IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v28y2020i6p1528-1538.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risks of producing and using indicators of sustainable development goals

Author

Listed:
  • Jari Lyytimäki
  • Hanna Salo
  • Robert Lepenies
  • Leonie Büttner
  • Jyri Mustajoki

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) aim to provide humanity with a global roadmap to sustainability. Official SDG indicators have been intensively developed, and they have a prominent and pronounced role as a key monitoring and policy instrument. Furthermore, various complementary or alternative indicator sets have been introduced at the global, regional and national levels. This article focuses on the risks related to the national indicators. The analysis is based on experiences from the preparation processes of sustainable development indicators in Finland and insights from indicator professionals and stakeholders in Finland and Germany. The risks related to overuse, nonuse and misuse of indicators are analyzed from the perspectives of indicator contents, processes of production and communication and external context factors. Opportunities for avoiding different risks and improving the desired societal impacts and influences of indicator usage are discussed. The concept of risk is helpful in terms of empirical diagnosis and for formulating mitigation recommendations.

Suggested Citation

  • Jari Lyytimäki & Hanna Salo & Robert Lepenies & Leonie Büttner & Jyri Mustajoki, 2020. "Risks of producing and using indicators of sustainable development goals," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(6), pages 1528-1538, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:28:y:2020:i:6:p:1528-1538
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.2102
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2102
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sd.2102?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marttunen, Mika & Haag, Fridolin & Belton, Valerie & Mustajoki, Jyri & Lienert, Judit, 2019. "Methods to inform the development of concise objectives hierarchies in multi-criteria decision analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 277(2), pages 604-620.
    2. Jari Lyytimäki & Henrik Gudmundsson & Claus Hedegaard Sørensen, 2014. "Russian Dolls and Chinese Whispers: Two Perspectives on the Unintended Effects of Sustainability Indicator Communication," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(2), pages 84-94, March.
    3. Paul-Marie Boulanger, 2007. "Political uses of social indicators: overview and application to sustainable development indicators," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 10(1/2), pages 14-32.
    4. Dietram A. Scheufele & Nicole M. Krause, 2019. "Science audiences, misinformation, and fake news," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116(16), pages 7662-7669, April.
    5. Sakiko Fukuda‐Parr & Desmond McNeill, 2019. "Knowledge and Politics in Setting and Measuring the SDGs: Introduction to Special Issue," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 10(S1), pages 5-15, January.
    6. Malay, Olivier E., 2019. "Do Beyond GDP indicators initiated by powerful stakeholders have a transformative potential?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 100-107.
    7. P.C.R. Gray & P. M. Wiedemann, 1999. "Risk management and sustainable development: mutual lessons from approaches to the use of indicators," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(3), pages 201-218, July.
    8. Bill Hopwood & Mary Mellor & Geoff O'Brien, 2005. "Sustainable development: mapping different approaches," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(1), pages 38-52.
    9. Takehiro Hatakeyama, 2018. "Sustainable development indicators: Conceptual frameworks of comparative indicators sets for local administrations in Japan," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(6), pages 683-690, November.
    10. Jyri Mustajoki & Mika Marttunen, 2019. "Improving resilience of reservoir operation in the context of watercourse regulation in Finland," EURO Journal on Decision Processes, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 7(3), pages 359-386, November.
    11. Ergül Halisçelik & Mehmet Ali Soytas, 2019. "Sustainable development from millennium 2015 to Sustainable Development Goals 2030," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 545-572, July.
    12. Stephen Morse, 2016. "Measuring the Success of Sustainable Development Indices in Terms of Reporting by the Global Press," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 125(2), pages 359-375, January.
    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. Custodio, Henry M. & Hadjikakou, Michalis & Bryan, Brett A., 2023. "A review of socioeconomic indicators of sustainability and wellbeing building on the social foundations framework," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    2. Hametner, Markus, 2022. "Economics without ecology: How the SDGs fail to align socioeconomic development with environmental sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    3. Florian Findler, 2021. "Toward a sustainability assessment framework of research impacts: Contributions of a business school," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(6), pages 1190-1203, November.
    4. Larissa Oliveira‐Duarte & Diane Aparecida Reis & Andre Leme Fleury & Rosana Aparecida Vasques & Homero Fonseca Filho & Mikko Koria & Julia Baruque‐Ramos, 2021. "Innovation Ecosystem framework directed to Sustainable Development Goal #17 partnerships implementation," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(5), pages 1018-1036, September.
    5. Noella Edelmann & Shefali Virkar, 2023. "The Impact of Sustainability on Co-Creation of Digital Public Services," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-21, February.
    6. Crabolu, Gloria & Font, Xavier & Eker, Sibel, 2023. "Evaluating policy complexity with Causal Loop Diagrams," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    7. Maximilian Kardung & Dušan Drabik, 2024. "The European Union's circular bioeconomy: What do the indicators tell us?," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 70(5), pages 199-206.
    8. Isabel‐María García‐Sánchez & Cristina Aibar‐Guzmán & Miriam Núñez‐Torrado & Beatriz Aibar‐Guzmán, 2022. "Are institutional investors “in love” with the sustainable development goals? Understanding the idyll in the case of governments and pension funds," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1099-1116, October.
    9. Robert Lepenies & Ibrahim Sidi Zakari, 2021. "Citizen Science for Transformative Air Quality Policy in Germany and Niger," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-21, April.
    10. Mehrab Nodehi & Abbas Assari Arani & Vahid Mohamad Taghvaee, 2022. "Sustainability spillover effects and partnership between East Asia & Pacific versus North America: interactions of social, environment and economy," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 311-339, December.
    11. repec:caa:jnlage:v:preprint:id:195-2023-agricecon is not listed on IDEAS

    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. Hametner, Markus & Kostetckaia, Mariia, 2020. "Frontrunners and laggards: How fast are the EU member states progressing towards the sustainable development goals?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    2. Hametner, Markus, 2022. "Economics without ecology: How the SDGs fail to align socioeconomic development with environmental sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    3. Olivier E. Malay, 2021. "How to Articulate Beyond GDP and Businesses’ Social and Environmental Indicators?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 1-25, May.
    4. Olivier E. Malay, 2020. "How to articulate beyond GDP and businesses’ social and environmental indicators?," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2020014, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    5. Pekka Halla & Albert Merino‐Saum, 2022. "Conceptual frameworks in indicator‐based assessments of urban sustainability—An analysis based on 67 initiatives," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1056-1071, October.
    6. Brennan Lowery & John Dagevos & Ratana Chuenpagdee & Kelly Vodden, 2020. "Storytelling for sustainable development in rural communities: An alternative approach," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(6), pages 1813-1826, November.
    7. Svatava Janoušková & Tomáš Hák & Vlastimil Nečas & Bedřich Moldan, 2019. "Sustainable Development—A Poorly Communicated Concept by Mass Media. Another Challenge for SDGs?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-20, June.
    8. Xie, Chengyuan & Jin, Xiaotong, 2023. "The role of digitalization, sustainable environment, natural resources and political globalization towards economic well-being in China, Japan and South Korea," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    9. Jari Lyytimäki, 2023. "Storylines nailing or failing sustainability: Energy, mining and mobility as narrative arenas for societal transition," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(1), pages 170-179, February.
    10. Endl, Andreas & Tost, Michael & Hitch, Michael & Moser, Peter & Feiel, Susanne, 2021. "Europe's mining innovation trends and their contribution to the sustainable development goals: Blind spots and strong points," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    11. Shuang Liu & Kirsten Maclean & Cathy Robinson, 2019. "A cost-effective framework to prioritise stakeholder participation options," EURO Journal on Decision Processes, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 7(3), pages 221-241, November.
    12. Chen, Shih-Chih & Hung, Chung-Wen, 2016. "Elucidating the factors influencing the acceptance of green products: An extension of theory of planned behavior," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 155-163.
    13. Mario Pansera & Fabien Martinez, 2017. "Innovation for development and poverty reduction: an integrative literature review," Post-Print hal-02887777, HAL.
    14. Dawid Szostek, 2019. "The Impact of the Quality of Interpersonal Relationships between Employees on Counterproductive Work Behavior: A Study of Employees in Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-33, October.
    15. Ida Kubiszewski & Kenneth Mulder & Diane Jarvis & Robert Costanza, 2022. "Toward better measurement of sustainable development and wellbeing: A small number of SDG indicators reliably predict life satisfaction," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 139-148, February.
    16. Dang, Hai-Anh H. & Serajuddin, Umar, 2020. "Tracking the sustainable development goals: Emerging measurement challenges and further reflections," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    17. Thor Olav Iversen, 2023. "Boundary experts: Science and politics in measuring the Sustainable Development Goals," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 14(4), pages 600-610, September.
    18. Alpaslan Kelleci & Oğuz Yıldız, 2021. "A Guiding Framework for Levels of Sustainability in Marketing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-14, February.
    19. Matheus B. Frare & Ana P. C. Clauberg & Simone Sehnem & Lucila M. S. Campos & Juliano Spuldaro, 2020. "Toward a sustainable development indicators system for small municipalities," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(5), pages 1148-1167, September.
    20. Witold Chmielarz & Marek Zborowski, 2022. "On the Assessment of e-Banking Websites Supporting Sustainable Development Goals," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-20, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wly:sustdv:v:28:y:2020:i:6:p:1528-1538. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

    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.