From the Concept to the Measurement of Sustainable Competitiveness: Social and Environmental Aspects

Abstract

Objective: This article offers an extensive review of Sustainable Competitiveness as an integrating concept bridging current understandings around sustainable development and encompassing the aspects of economic, social and environmental sustainability. Research Design & Methods: Concepts related to sustainable development are reviewed and their relationships to Sustainable Competitiveness are considered. The concept of Sustainable Competitiveness is related to a set of effective metrics. Findings: The Sustainability Adjusted Global Competitiveness Index (SGCI), which comprehensively measures cross-country sustainable competitiveness, is identified as a credible synthetic metric for measuring separate aspects of sustainable development across a range of countries. Implications & Recommendations: The approach enables disaggregation between three separate elements which have an impact on sustainable competitiveness, namely Basic Conditions, Efficiency Enhancers and Innovation Conditions. It is concluded that extending the measurement from GCI to SGCI offers a potential for considering international competitiveness performance from the environmental and social sustainability perspectives. Extensions to SGCI are also proposed. Contribution & Value Added: The conceptual discussion indicates that the main features relevant to sustainable development appear in the concept and the measure of sustainable competitiveness. The application of the measure to a time-series of data would permit an analysis of the relationships between economic, social and environmental aspects (separately) with measured sustainable competitiveness.