Country-Level Sustainability Indicators in Central and Eastern Europe: Integrating Un Sdgs and Ecological Footprint to Identify Meaningful Clusters and Assess Regional Performance

Abstract

The development of sustainability indicators at the national level emerged due to the limitations of using GDP as a measure of well-being, sustainability, and resilience. Over time, various indicators have been formulated, with a shift in focus from solely economic growth to a more encompassing perspective. The objective of this study was to integrate two methodologies, namely UN Sustainable Development Goals Index (SDGI), and the Global Footprint Network’s Ecological Footprint (EF), in order to identify meaningful clusters of countries based on both measures. Our secondary aim was to reveal the similarities and differences between countries of the Central and Eastern European region. The clustering outcomes revealed that a three-cluster solution can be considered satisfactory. The results confirm the absence of decoupling at a macro level and provide evidence that the SDGs adequately address the intricate nature of sustainability. As for the countries in Central and Eastern Europe we found that this country group's SDGs is above average, but this group of countries is not homogeneous. Significant disparities are apparent in the variations observed in the SDG 9 scores.