Evaluating the Sustainable Development of a Region Using a System of Indicators

The development of new indicators enabling us to evaluate degrees of sustainability and positive and negative trends of sustainable development is called for by the necessity of creating a new development paradigm, a transition to the sustainable development of world, national and regional economies. The traditional macroeconomic indicators available in this sphere ignore ecological degradation. In academic discourse, there are more and more references to the failure of traditional indicators, like GDP, income, and welfare growth to take account of the negative ecological and social consequences of economic activity. For example, Repetto et al. (1989, p. 2) have stated that: there is a dangerous asymmetry today in the way we measure, and hence, the way we think about, the value of natural resources […] their loss entails no debit charge against current income that would account for the decrease in potential future production. A country could exhaust its mineral resources, cut down its forests, erode its soils, pollute its aquifers, and hunt its wildlife and fisheries to extinction, but measured income would not be affected as these assets disappeared.