Methodological considerations on regional sustainability assessment based on multicriteria and sensitivity analysis

Abstract

This paper proposes the use of a non-compensatory multicriteria approach combined with sensitivity analysis for constructing composite indicators of sustainability. An illustrative example on Spanish and selected Mediterranean regions is used. The sensitivity analysis shows that excluding an indicator from a 29-indicator dataset (which represents in principle a small structural change) has a much lower impact on the regional ranking if that is based on a non-compensatory multicriteria approach than on the classical linear aggregation, for example the weighted arithmetic average. An alternative approach that employs endogenous weighting (region-specific weights) and is based on data envelopment analysis is discussed.