Global Sustainability Index Research Articles

Linking quality of life and sustainability in Canadian cities

In this study, we explore the relationship between urban quality of life and sustainability in 171 Canadian cities, each with a population of over 25,000. To do so, we built four indices—quality of life, socioeconomic sustainability, environmental sustainability, and a combined global sustainability index—to investigate factors that are associated with cities scoring above average on quality of life and sustainability indices. Our findings reveal a significant positive relationship between quality of life and all three sustainability indices. However, a weaker correlation between quality of life and the Environmental Index suggests potential shortcomings in urban environmental policies. Furthermore, disaggregated analyses enabled us to identify two significant factors influencing quality of life and both the global and socioeconomic sustainability indices: lower crime rates, which reflect safety and equity to some degree, and higher median incomes, which indicate the capability to afford a better standard and variety of goods and services. Notably, while certain indicators such as cultural expenditure, transit ridership, housing costs, city greenness, and waste production do not directly correlate with quality of life, their significance within the realms of socioeconomic and environmental sustainability suggests a long-term impact on quality of life. By improving sustainability through environmental and socioeconomic measures, city authorities can further enhance the quality of life for residents.

Digital Innovations for Sustainable Development in the Time of Crisis

This article aims to explore the relationship between digital innovations and sustainable development before and during the pandemic, taking into consideration the level of development of countries. The authors employed both qualitative and quantitative methods, including a critical review of the literature and the analysis of a database of 31 European countries, using various indicators such as the global sustainability index, global innovation index, human capital and research, infrastructure, business sophistication, knowledge and technology outputs, country innovation performance, and creative output. The investigated European countries have been categorized into three clusters based on the level of sustainable development, and their characteristics before and during the pandemic have been examined. The study also explored the relationship between global sustainability and digital innovation. The results suggest that global action is needed to address structural factors perpetuating inequality and underdevelopment in less-developed countries. Hence, this research offers insights into the potential of digital innovations in promoting sustainable development during crises. Policymakers, development practitioners, and scholars interested in sustainable development can benefit from this research to design more effective policies and interventions for different country clusters to understand the impact of the pandemic on sustainable development and develop more effective responses.

Sustainability assessment model for mass housing's interior rehabilitation and its validation to Ekbatan, Iran

Mass housing (MH) buildings from the ‘60s to the ‘80s, after decades of continuous use and inadequate maintenance, cause several sustainability issues and need rehabilitation. Most current conventional rehabilitation approaches have long been criticized because they consider neither sustainability requirements nor contemporary building standards. In this regard, the assessment and selection of suitable approaches for rehabilitating MH interiors, from a holistic sustainability viewpoint, is a crucial issue that faces several challenges since this is a multidisciplinary and multi-criteria process. On this subject, the present study develops a novel MCDM model based on the MIVES and Delphi methods for the holistic sustainability assessment of MHs’ interior rehabilitation considering involved stakeholders' preferences. This MIVES-Delphi model relies on a comprehensive literature review, experts' seminars, on-site surveying, LCA, BIM, user/expert-based questionnaires, bias reduction, and sensitivity analysis. The model was first applied in the Ekbatan MH case study, the largest MH in Iran, to assess the sustainability of four different interior rehabilitation scenarios, including three common rehabilitation scenarios plus an innovative one. Consequently, the new model was validated, and the most sustainable scenario was selected. The specific results regarding these scenarios' evaluation disclosed that none of the common rehabilitation scenarios could either meet the minimum sustainability target value or serve as proper solutions for MH's interior rehabilitation. Contrarily, the fourth scenario, with a global sustainability index of 0.71, could meet the standard minimum target. This outcome provides a possibility for innovative rehabilitation processes to have positive effects on increasing the sustainability performance in MH buildings.

Evaluation of the Sustainable Development Goals in the Diagnosis and Prediction of the Sustainability of Projects Aimed at Local Communities in Latin America and the Caribbean

The purpose of this article is to help to bridge the gap between sustainability and its application to project management by developing a methodology based on artificial intelligence to diagnose, classify, and forecast the level of sustainability of a sample of 186 projects aimed at local communities in Latin American and Caribbean countries. First, the compliance evaluation with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the framework of the 2030 Agenda served to diagnose and determine, through fuzzy sets, a global sustainability index for the sample, resulting in a value of 0.638, in accordance with the overall average for the region. Probabilistic predictions were then made on the sustainability of the projects using a series of supervised learning classifiers (SVM, Random Forest, AdaBoost, KNN, etc.), with the SMOTE resampling technique, which provided a significant improvement toward the results of the different metrics of the base models. In this context, the Support Vector Machine (SVM) + SMOTE was the best classification algorithm, with accuracy of 0.92. Lastly, the extrapolation of this methodology is to be expected toward other realities and local circumstances, contributing to the fulfillment of the SDGs and the development of individual and collective capacities through the management and direction of projects.

Global Sustainability Index (GSI) construction: an evaluation tool for public policies directed at sustainable milk production in contemporary time

Sustainable development refers to agricultural and industrial activities and the understanding of sustainability assumes greater complexity, which requires economic, social, environmental, institutional, technological, cultural and geographical emphasis to be considered, because what is sustainable for one region may not be for another. The article aims to show methodological criteria for the construction of the Global Sustainability Index (GSI) and its importance in the evaluation of public policies of sustainable milk production in contemporary times. The methodology considers the economic, social, environmental, institutional and technological dimensions, for better assessing the sustainable of economically active activities. The survey took place in Rondônia with 400 dairy farmers, where we obtained the GSI that achieved average sustainability, GSI = 0.42. The economic dimension presented an index of 0.52, being the most sustainable among the analyzed dimensions. Following the decreasing order, comes the social and environmental, with average sustainability of 0.44 and 0.41, and, with low sustainability, was the technological dimension, which showed an index of 0.39, and, the institutional with 0.32 decimal points of sustainability. This result indicates the need for political and technological efforts for better performance in the sector.

Can economic development be a driver of food system sustainability? Empirical evidence from a global sustainability index and a multi-country analysis

Despite representing a growing element of the international community’s discourse, the sustainability of food systems and the challenge of its empirical measurement are still highly debated. In this paper, we propose to address this gap by computing a global food system sustainability index which we then use in a cross-country analysis covering 94 countries in low-, middle- and high-income regions. The analysis reveals a strong non-linear but positive correlation between the food system sustainability index and countries’ individual GDP per capita. This relationship suggests some possible degree of endogeneity between food system sustainability and economic development. We then use the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways framework and Individual Conditional Expectations modeling techniques to explore how the sustainability of food systems is projected to evolve in the future as countries move up the economic development ladder. The projections indicate that for lower income countries, the change is usually more significant than for higher income countries. The analysis also reveals that the different dimensions of sustainability will not all contribute equally to future improvements in food system sustainability. In particular, investments targeting social and food security & nutrition dimensions are projected to have a greater effect on the sustainability of food systems than investment/interventions aiming at the environment or economic domains. For countries located at the lower end of the economic development spectrum, this would imply that, even with limited resources, policy-makers could substantially improve the sustainability of countries’ food systems by prioritizing (sub)national policies and interventions focused on social and food security & nutrition domains.

Sustainability of water and sanitation state-owned companies in Brazil

This paper assesses the sustainability of Brazilian’s water and sanitation state-owned companies’ services. The assessment was conducted based on the selection of six indicators reflecting three of the sustainability dimensions: social, economic, and environmental. We built a global sustainability index by adopting the MACBETH multicriteria analysis methodology, which aggregates the dimensions of sustainability with their respective indicators. As main result we found that two companies were considered sustainable in each of the three assessed dimensions of sustainability, and that three companies were globally sustainable according to the methodology applied in this study. Setting sustainability targets and increasing regulatory enforcement leads to improved services performance. Further, sustainable sanitation services bring us closer to achieving the national targets for universal access and Sustainable Development Goal 6 established by the United Nations.

Identification of Workplace Social Sustainability Indicators Related to Employee Ergonomics Perception in Indonesian Industry

Sustainability indicators have provided a breakthrough for companies to assess their performance in supporting corporate sustainability. There is no standard framework for these support-defining indicators to conduct a social sustainability performance assessment. There is a limitation of quantitative social sustainability indicators appropriate for performing ergonomic concept assessments. Ergonomics, as a field concerning people and their interactions with the environment, in particular, the workplace, can play a role in social sustainability, besides its conventional approach of workplace re-engineering. Three major areas of ergonomics were analyzed. The indicators were established based on a review of the literature and confirmed using a factor analysis that covered all major aspects of workplace ergonomics. The factor analysis aimed to reduce the complexity of workplace social sustainability indicators related to ergonomics. The final result integrated 73 indicators into 17 indicators based on three major areas of ergonomics. The findings showed that the best workplace social sustainability indicators were divided into five factors: employee well-being, safety concerns, workplace comfort, musculoskeletal health, and environmental concerns. It would be very beneficial for the industry and the government to support corporate social sustainability and the global sustainability index.

Software Application for Organizational Sustainability Performance Assessment

Sustainability performance assessment is a challenge for many companies due to the heterogeneity of indicators and the lack of a standardized reporting framework. This paper describes a software solution that simplifies the sustainability reporting process and is useful for decisions concerning sustainable management. We analyzed various indicators from public sustainability reports of five companies and obtained some relevant results using the tool that we developed based on mathematic algorithms and an aggregation model of different indicators. The software application calculates a Global Sustainability Index based on the proposed model of the sustainable organization described in this paper. An optimal solution is very rare in the transition towards the sustainable organization and compromises are required most frequently between environmental, economic and social aspects on the one hand and the expectations of the stakeholders on the other hand. The proposed tool helps users to cope with these challenges and takes into consideration that information is not always available and precise. Another feature offered by the tool is that besides simplifying sustainability performance assessment, it highlights low performance indicators and offers suggestions for improvement based on a genetic algorithm.

Avaliação da sustentabilidade de habitações de interesse social a partir da especificação de materiais e elementos de edificação

Objetivo do estudo: Este trabalho tem como objetivo dar continuidade ao desenvolvimento e aplicação da ferramenta para análise de sustentabilidade de projetos de habitações de interesse social (HIS), denominada MASP-HIS, que foi aplicada em alguns elementos deste tipo de edificação. Metodologia/abordagem: Os critérios elaborados para essa avaliação têm como base os aspectos ambientais, socioculturais e econômicos, a partir dos quais é possível avaliar o projeto completo e também as especificações dos sistemas de uma habitação isoladamente. A avaliação foi realizada para um estudo de caso. Originalidade/Relevância: O trabalho apresenta uma ferramenta versátil e adaptável a diferentes projetos de HIS. Ela tem o potencial de avaliar sistemicamente diferentes aspectos de sustentabilidade (ambiental, sociocultural e econômico), levando em conta a diversidade dos materiais e elementos construtivos empregados no projeto. Principais resultados: Podem ser analisadas diferentes combinações dos materiais, componentes e elementos especificados. Foram desenvolvidos os sistemas de estrutura, cobertura e esquadrias. Contribuições teóricas/metodológicas: O uso da ferramenta pode subsidiar e facilitar a especificação de projetos de HIS com critérios de sustentabilidade. Conclusão: Ao final foi possível obter o índice de sustentabilidade global para diversas combinações de um projeto de HIS.

Analyzing Alternative Food Networks sustainability in Italy: a proposal for an assessment framework

The aim of the paper is to evaluate the sustainability of Alternative Food Networks in Italy through the construction of a composite indicator, the Global Sustainability Index. The index is able to provide decision-makers with indications on synergies and tradeoffs between the different dimensions of sustainability. The methodological approach is of the quantitative type, and the information used in the study comes from a direct survey that involved 226 producers. The results show that the environmental indicators that take the greatest value are those concerning problems of great impact on the actual debate such as the loss of genetic diversity and the use of packaging for agro-food products. Regarding economic sustainability, the indicator with the highest value is related to the ability of the Alternative Food Networks to diversify sales channels. This evidence confirms the producers’ increasing difficulty to adopt mono-directional strategies, favoring a differentiation of markets and, consequently, a reduction of economic risks. In terms of social sustainability, two interesting evidences emerge: the considerable importance attributed to the information of the features of the products and the increase in work involvement following participation in the Alternative Food Networks.

Índice de sustentabilidade global aplicado na avaliação do Assentamento Expedito Ribeiro, Santa Bárbara – PA

Os assentamentos humanos em localidades próximas à grandes centros urbanos podem ser consideradas como interessantes alternativas para a promoção do desenvolvimento sustentável à famílias de baixa renda. A aplicação de Sistemas Agroflorestais (SAFs) nessas áreas, quando aparada por suporte técnico, pode mostrar aos habitantes dessas áreas como promover o seu desenvolvimento econômico e social sem afetar o ambiente em que habita. Nessa perspectiva, o artigo objetivou investigar o índice de desenvolvimento sustentável para a comunidade que habita o Assentamento Expedito Ribeiro, localizado no município de Santa Bárbara, no estado do Pará. Para isso, aplicou o método de avaliação do índice de sustentabilidade global que avalia as variáveis: ambiental, social, institucional e econômica, através de entrevistas estruturadas com os habitantes do local. Notou-se que os indicadores com maiores valores encontrados de sustentabilidade foram os de cunho Institucional (0,89) e Ambiental (0,74), seguidos dos indicadores sociais (0,60) e econômicos (0,59). O resultado final do índice de sustentabilidade global para o assentamento estudado foi de 0,70, qualificando esse índice como aceitável. Assim, ainda que a área de estudo não tenha alcançado valores ideias de desenvolvimento sustentável, têm-se valores interessantes para essa localidade, mostrando que o desenvolvimento de SAFs em conjunto com apoio institucional têm o potencial de favorecer não somente as variáveis ambientais, mas também o desenvolvimento social e econômico dos habitantes.
 Palavras-chave: Assentamentos Rurais. Sistemas Agroflorestais. Desenvolvimento Sustentável.

Do investors actually value sustainability? New evidence from investor reactions to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI)

Research Summary: Research exploring investor reactions to sustainability has substantial empirical limitations, which we address with a large‐scale longitudinal financial event study of the first global sustainability index, DJSI World. We examine investor reactions to firms from 27 countries over 17 years that are added, deleted, or continue on the index. We find that once relevant controls and comparisons to observationally equivalent firms beyond the index are included, DJSI events have only limited significance and/or materiality. Nonetheless, investors' valuation of sustainability around the world has evolved over time, involving diminishing reactions to U.S. firms and increasing benefits, particularly of continuation on the index, over time. The study highlights the importance of careful analysis and longitudinal global samples in making inferences about the financial effects of social performance.Managerial Summary: The debate about how investors perceive corporate social responsibility (CSR) predates Milton Friedman's famous statement that the only social responsibility of business is to increase profits. Although extensive research has studied whether sustainability contributes to financial performance, we have yet to understand whether investors believe it pays off. This financial event study of reactions to the addition, continuation, and deletion from DJSI World, the first global sustainability index, shows that investors care little about DJSI announcements. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that global assessments of sustainability are converging and that investors may increasingly be valuing continuation on the DJSI, suggesting that firms may gain at least limited benefits from reliable sustainability activities.

An Information Theory-Based Framework for Development of the Human-Centered System Sustainability Index

This paper discusses the development of a conceptual framework for assessing the human-centered system sustainability at the economic, environmental and societal levels. An individual component sustainability measure is defined as the degree to which a specific sustainability criterion has been met. The quantification framework for such an assessment is defined in an analogous way to the notion of system compatibility based on information theory. The above approach is at the center of current research efforts, which aim to quantify the progress towards achieving sustainability at the national arena. The proposed human-centered sustainability framework, as well as the corresponding concept of the global sustainability index (GSI), should help in the quest of building sustainable working and living environments of the future.

Multi-criteria decision-making model for assessing the sustainability index of wind-turbine support systems: application to a new precast concrete alternative

A multi-criteria decision-making system based on the MIVES method is presented as a model for assessing the global sustainability index scores of existing wind-turbine support systems. This model is specifically designed to discriminate between tower systems in order to minimize the subjectivity of the decision and, thus, facilitate the task of deciding which system is best for a given set of boundary conditions (e.g., height, turbine power, soil conditions) and economic, social and environmental requirements. The model’s versatility is proven by assessing the sustainability index of an innovative new precast concrete tower alternative also described in this paper. As a result of this analysis, some points of improvement in the new system have been detected.

Assessing forest sustainability: Evidence from Spanish provinces

This article aims to assess the sustainability of forestry in Spain at provincial scale from two points of view: first, a multidimensional perspective considering the three classical dimensions of sustainability – environmental, economic and social – and, second, an integrative approach estimating a global index for forest sustainability. While the construction of such a global index is methodologically difficult and arguable, it could be very useful to land planners when drawing up and reviewing forestry and environmental policies. The global index of forest sustainability suggested in this study is calculated for the fifty Spanish provinces, based on a selection of twenty indicators. The majority of them (thirteen) relate to environmental dimension, four to economic dimension and three to social dimension. Numerous statistics and cartographic sources are used. A methodology is proposed based on grouping selected indicators according to three intermediate composite indicators and, subsequently, a global super-index. Cluster analysis establishes four different types of provinces according to their forest sustainability. According to the global sustainability index, part of the forests of the Mediterranean coast, those located near large inland cities and in southern Galicia appear to be less sustainable as a consequence of land artificialisation processes and forest fires. Conversely, Atlantic and Pyrenees forests, and those of the northern Plateau are more sustainable due to their relative success in keeping forest traditional uses and containing emerging threats.

Sustentabilidade Ambiental: Estudo em Uma Instituição De Ensino Superior Pública Catarinense

The paper has the general objective of analyzing the environmental sustainability of an Institution of Higher Education (IHE) Public of the State of Santa Catarina. To meet this objective has to reach the specific objectives: to check the number of IHEs in Brazil and Santa Catarina; to identify the number of public and private institutions and to propose a management model 5W2H to deficit sustainability criteria. The methodology and the objectives considered descriptive, with the technical procedures has the case study and the approach problem qualitative. The methodology is divided into three phases: the first phase it is the theoretical basis, it approaches social and environmental responsibility; environmental management and environmental management system. In the second phase it is the analysis of the results where first there was the amount of IHE and distribution in administrative categories. In the third phase, it has been the purpose of responding to a checklist of 154 questions developed by Pieri et al (2011) and Environmental Management Plan Summary (5W2H). In the end it is concluded that the institution submitted a global sustainability index of 32 %, being regarded as weak, proposing with the 5W2H tool, an action for each criterion, as the inclusion of recyclable products in acquisitions; recycling of waste; accessibility to the handicapped; and creating actions that approximates the IHE to the society. It is hoped that the proposed actions that the institution to put them into practice, increase the environmental sustainability index, benefiting society and the environment.

Agro-energy supply chain planning: a procedure to evaluate economic, energy and environmental sustainability

The increasing demand for energy and expected shortage in the medium term, solicit innovative energy strategies to fulfill the increasing gap between demand-supply. For this purpose it is important to evaluate the potential supply of the energy crops and finding the areas of EU where it is most convenient. This paper proposes an agro-energy supply chain approach to planning the biofuel supply chain at a regional level. The proposed methodology is the result of an interdisciplinary team work and is aimed to evaluate the potential supply of land for the energy production and the efficiency of the processing plants considering simultaneously economic, energy and environmental targets. The crop simulation, on the basis of this approach, takes into account environmental and agricultural variables (soil, climate, crop, agronomic technique) that affect yields, energy and economic costs of the agricultural phase. The use of the Dijkstra’s algorithm allows minimizing the biomass transport path from farm to collecting points and the processing plant, to reduce both the transport cost and the energy consumption. Finally, a global sustainability index (ACSI, Agro-energy Chain Sustainability Index) is computed combining economic, energy and environmental aspects to evaluate the sustainability of the Agroenergy supply chain (AESC) on the territory. The empirical part consists in a pilot study applied to the whole plain of Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG) a region situated in the North-Eastern part of Italy covering about 161,300 ha. The simulation has been applied to the maize cultivation using three different technologies (different levels of irrigation and nitrogen fertilization: low, medium and high input). The higher input technologies allow to achieve higher crop yields, but affect negatively both the economic and energy balances. Low input levels provides, on the average, the most favourable energy and economic balances. ACSI indicates that low inputs levels ensure a more widespread sustainability of the agro-energy chain in the region. High ACSI values for high input levels are observed only for areas with very high yields or near the processing plant.

Integrated sustainability assessment of cropping systems with agro-ecological and economic indicators in northern Italy

The sustainability of agricultural systems is frequently evaluated with indicators, which are synthetic variables describing complex systems. Each indicator deals with one aspect of sustainability (e.g. nutrients, pesticides, energy), and therefore the result of a complete assessment usually includes several indicator values. These values are frequently presented separately, while an integrated evaluation could benefit from the calculation of a single sustainability index. The aim of this work was to integrate 15 economic and environmental indicator values into a global sustainability index ( S g) ranging from 0 to 1. To calculate the indicators, we used a large data set of cropping systems management for 131 fields cultivated with arable crops in northern Italy, obtained through periodic interviews with farmers over a 2-year period. The fields were chosen to represent the main cropping systems in the area (cereals and forages, on animal and cereal farms). The 15 indicators describe a large variety of sustainability aspects, i.e. the economic performance and the management of energy, nutrients, soil, and pesticides. The indicator values were first converted into a sustainability score ( S i; 0–1) applying continuous non-linear sustainability functions that use thresholds defining what is sustainable, unsustainable, or intermediate. We obtained 15 values of S i per each field, which we aggregated into S g using indicator-specific weights provided by different stakeholders. This procedure permits not only the single indicators evaluation, but also to combine indicators for an assessment of cropping systems at field level. Permanent meadows, due to good management of soil, pesticides and nutrients, obtained the highest S g, even when different weights were used. Continuous rice obtained the lowest S g (due to unsatisfactory soil management, low energy production, and high pest and weed pressure, which involved a large use of pesticides), while maize was intermediate, with good economic and energetic performance. The methodology allows a transparent, repeatable, sound, and quantitative evaluation of sustainability of agricultural systems. It can be easily expanded by adding other indicators, and can be tailored by changing the thresholds used to calculate S i and the weights assigned by stakeholder groups.

Aplicação do Índice Global de Sustentabilidade na explotação de coquina na Península de Santa Elena

Na Península de Santa Elena (Equador), desenvolvem-se, paralelamente, a explotação artesanal e a mecanizada da rocha coquina. Para estabelecer a sustentabilidade da explotação, foram estabelecidos indicadores, suficientemente flexíveis à realidade local e de fácil aplicação. Para determinação do quão sustentável é a explotação de coquina, usou-se o Índice Global de Sustentabilidade (IGS). Esse estudo apresenta os resultados do IGS aplicado ao caso da explotação artesanal no Morro Tablazo.