"Journal of Education Culture and Society" 2015_1

Investigation of multi-criteria method for the assessment of sustainable development: The case of Lithuania

Roberta Kareivaitė

Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, Šiauliai University,

Architektu st. 1, LT-78366, Šiauliai, Lithuania

E-mail address: kareivaite.roberta@gmail.com

ABSTRACT:

The process of implementing sustainable development started at the end of the 20^th century with the aim to balance economic, social and environmental development and minimize damage to humans and the environment. Nowadays, when new economic problems emerge social interest groups  lobby, environmental standards are raised, sustainable development becomes an integral part of  democratic society and is a particularly relevant object of scientific investigations. Taking into consideration the aspect of sustainable development complex assessment, the research problem can be formulated as follows: how to assess sustainable development comprehensively? This research, according to statistical data analysis (Lithuania’s case), identifies multi-criteria method (SAW) as the best method of analyzing sustainable development from the approach of different dimensions (economic, social and environmental). According to the results of SAW method, it can be noted that when a country is improving economic indicators, environmental indicators usually decrease, which in turn determines the characteristics of the social dimension slight decrease.

Key words:

multi-criteria method, sustainable development, complex assessment, SAW method.

DOI: 10.15503/jecs20151.271.280        pdf full version