An Analysis of a Sustainability Index

Stig Blomskog () and Magnus Hjelmblom ()
Additional contact information
Stig Blomskog: Södertörn University
Magnus Hjelmblom: University of Gävle

Chapter Chapter 3 in Sustainable Consumption and Production, Volume I, 2021, pp 39-63 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract In this chapter, we perform a conceptual analysis of a household sustainable consumption index, whose construction is based on guidelines in a handbook issued by OECD. We conclude in our analysis that the designers of the index treat the concept ‘sustainable consumption’ as a descriptive concept, and argue that this interpretation is a conceptual mistake. A consequence of this mistake is that the construction of the index is treated as a kind of statistical and empirical problem only. Instead, we argue that sustainable consumption is a specific kind of value concept named intermediate concept, whose function is to link descriptive grounds with normative consequences, and thus that the construction of the index is a normative problem. That is, the construction of a sustainable consumption index should be regarded as a normative multi-attribute decision process. A policy implication of our study is that when measuring sustainability, a decision analytic approach based on an adequate interpretation of the concept sustainability as an intermediate concept should be employed. In order to avoid low validity of sustainability indices as a result of making a conceptual mistake, it is possible to explicitly treat the construction of a sustainability index as a normative multi-attribute decision process that can be aided by decision support tools. The relevance of our analysis to policymakers and other stakeholders is that it contributes to a deeper understanding of what kind of concept sustainability is and what it means to measure such concepts. Without a proper understanding of the nature of this concept, there is an obvious risk of low validity of its measurement.

Keywords: Sustainability index; Multi-attribute measurement; Conceptual mistake; Intermediate concept (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-56371-4_3

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783030563714

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-56371-4_3

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().