Chapter 16: Economic, Environmental and Social: Three Components to Measure the Perception of Sustainable Development

Sustainable development calls for concerted efforts towards building an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and planet. The approach that considers sustainable development as the fight against poverty, through the promotion of a sustainable and equitable economy, as the attempt to reduce polluting emissions to promote environmental protection and as the satisfaction of social goals to increase the well-being of populations is adopted. Sustainability development is therefore a complex and subjective concept, considering the three dimensions that define the phenomenon: economic, environmental and social.

The authors have chosen subjective variables, which provide information on the perception of the ‘sustainable development’ in the European countries. Data come from the database of ‘Eurofound’, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. The authors applied a formative measurement model, according to which indicators are considered as the cause of the phenomenon analysed, unlike with the reflective model. To conduct the quantitative analysis, the authors have adopted a non-compensatory approach: Mazziotta and Pareto index which summarising a set of individual indicators that are assumed to be not fully substitutable. The authors place at the centre of the analysis, variables deriving from the perceptive state of the different European populations, offering new hints to measure sustainable development on the basis of subjective assumptions.