Dual weak–strong sustainability synthetic indicators using a double reference point scheme: the case of Andalucía, Spain

Assessing sustainability has become a major issue among the researchers in the last decades, and many different methodologies have been proposed for this purpose. Sustainability is, by nature, multidimensional and thus, it pursues a balance between its multiple dimensions (economical, social, environmental, etc.). Being a multicriteria concept, it seems reasonable to use multicriteria tools to measure sustainability. In this paper, a double reference point scheme is proposed for the construction of synthetic sustainability indicators. With this scheme, it is possible to build a weak synthetic indicator, which allows full compensation among the individual indicators, and a strong synthetic indicator, which does not allow any compensation. The joint visualization of these indicators lets us identify in an easy and intuitive way the strengths and weaknesses of each territory. Besides, full rankings can be obtained using mixed synthetic indicators, which allow for different partial compensation degrees, and provide the user with a global overview of the sustainability of the region. This scheme has been applied to the 770 municipalities of Andalusia (South of Spain). 52 individual indicators have been used, classified in 4 dimensions: environmental, social, economic and financial.