DOI: 10.5061/dryad.866t1g1rq
title: Social-environmental index: Combining social and biophysical indicators reveals limits to growth

description: The negative impact of the dominant socio-economic paradigm on the
 biosphere, on the climate, and on societies themselves are acute. Yet, the
 success of countries is measured by indicators known to be limited because
 they target a socially attractive but environmentally unsustainable model
 of society. A myriad of indicators have been proposed to address this lack
 of relevant measurements that assess the real social achievements of
 countries. At the same time, the impacts of human societies on life and
 climate have become increasingly well monitored and have shown the
 ecological deadlock of the dominant development model. Although social and
 environmental thresholds have been highlighted, combined indices that
 allow countries to track their trajectories toward greater social justice
 without exceeding biophysical thresholds are still lacking. A combined
 Socio-Environmental Index (SEI) is constructed here to fill this gap. The
 relationship between SEI and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), population
 density, and Sustainable Development Index (SDI) is then analyzed. This
 allows for a re-examination of the Easterlin paradox from a social and
 environmental perspective. In addition, considering population density
 allows to test the influence of population on the country's
 sustainability success. It is shown that combining social and
 environmental thresholds into a combined index is not only feasible but
 provides a useful complementary tool to detailed and specific social or
 environmental indicators. SEI highlights and quantifies the limits,
 already exceeded in many countries, beyond which economic development is
 clearly related to a decline in social achievements and a crossing of
 biophysical thresholds. Unlike GDP, population density and population
 growth were not found as being related to the current unsustainable
 development model. Therefore, the results call for degrowth in the
 environmental impact of high-income countries which may result in social
 improvements and yield room of maneuver for the development of social
 foundations in other countries. All of these transformations require new
 narratives, goals, and measurement tools which can be partly provided by
 SEI.
description: Initial datasets from O’Neill, D. W., Fanning, A. L., Lamb, W.
 F., & Steinberger, J. K. (2018). A good life for all within
 planetary boundaries. Nature sustainability, 1(2), 88-95 (data_publi.csv)
 and site localisation (social_thresholds.csv and planet_boundaries.csv)
 for 2011 values and see details in README.txt for time-series and
 socio-economical data (Chapter2OnlineData.csv, Life_expectancy2.csv,
 FAOSTAT_data_old.csv, FAOSTAT_data.csv, Sanitation2.csv, Poverty2.csv,
 Access_electricity2.csv, Education2.csv, Unemployment2.csv, cba.txt,
 country_hanpp.csv, NFA_2019_public_data.csv,
 tradereport_"year".txt, UNdata_Export_20210427_172302587.csv,
 UNdata_Export_20200716_162002498.csv, country_size.csv, SDI.csv:
 sustainable development index time-series). Final data
 SEI.csv are produced following R scripts that are available in the
 Rmarkdown report (Script_SEI.Rmd) with R script explaining how data
 analyses were conducted (also visible as a .html file).
description: Read the README.txt for data details. All
 steps to process data from initial datasets to final data are explained in
 the Rmarkdown file.