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The purpose of this paper is to present a methodological framework and practical application of the sustainable development assessment in Lithuania.

The assessment was performed by deriving composite economic, social and environmental indexes and combining them into the integrated sustainable development index. Each composite index aggregates number of selected indicators, which were essential for the assessment of the country's development during the last decade. Having in mind that sustainable development is the development in consistency, the authors have used equal weights for calculation of economic, social and environmental indexes.

The composite indexes indicate rapid economical growth and environmental state; however, social development was comparatively slow. The economical decline in 2008 has influenced also environmental and social development and revealed new trends of sustainable development in Lithuania. The analysis results demonstrate that goals brought forward in the Strategy for Sustainable Development of Lithuania were not achieved.

The paper provides a methodology of integrated sustainable development index and its application for the Lithuanian case. The greatest advantage of a proposed calculation methodology is its flexibility, because it can be applied for any period of sustainable development evaluation, with a possibility to select a desired number of sustainability aspects that reflect an evolution of a country the best.

The study attempts to assess the socio-economic development in Bodoland Territorial Area District (BTAD) of Assam in North Eastern Region of India. This region is one of the most underdeveloped areas in India. The study also examines whether demographic and social characteristics in the form of social groups, number of family members, number of employed members in the family, education of the head of household, sources of income and location determine the variation in the level of socio-economic development. The authors surveyed 400 households during February to May 2018 in both rural and urban areas of BTAD to achieve the objective of the study.

The authors use the concept of Amartya Sen's capability approach (CA) for assessment of development and constructed an index of Multidimensional Development.

There is variation in the distribution of developmental parameters across the study area. It is found that urban locations have better achievement in the multidimensional index score, while the spread of development is not even in the rural locations. An interesting revelation of this study is that while urban areas depict better performance in income, asset, education and empowerment, they have a relatively lower score in health dimension as compared to rural areas. The study shows that level of development depends on demographic as well as social characteristics of the households.

This study does not analyse temporal dynamics of development that is necessary to examine how development evolves because of data constraints.

The study provides an understanding of the socio-economic development in BTAD area in a multidimensional framework. This study is the first of its kind to assess the nature and extent of development realised in BTAD through the capability framework. The study supports more recent findings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the progress of social development in terms of social development index (SDI) of India in the pre- and post-reforms period.

This study used the methodology of Ray (1989, 2008) for the construction of composite index for social development, i.e. SDI. The study also used the ordinary least squares method of regression analysis for checking the impact of development expenditure, non-development expenditure and Per Capita Net National Product (PCNNP) on the SDI value.

The results show an increasing trend in social development. The findings of this study also suggest that there is a sharp increase in the index over the period between 2002/2003 and 2010/2011. But in the remaining period, sluggish improvement in social development has been observed. Though there has been growth in the social sector, but it is not much heartening and perhaps more efforts need to be done in the social sector in India. The results also exhibit that development expenditure, non-development expenditure and PCNNP are significantly affecting the SDI value.

The study suggests that the government should focus more on social sector programs and there is an urgent need to increase development and non-development expenditures to improve the overall social condition of the country.

The work is different in terms of number of development variables from the already existing literature in India. The author constructed the SDI by using the weighted sum of 12 transformed social variables which has not been studied previously.

Given the fact that the Islamic economic paradigm differs from the secular capitalist paradigm in terms of its emphasis on morality and spirituality, the author thinks that the current Human Development Index (HDI) does not capture human development from an Islamic perspective. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to provide a paradigmatic, theoretical, and conceptual model for the suggested Islamic HDI (iHDI) and second, to present several proxy variables for multi-dimensional iHDI and test the proposed index through empirical data for ten Muslim countries.

The author developed eight-dimensional composite iHDIs based on the understanding of human nature from the Tawhidi anthropology. These dimensions included physical, reasoning, spiritual, ethical, animal, social, deciding, and oppressive selves. The author measured them using nine different indices, three of which came from the conventional HDI (cHDI). The author then compared the rankings of those Muslim countries in iHDI to those in cHDI.

The iHDI rankings for all Muslim countries except two differed from those in cHDI. The difference was more substantial for countries with higher economic development. Thus, improved cHDI rankings for Muslim countries based on their economic development do not necessarily mean that they move toward ideal human development. This finding confirms the need for an alternative human development indexing approach from an Islamic perspective.

The paper is likely to initiate movement to develop an alternative HDI from Islamic perspective.

The paper findings have important policy implications for Muslim countries.

It is the first empirical paper showing how to develop an alternative HDI from an Islamic perspective.

Attempts to present a commentary on a few recent attempts at constructing a composite index of human development, and in the process briefly traces the trends in thinking that show marked shifts from economic growth to social development and to further human development. Shows that national income still remains an important indicator of overall development, and further, that various methodologies of compositing several indicators of development into one index produced broadly similar rank ordering of the nations.

This paper aims to develop a simple model for estimating sustainable development goals index using the capabilities of artificial neural networks.

Sustainable development has three pillars, including social, economic and environmental pillars. Three clusters corresponding to the three pillars were created by extracting sub-indices of three 2018 global reports and performing cluster analysis on the correlation matrix of sub-indices. By setting the sustainable development goals index as the target variable and selecting one indicator from each cluster as input variables, 20 artificial neural networks were run 30 times.

Artificial neural networks with seven nodes in one hidden layer can estimate sustainable development goals index by using just three inputs, including ecosystem vitality, human capital and gross national income per capita. There is an excellent similarity (>95%) between the results of the artificial neural network and the sustainable development goals index.

Instead of calculating 232 indicators for determining the value of sustainable development goals index, it is possible to use only three sub-indices, but missing 5% of precision, by using the proposed artificial neural network model.

The study provides additional information on the estimating of sustainable development and proposes a new simple method for estimating the sustainable development goals index. It just uses three sub-indices, which can be retrieved from three global reports.

This paper aims to build a scientific evaluation index system for regional low-carbon circular economic development. Taking Sichuan Province as the empirical research object, the paper evaluates its low-carbon circular economy (LCCE) development level and proposes policy recommendations for climate change improvement based on the evaluation results.

This paper, first, built an evaluation index system with 30 indicators within six subsystems, namely, economic development, social progress, energy consumption, low-carbon emissions, carbon sink capacity and environmental carrying capacity. Second, develop an “entropy weight-grey correlation” evaluation method. Finally, from a practical point of view, measure the development level of LCCE in Sichuan Province, China, from 2008 to 2018.

It was found that Sichuan LCCE development had a general downward trend from 2008 to 2012 and a steady upward trend from 2012 to 2018; however, the overall level was low. The main factors affecting the LCCE development are lagging energy consumption and environmental carrying capacity subsystem developments.

This paper puts forward relevant suggestions for improving the development of a low-carbon economy and climate change for the reference of policymakers.

This paper built an evaluation index system with 30 indicators for regional low carbon circular economic development. The evaluation method of “entropy weight-grey correlation” is used to measure the development level of regional LCCE in Sichuan Province, China.

Sustainable development calls for concerted efforts towards building an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and planet. The approach that considers sustainable development as the fight against poverty, through the promotion of a sustainable and equitable economy, as the attempt to reduce polluting emissions to promote environmental protection and as the satisfaction of social goals to increase the well-being of populations is adopted. Sustainability development is therefore a complex and subjective concept, considering the three dimensions that define the phenomenon: economic, environmental and social.

The authors have chosen subjective variables, which provide information on the perception of the ‘sustainable development’ in the European countries. Data come from the database of ‘Eurofound’, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. The authors applied a formative measurement model, according to which indicators are considered as the cause of the phenomenon analysed, unlike with the reflective model. To conduct the quantitative analysis, the authors have adopted a non-compensatory approach: Mazziotta and Pareto index which summarising a set of individual indicators that are assumed to be not fully substitutable. The authors place at the centre of the analysis, variables deriving from the perceptive state of the different European populations, offering new hints to measure sustainable development on the basis of subjective assumptions.