Environmental Sustainability in South America

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to determine the similarities in the context of environmental practices and sustainability of twelve South American countries and compares the environmental sustainability performance with six principal components. A multivariate analysis as a hierarchical method was carried out with 12 countries of South American with seventeen sustainable environmental indicators, secondary official data sources were consulted, namely the databases of ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), applying eigenvector and eigenvalues from the correlation matrix and Ward's method with squared Euclidean distances. The results suggest that the initial jumps in terms of distance are small. accordingly, the twelve countries analysed in study are grouped into five clusters. Deepening then in the perspective of characteristics of each cluster, CL1: Colombia, Venezuela, Suriname, Argentina and Bolivia; CL2: Guyana, Paraguay, Uruguay and Peru; CL3: Brazil; CL4: Ecuador; CL5: Chile. The research highlights significant differences among these South American countries, clustering those presenting similar patterns of behaviour and identifying the best performers. We argue that biodiversity must be protected and encouraged, and awareness raised of the importance of environmental sustainability and support the impact of climate change. Argentina, Uruguay and Chile face severe scarcity water issues and temperatures have risen in every country, but especially in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela.