A Research on the Relationship between Environmental Sustainability Management and Human Development

Sue Ling Lai and Du-Nin Chen
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Sue Ling Lai: Graduate Institute of International Business Administration, Chinese Culture University, 55, Hwa-Kang Road, Yang-Ming-Shan, Taipei 11114, Taiwan
Du-Nin Chen: Graduate Institute of International Business Administration, Chinese Culture University, 55, Hwa-Kang Road, Yang-Ming-Shan, Taipei 11114, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 21, 1-20

Abstract: The study explores the relationship between environmental performance and human development. A canonical correlation analysis was conducted to discover the maximum correlation between environmental performance and human development with the optimal estimated weights for indicators as constituting the composite indices. The results show that environmental health—being the most decisive—and ecosystem vitality are important indicators for representing the environmental performance. Other important indicators, in declining order, for constituting the human development index are mean years of schooling, expected years of schooling, and life expectancy at birth, with gross national income (GNI) being the last with relatively low weight. The canonical environmental performance index has utmost effect on mean years of schooling, then expected years of schooling, with explanatory power of more than 70% for both. Effect on life expectancy at birth is more than 60%, but only less than 30% on GNI. The canonical human development index has the highest explanatory power with nearly 80% for environmental health, but only 40% for ecosystem vitality. Both canonical composite indices reach a high correlation of 91% and the mutual explanatory power is 83%, confirming that environmental performance and human development are indeed positively and highly correlated.

Keywords: human development; environmental performance; environmental health; sustainable management; canonical correlation and economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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