Green Technology and Sustainable Development: Assessment and Green Growth Frameworks

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the characteristics of a sustainable development assessment methodology being designed in the context of green technology. The methodology in question is based on indicators from the Sustainable Development Goals Index (SGDI), specifically in its ecological component. These indicators underlie an Averaging Sustainable Development Index (ASDI) and a Normalized Sustainable Development Index (NSDI). The resultant methodology was applied to 20 countries from the SDGI ranking. According to the research results, the intensive activity of the brown industries in the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, the United States, Korea, and Russia resulted in significant carbon dioxide emissions. Switzerland, Kazakhstan, and Russia had high scores on sustainable management of water and sanitation. Russia was the only developed country to have an ASDI higher than its SDGI and its gap between NSDI and ASDI indexes was not significant, indicating a positive trend in greentech development. The reason why NSDI was increasingly different from SDGI was that countries leading the socio-economic rankings had higher consumption of energy and resources, and a much greater environmental footprint than those countries that consumed less. The originality of this study is that it identifies gaps between NSDI and ASDI values, which indicate that conditions for greentech adoption in most developing countries are unfavorable.