Sustainable Development: Actual Trends on Synthetic Indicators, Non-aggregative and Configurational Approaches

Sustainable development is key for the fundamental challenges of humanity. The use of non-aggregative approaches can be attractive when trying to understand the relationships of humanity with both nature and society. Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is a method that merges the advantages of qualitative and quantitative methodologies and identifies patterns of conditions that are necessary or sufficient for explaining an outcome. Partially ordered set (poset) theory is a branch of mathematics through which tools that allow dealing with multidimensional systems of ordinal data are obtained. Assessing well-being and development requires sharing a conceptual framework on its determinants, as well as on society, and needs from the identification of the most consistent and effective methodologies to build indicators that are easily understood by society. Sustainable development is an increasingly interesting issue whose academic development can be improved thank to the use of these methodologies, in its combination of environmental and socio-economic concerns.