Auditing of the Sustainable Society Index (SSI)

Recently, the Econometrics and Applied Statistics Unit of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission audited the Sustainable Society Index (SSI). Based on the 2012 edition of the SSI, the JRC drew a number of important conclusions.

1. The revised SSI framework is conceptually coherent:

• The indicators are more correlated to their own category than to any other category;

• All correlations within a category are significant and positive;

• The same conclusion is drawn at the dimension level.

2. The revised SSI framework meets the statistical requirements as set by the JRC:

• In most SSI categories the underlying indicators have similar implicit weights in classifying countries within each category;

• Few imbalances were found within the Transition and the Economy category;

• The marginal weights of the indicators on the SSI categories scores do not differ too much;

• A robustness analysis of country ranks for each SSI Wellbeing dimension showed that the SSI provides a reliable picture of the countries’ performance, that is not driven by methodological assumptions.

The Sustainable Society Index appears to be a comprehensive and quantitative method to measure and monitor the health of coupled human-environmental systems at national level worldwide.

3. The SSI is a comprehensive quantitative method well suited to assess nations’ development towards sustainability in its broad sense: Human, Environmental and Economic Wellbeing:

• The SSI framework goes beyond a purely protectionist approach that would aim to maintain natural systems with minimal human impact;

• It describes societal progress along all three dimensions: human, environmental and economic, built on 21 indicators;

• It is a conceptually and statistically sound tool, that is widely applicable for on-going assessment of the human-environmental systems and a key benchmark against which to compare future progress and inform comprehensive societal policies;

• It can be used to simulate the consequences of a range of potential actions, providing a powerful tool to inform decisions about how to achieve human and economic growth without compromising the environmental wellbeing.

The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS), who cooperates with the Sustainable Society Foundation (SSF) to further develop the SSI, would like to congratulate the SSF with the positive evaluation by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. For the full evaluation report, please download the PDF.