Indicator system and evaluation framework for sustainable development

An indicator system of sustainable development was established and an evaluation framework for sustainable development was drawn in this study.

Modeling Indicator Systems for Evaluating Environmental Sustainable Development Based on Factor Analysis

Indicator systems of environmental sustainable development in the Poyang Lake Basin are established from 51 elementary indexes by factor analysis, which is composed of four steps such as the factor model, the parameter estimation, the factor rotation and the factor score. Under the condition that the cumulative proportion is greater than 85%, 5 explicit factors of environmental sustainable development as well as its factor score by region are carried out. The result indicates some impact factors to the basin environmental in descending sort order are volume of water, volume of waste gas discharge,volume of solid wasters.the degree to comprehensive utilization of waste gas, waste water and solid wastes, the emission volume of waste gas, waste water and solid wastes. It is helpful and important to provide decision support for constituting sustainable development strategies and evaluate the sustainable development status of each city.

Establishment of Comprehensive Evaluation Indicator System for Sustainable Development of Microcredit and Empirical Analysis

We establish the comprehensive evaluation indicator system for sustainable development of micro-credit,constituted by the profitability ratio,financial constitution ratio,loan quality ratio and operating efficiency ratio.Taking the case of micro-credit of China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation,we measure the current situation of sustainable development of micro-credit.As far as we are concerned,the composite index of sustainable development of micro-credit shows the growth trend on the whole.Finally,in order to further improve the sustainable development of microcredit,provide farmers with better financial services and enable more farmers to benefit from micro-credit,we put forth the following recommendations:strengthening technological innovation to reduce costs and improve operating efficiency and profitability of the micro-credit;strengthening risk control to improve the quality of loans;providing all-around non-financial services to lay the foundation for the sustainable development of microcredit;setting an appropriate level of interest rates to improve the profitability of the institutions.

Constructing a standard system of city sustainable development assessment technology based on the SDGs

Given the rapid development of China’s new urbanization,cities with different locations and varying functional positioning,resource endowments,and development stages have insufficient scientific and applicable technical tools for implementing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs).City managers and policymakers must urgently establish SDG benchmarks to diagnose city development.Moreover,successful experiences from similar cities regarding sustainable development and self-improvement must be learned from to promote diversified,sustainable development across the country.Furthermore,emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence,the Internet of Things,big data and 5G are widely used in smart cities.Therefore,there is a growing need for“knowledge-based,personalized and intelligent”technologies to support monitoring,evaluation,and decision-making processes facilitating sustainable development in cities.This paper uses standardization as the theoretical support and technical basis.This approach can help clarify the sustainable development processes in China and clarify the evaluation results of and provide data on horizontal city comparisons,which can be used to develop evaluation technology for sustainable development in cities and construct a standardized system.The results provide a standard framework for intelligent assessment and decision-making regarding cities’sustainable development capabilities in China.Evaluating major international standardization institutions reveals that the practices of Chinese national standards should be fully absorbed and integrated to guide the evaluation of smart,resilient,and low-carbon cities.To this end,an indicator library of city sustainable development is proposed to provide standard evaluation technology methods.Finally,analyzing the response relationship of the indicator library to SDGs reveals the need for a standardized knowledge map of sustainable development assessment techniques and methods from the perspective of integrated management for sustainable development in cities.

A Framework for Selecting Indicators to Assess the Sustainable Development of the Natural Heritage Site

Sustainable world heritage management represents an approach for managing the resources of a property by integrating environmental, economic, and social issues. It aims to provide sustainable benefits for future generations, while protect the property and minimize the possible adverse social, economic and environmental impacts. Indicators of sustainable development, which summarize information for decision-making, are invaluable to learn the efficiency and effectiveness of property management. Scientists in many fields devised several conceptual models of environmental statistics and indicators, of which, DPSIR (Driving forces – Pressure – State – Impact – Response) is thought to be the best available one in identifying and developing indicators of sustainable development. Based on the DPSIR conceptual model and indicator selection criteria, the present paper proposed a methodology framework for selecting indicators to assess the sustainable development of a natural heritage site. The proposed framework included a multi-level hierarchical structure for various indicators and indexes, a modified DPSIR frame to identify key issues in property management and a set of indicators for evaluating the sustainability in Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries.

Cross-national Perspectives on Using Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) Indicators for Monitoring Sustainable Development: A Database and Analysis

Sustainable development is the theme of the 21st century. To monitor the progress of sustainable development, the United Nations launched Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) in 2015. Subsequently, nations of the world have drawn up a list of localized indicators regarding the United Nations SDGs as a paradigm. We established a database including SDGs indicator systems of 11 economies by collecting and determining a large number of materials. Based on this database, we analyzed SDGs indicators by designing a conceptual framework of comparative analysis that included three views. We found that the SDGs indicator systems of 11 economies are different between the number of indicators, the proportion of different categories, and the connotation of indicators. Although the SDGs indicator systems among economies regarded the United Nations SDGs as a framework and included the major social problems related to sustainability, the inconsistency between SDGs indicator systems is large. It is a major reason why scholars lack the systematic method for developing indicators. There are challenges faced in data accessibility. The framework for comparative analysis could be applied to different economies.

Analyzing Methods of Using Sustainable Development Indicators

Sustainable development indicators, aim to measure sustainable development over longer periods of time. The sustainable development indicators are grouped into 10 subject categories： socioeconomic development, sustainable consumption and production, social inclusion, demographic changes, public health, climate change and energy, sustainable transport, natural resources, global partnership and finally good governance. In this paper, the authors examined a number of researches and compared the methods they used in order to determine the advantages and disadvantages of each method. The methods used a large number of different indicators. The comparison of the indicators could be made through mathematical models and also through theoretical approach.

Are SDGs suitable for China's sustainable development assessment? An application and amendment of the SDGs Indicators in China

In order to further ensure that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is to be implemented and the action measures of all countries are consistent, the United Nations has put forward a set of indicators to monitor and evaluate the progress of global sustainable development. This set of evaluation indicators is aimed for global and regional progress. An important feature of the evaluation indicators is that they are internationally comparable, but due to the large differences in the levels of sustainable development among countries, this framework of evaluation indicators has a disadvantage that it does not apply to tracking the progress of sustainable development at the national level. This paper focuses on the analysis of specific issues in the application of the global sustainable development indicators framework to meet the goals and targets of the UN and builds a system of evaluation indicators to assess the progress of sustainable development at the national level in China, and offers a perspective to assess China’s progress as well.

Comparison of indicators for agricultural green development and the Sustainable Development Goals,and mapping the way forward

While agricultural green development(AGD)is highly recognized and has become a national strategy in China,it is imperative to bridge the knowledge gaps between AGD and the UN Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs),and to evaluate the contribution of AGD to meeting the SDGs.The first aim of this study was to compare the AGD goals and indicators with those of the SDGs so as to identify their relationship.The next aim was to examine the historical evolution of AGD indicators and analyze the gaps between the current status of various indicators and their benchmarks.Limiting factors were identified in China's transition toward AGD.These findings reveal that the indicators of AGD align with those of the SDGs,but have greater specificity to the context in China and are more quantifiable.There has been a significant increase per capita calorie and protein intakes in China,as well as a notable rise in agricultural output per unit of arable land and rural incomes from 1980 to the 2010s.However,these achievements have been accompanied by a high resource use and environmental pollution,highlighting the need for a more sustainable,environmentally responsible agriculture in China.

New emergy indices for sustainable development

The emergy indices for the evaluation of system's sustainable development ability were studied. Results indicated that the emergy indices are simplified and merged, and a new emergy index for sustainable development(EISD) is deduced. Employing EISD, two cases are conducted. The first one is to compare three different dike pond agro ecological engineering modes, which are: melon melon cabbage four domestic fishes(mode Ⅰ), melon melon cabbage pig four domestic fishes (mode Ⅱ) and melon melon cabbage pig four domestic fishes combined with Siniperca chuatsi B. ( mode Ⅲ). The result is that the EISD of mode Ⅰ is 0.53. ModeⅡ's EISD is 5.26 times of mode Ⅰ, and mode Ⅲ's EISD is 6.83 times of mode Ⅰ. The second one is to evaluate the development of Zhongshan City, Pearl Delta, during 1996 to 2000. The result indicated that the EISD of Zhongshan had appreciably declined from 1996 to 1998, and quickly improved from 1998 to 2000, partly because of its environment protection and product construction. Both of the two cases studies showed that EISD can assessment the sustainable development ability more roundly, with the consideration of environmental impact and social\|economic effect at the same time.

Criteria for Aggregating Sustainable Development Indicators as a Way of Modeling Through “Live and Work” City Index

Measuring and comparing sustainable development levels of cities,regions,and projects are an essential procedure in creating and maintaining sustainable urban futures.Introducing a new urban sustainable development assessment model:The Live and Work(LaW)City Model.As an indicator-based sustainable development indexing model,it aims to assist planners and policy makers in their decisionmaking procedures and development of cities by providing an integrated assessment framework.Several efforts were done to develop composite indicators,but it was concluded that most of them focused on environmental dimensions and neglected the overlapping of the other influential ones.The paper gives an overview of the nature and importance of composite indicators and how it can be structured and implemented precisely;overcoming its drawbacks,to gauge and rank the performance of cities across the demands of people,planet,and profit,as a way of achieving the LaW balance criteria.The methodology of the model is developed by following a set of logical steps such as weighing,normalization,and aggregation of individual indicators.From here,a functional form for aggregation was derived to compute the index.Furthermore,the structure of the model was illustrated in the form of a pie/radar chart.The visualized LaW city index has the communicative advantage of being easy to convey comparative levels of different values.The total values computed could be used to rank cities in a tabular format and gauge their comparable sustainable development performance accordingly.The model can also estimate the sustainable development outcomes of alternative development scenarios during different year’s intervals.This can be achieved by stacking up different model scenarios;making it a relatively simple exercise for both the general public and decision makers to comprehend.

Comprehensive Evaluation on Urban Sustainable Development of Harbin City in Northeast China

It is an effective way in realizing urban coordinated and sustainable development to establish a series of in- dicators and to evaluate urban environmental and socioeconomic development. According to the characteristics of Harbin City in Northeast China, an indicator system including five subsystems and 37 indicators was established for comprehensive evaluation on urban sustainable development. The development indexes of all urban subsystems and complex system were calculated quantitatively using the comprehensively integrated methods composed of Principle Component Analysis, Analytic Hierarchy Process and weighed index method, and then the comprehensive level of ur- ban sustainable development and the degree of urban interior coordination were analyzed. The results indicated that 1) the overall urban development presented an uptrend, however, the interior development was not well balanced from 1996 to 2006; 2) the development in each subsystem presented a strong fluctuation; and 3) the development in re- sources subsystem showed a downtrend. Based on those results, the suggestions of urban sustainable development were put forward at the end.

A grey dynamic model for the evaluation of regional sustainable development and its empirical study

Currently, traditional development issues, such as economic stagnation, as well as new challenges like environmental degradation and globalization, need attention. Sustainable development, including economic, environmental, and social elements, is a main goal of decision-makers. The key to sustainable decision-making is to evaluate and forecast the status quo of sustainable development. Policy makers need a tool based on scientific information to forecast the effects of future actions on sustainability and make policies for sustainable development. This paper analyzes the relation of the economy, environment and social welfare by the grey dynamic model. The proposed method uses time series and basic indicators of ecological system, including economic, environmental and social sub-systems. It is applied to Heilongjiang Province and Jiangsu Province. The results have proved different status quo of sustainable development in these two regions, and suggestions are proposed, such as optimization of industrial structure and eco-industrial development. The conclusion is that there is no unique sustainable path, and accordingly, policy makers should choose different criteria and strategies to make efficient sustainable decisions for each region.

The Game-Theoretical Approach to the Simulation of Sustainable Development Strategies

Choosing a strategy for sustainable development is national level aimed at the simultaneous fulfillment of economic, a fundamental problem that requires non-trivial approaches at the social and environmental goals. This contradiction is possible to be adequately described in the complex game-theoretic models. But analysis of them is complicated by the problems of algorithmic solvability and the payoff functions construction. Also, the volume of data required creates considerable complexity increased by the conditions of situations uncertainty and conflict. At the same time, international organizations, such as UN （United Nations）, ITU （International Telecommunications Union）, are widely used index system. Indices, built on the aggregation of elementary indicators, allow the estimation of the components of the system and its overall development. The paper discusses the basic concepts of game-theoretic approach to the problems of finding strategies for sustainable development, using indicative analysis techniques. In the proposed approach, estimating of sustainability is considered as the result of finding the optimal values of the payoff functions in general game-theoretical model where the players are matched indices. The interests of the player are to increase of the corresponding index and the optimal situation is implemented as a set of optimal payoff functions values. This allows switching from processing of large amounts of data describing the behavior of the ecological-economic system by the aid of indicators to aggregate estimations, which significantly reduce the sample, and also facilitates the interpretation of the results.

Does financial development moderate the link between technological innovation and environmental indicators?An advanced panel analysis

This study analyzes the role of financial development(FD)on the impact of technologi-cal innovation(TI)on six environmental quality indicators for the 25 economies that are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for the period from 2000 to 2019.We use a two-step dynamic generalized method of moments approach to understand this relationship.The results show that FD augments the posi-tive effects of TI on four of the six environmental indicators,namely ecological foot-print,adjusted net savings,pressure on nature,and environmental performance.However,no significant effects on environmental sustainability and environmental vulnerability indices were found.When considering all of the environmental quality indicators,TI appears to enhance environmental quality.We find evidence to support the existence of the environmental Kuznets curve in the context of each environmen-tal indicator and economic growth.Moreover,FD and energy consumption appear to accelerate environmental degradation.Based on these results,FD should be viewed as an important parameter in designing policies for innovation to achieve the goal of net-zero carbon emissions.Highlights.Technological innovation and environmental quality nexus is studied.The moderating role of financial development is analyzed.Six different environmental quality indicators are used for OECD countries.Financial development intensifies the environmental benefits of innovation.•The EKC hypothesis is confirmed for all six environmental indicators.

A goal-based approach to the identification of essential transformation variables in support of the implementation of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development

The United Nations’2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development sets seventeen Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs)to be achieved by 2030.Earth observation are needed that can support the development and validation of transformation policies to make progress towards the SDGs.A participatory and inclusive goal-based approach(GBA)is introduced that links societal goals,targets and indicators to Essential Transformation Variables(ETVs)of the human and non-human environment.The GBA is complementary to the widely used expertbased approach.The GBA is applied to the SDGs at the goal,target and indicator levels.The high-level conceptual model used for the SDGs is humanity embedded in the Earth’s life-support system(ELSS).At the goal level,very few of the SDGs are directly focusing on the ELSS and its physiology.Most of the SDG Targets focus on transformations in society and the built environment.Having targets that explicitly focus on the physiology of the ELSS would be important for sustainability.Most of the current indicator measure the built environment and the embedded social fabric.Sustainable development requires a functioning ELSS,and to ensure this,complementary indicators that bring environmental aspects to the monitoring of SDG targets are needed.

Sustainable tourism development in mountain areas in Sumadija and Western Serbia

Sustainable tourism,as an integral part of sustainable development,emerged as a logical outcome of preventing the uncontrolled and excessive use of tourism resources and attractions.This study analyzes whether mountain tourism development in Serbia can be sustainable and feasible in the long term.Given the heterogeneity of mountains in Serbia in terms of tourism development,the subject of this research is the achieved level of sustainable tourism development in mountains in the most developed and most visited region in Serbia-sumadija and Western Serbia:Zlatibor,Kopaonik,Tara,Zlatar,Mokra Gora and Go?.The sustainable tourism development level was analyzed by using five groups of the EU’s comparative indicators:economic,social,cultural,environmental and tourist satisfaction indicators.The results showed that the development of tourism in the examined mountains is not fully aligned with sustainable development.The tourist satisfaction indicator has the most acceptable values,which is a good basis for further harmonization of tourism development on the principles of sustainability.Economic indicators,especially the ratio of overnight stays and accommodation capacities,show the most unacceptable values,which indicate the need for implementing changes in the process of tourism development in the coming period.The analysis of sustainable tourism in mountain areas in sumadija and the Western Serbia undoubtfully points out that it is necessary to significantly change the current tourism product portfolio,which implies harmonizing mountain tourism development with global trends.Certainly,a comparative analysis that looks at the degree of sustainability of mountain tourism in some countries of the Alpine region,such as Switzerland,Austria and Slovenia,contributes to this.The more intensive development of tourism throughout the year would significantly improve indicators of sustainable tourism in all analyzed mountain areas of Sumadija and Western Serbia.This would improve the value of economic indicators,which are marked as the most unsustainable.The development of tourism in the summer season,especially recreational and adventure tourism,would improve the social and cultural component of sustainable tourism.Environmental dimension of sustainable tourism would be enhanced by the development of ecotourism.By connecting spatially close mountains(Zlatibor,Zlatar,Tara and Mokra Gora)into a unique and integrated tourism destination,synergistic effects would be achieved resulting in international recognition and making the region of?umadija and Western Serbia competitive on the European market.

Community Public Space Planning Guided by Sustainable Development:A Case Study on Wei'an Nanli Residential Area of Tianjin City

The public space of community is not only significant to ensure the quality of residents' daily life but also the important means to realize urban sustainability.It is necessary to bridge the gap between the physical and social development of city in order to build a harmonious and livable city.The sustainable development indicators are very useful tools.The design of the indicators involves the site investigation,and selection and modification of indicators.It can provide guidance to related plans by making scientific decision on the core target of the public space development of community.

Indicators and Influence Factors for Sustainability Assessment of Inclusive Smart Innovation Clusters

A new manufacturing and business infrastructure industrial ecosystem model with the state-of-the art core infrastructure and smart applications in the form of inclusive smart innovation cluster is seen as a powerful tool to drive industrial symbiosis, economic, social and inclusive development. Essentially an integrated eco-industrial park, these clusters demonstrate applications of industrial ecology principles among the occupant units, besides promoting sustainable societies from economic, environmental and social perspectives. The holistic planning and development of these clusters from economic, environmental and social sustainability considerations or alternatively, the sustainability assessment of these clusters is highly complex. The research reported upon forms part of a larger study that aims to develop an integrated decision support system for sustainability assessment of inclusive smart innovation cluster. The paper discusses the conceptual model of the cluster and the need to establish context specific key indicators and influence factors from economic, environmental and social sustainability considerations. The paper proposes a structured methodology for development of key indicators and influence factors. The paper concludes by identifying a set of 184 key indicators and influence factors for comprehensive sustainability assessment of inclusive smart innovation cluster.

Is the German Energy System Sustainable？ An Analysis Based on the UNCSD Theme-Based Approach of Sustainability

Sustainable development is a crucial element for the future of the world and a keystone of the international agenda. The Index of Sustainable Development （ISD） calculates the degree to which sustainable development has been achieved. ISD starts by （1） measuring the individual indicators of a sustainability strategy; （2） then measures the subordinate themes or pillars, which contain these indicators; （3） and finally measures the total system, consisting of the sum of the themes. The ISD provides quantified information for each of these levels for the public and political decision makers. The ISD is used to analyze as an example the sustainability of the German Energy sector, based on the targets the German Government set in its 2002 sustainability strategy.