuzzy Logic-Based Tool for the Assessment of Corporate Sustainability: A Case Study in the Food Machinery Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-29, April.
    7. Czyżewski, Bazyli, 2016. "Political Rents of European Farmers in the Sustainable Development Paradigm. International, national and regional perspective," MPRA Paper 74253, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Michelle L. M. Graymore, 2014. "Sustainability Reporting: An Approach to Get the Right Mix of Theory and Practicality for Local Actors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(6), pages 1-26, May.
    9. Mioara, BORZA, 2016. "The Sustainability Dashboard: An Appraisal Tool For Business Area Competitiveness," Contemporary Economy Journal, Constantin Brancoveanu University, vol. 1(2), pages 5-12.
    10. Kajsa Borgnäs, 2017. "Indicators as ‘circular argumentation constructs’? An input–output analysis of the variable structure of five environmental sustainability country rankings," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 769-790, June.
    11. Marletto, Gerardo & Mameli, Francesca, 2012. "A participative procedure to select indicators of policies for sustainable urban mobility. Outcomes of a national test," MPRA Paper 36433, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Burgherr, Peter & Hirschberg, Stefan, 2014. "Comparative risk assessment of severe accidents in the energy sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(S1), pages 45-56.
    13. Garmendia, Eneko & Stagl, Sigrid, 2010. "Public participation for sustainability and social learning: Concepts and lessons from three case studies in Europe," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 1712-1722, June.
    14. Salvatore Greco & Alessio Ishizaka & Menelaos Tasiou & Gianpiero Torrisi, 2019. "On the Methodological Framework of Composite Indices: A Review of the Issues of Weighting, Aggregation, and Robustness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 61-94, January.
    15. Siliacus Salvatory & Revocatus L. Machunda & Tulinave B. Mwamila, 2022. "An Evaluation of Sustainability Potential of Existing Septic Systems: A Fuzzy-Based Indexing Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-13, May.
    16. Giuseppe Munda, 2015. "Beyond Gdp: An Overview Of Measurement Issues In Redefining ‘Wealth’," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 403-422, July.
    17. Cantone, Giulio Giacomo & Tomaselli, Venera, 2024. "On the Coherence of Composite Indexes: Multiversal Model and Specification Analysis for an Index of Well-Being," MetaArXiv d5y26, Center for Open Science.
    18. Shmelev, Stanislav E., 2011. "Dynamic sustainability assessment: The case of Russia in the period of transition (1985-2008)," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 2039-2049, September.
    19. Purvis, Ben & Genovese, Andrea, 2023. "Better or different? A reflection on the suitability of indicator methods for a just transition to a circular economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    20. Mert Bilgin, 2012. "The PEARL Model of Sustainable Development," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 107(1), pages 19-35, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:70:y:2011:i:3:p:475-486. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.