**1. Introduction**

The United Nations General Assembly adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 targets in 2015 [1]. The SDGs are a universal agenda taking various aspects in development into account and applying them to both developing and developed countries in the post-2015 period. Each governmen<sup>t</sup> is supposed to set its own national targets contributing to the achievement of SDGs on the global level. However, how to determine these national targets is left up to each country to decide, and supporting methodologies are not necessarily sufficient even though there is some movement to develop SDG indicators that monitor countries' progress toward sustainable development [2–4]. For example, Hák et al. [5] pointed out that there is still little agreemen<sup>t</sup> or consensus on criteria for evaluating indicators, such as correctness of underlying assumptions and concepts, relevance of various phenomena for sustainable development, and data quality. Fukuda-Parr and McNeill [6] asserted that the SDGs are vehicles—or instruments—that convey norms and that the criteria for SDG indicator selection should be based more on norms and less on data availability. Allen et al. [7] reviewed 80 models that have the potential to support national development planning within the context of the SDGs; however, the selection of a modelbasedonthespecificcircumstancesorneedsofacountrywasnotdiscussed.

 Having criteria underlying the development of each country is crucial for countries to formulate the direction of their development. The ideas of social development and human

**Citation:** Tasaki, T.; Tajima, R.; Kameyama, Y. Measurement of the Importance of 11 Sustainable Development Criteria: How Do the Important Criteria Differ among Four Asian Countries and Shift as the Economy Develops? *Sustainability* **2021**, *13*, 9719. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/su13179719

Academic Editor: Alan Randall

Received: 21 July 2021 Accepted: 26 August 2021 Published: 30 August 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

development have been discussed since the 1960s to avoid the negative consequences of economy-centered development. For example, the UN mentioned "qualitative and structural changes in the society must go hand in hand with rapid economic growth" in 1970 [8]. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), known as the Earth Summit, which was held in 1992, agreed on the principles that human beings are at the center of concern for sustainable development (Principle 1) and environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it (Principle 4) [9]. These principles urged countries to change the direction of their development. Furthermore, the SDGs, adopted in 2015, encompass concrete criteria for development. For instance, SDG 7 ("ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all") encompasses the developmental criteria of accessibility, security, inclusiveness, and environmental capacity. Accessibility as a national minimum is no longer an important criterion for developed countries, but the use of renewable energy (i.e., the criterion of environmental sustainability) has become more important, as stated by SDG target 7.2. For SDG 12 ("ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns"), SDG target 12.1 mentions implementing "the 10-Year Framework of Programmes taking into account the development and capabilities of developing countries.", and SDG target 12.2 is to "achieve the sustainable managemen<sup>t</sup> and efficient use of natural resources". Capability and efficiency are thus included in the criteria for sustainable development.

Understanding such criteria is very important, especially when a country enters into another stage of development and fails to introduce new criteria into its public policy. For a hypothetical example, energy systems criteria could develop as shown in Figure 1, from accessibility in the 1st phase to efficiency in the 2nd phase and further and to advanced criteria in subsequent phases of development. Understanding the importance of such criteria is also critical to properly reflect citizens' opinions of national policy. So far, Rostow [10] delineated five stages of economic development, and Hotta et al. [11] asserted the evolution and three versions of sustainable consumption and production policies. Meadowcraft and Fiorino [12] illustrated a conceptual innovation process of environmental policies toward sustainability; for example, it shifted from pollution to sustainable development and climate change as well as from the polluter pay principle to decoupling over the last few decades. These examples indicate that development criteria could and should change according to the phases of development. Even so, identifying which criteria are the most important remains unclear. Interestingly, Khoshnava et al. [13] analyzed 23 criteria related to SDGs and the green economy to identify the most effective ones, and Su et al. [14] analyzed 22 criteria of sustainable supply chain management. However, these criteria were not the *criteria* this study refers to; rather, they were policy or managemen<sup>t</sup> *goals*.

We therefore aimed to measure the importance of criteria for the sustainable development (hereinafter, referred to as "SD criteria") of countries. We also attempted to compare the importance levels among four Asian countries at different stages of economic development to gain insights on the evolution of SD criteria with the following research questions: (1) Which SD criteria change their importance as the economy develops and how? (2) What SD criteria retain their importance regardless of economic development? (3) Do non-economic factors have influences on the perception of the importance of SD criteria? For research question 1, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of four countries at different levels of economic development (1a) and surveyed the future importance of SD criteria as well (1b). The intended difference between 1a and 1b is that 1a addresses the perceptions of respondents at different levels of economic development while the 1b addresses the perception of respondents at a certain level of economic development for different times periods.

**Figure 1.** Hypothetical shift of the most important criteria of developing energy systems in each phase of economic development of a country.

### **2. Materials and Methods**

### *2.1. Sustainable Development Criteria*

To determine the SD criteria to be analyzed in this study, we reviewed the literature in the field of sustainable development [15–34], documents about principles and criteria used by a variety of certification programs [35–51], and the 169 SDG targets. We found that the following 11 SD criteria were embedded in these references, at the least: accessibility, capability, convenience, efficiency, environmental capacity, inclusiveness, resilience and stability ("resilience" in short), security, self-sufficiency, social justice, and variety of choice ("variety", in short). We therefore used these 11 SD criteria in our analysis. The working definitions of the criteria used in this survey are given in Table 1.

**Table 1.** Working definitions of the 11 sustainable development criteria.


*2.2. Indirect Stated Preference Approach*

We devised an indirect stated preference approach for the measurement of the importance of SD criteria because it would be difficult for ordinary people to give direct answers about the importance of the 11 criteria (i.e., use a direct stated preference approach). Instead, we prepared 58 national goals covering 6 domains that directly and exclusively link to one of the 11 SD criteria. An example for energy is shown in Figure 2. The 58 goals in

this study were created by the authors by combining the six domains and the eleven SD criteria (see Table A1 in Appendix A for all of the national goals used in this study). The six domains used in this study were energy, economy, health, ecosystem, education, and food. They were chosen because of their importance as national sustainable development indicators [28].

**Figure 2.** Examples of pairs of national goals and criteria used in the indirect stated preference approach of this study.

We asked the respondents to rate the importance of each of the 58 goals with a 10-point Likert scale (from very important to not important at all). We also asked them to rate the importance of the goal in the future relative to that of the present (hereinafter, referred to as "relative future importance") with a 3-point Likert scale (becomes more important (+1), importance will not change (0), becomes less important (−1); the statement used in the survey was "*How do you think the importance of the goals will change in the future? Please answer assuming a period up to 20 years from now*"). We calculated the average importance (*I*) of the national goals linked to the same criterion (*C*) of respondents *j*, *<sup>I</sup>*C,j, by using Equation (1):

$$I\_{C,j} = \frac{\sum \left( i\_{\mathcal{S} \in C, j} \right)}{n\_{\mathcal{S} \in C}} \tag{1}$$

A country may have an urgen<sup>t</sup> and severe problem in a certain domain, which could result in that domain scoring higher than the others in that country and also higher than its importance in other countries. To counterbalance this effect, we calculated the standardized importance of the criterion, *<sup>S</sup>*C,j, by using Equation (2), which standardizes the importance of each goal with the average importance of goals in the same domain (*d*) for each respondent, given by Equation (3):

$$S\_{C,j} = \frac{\sum \left( i\_{\mathcal{S} \in C, j} / I\_{d,j} \right)}{n\_{\mathcal{S} \in C}} \tag{2}$$

$$I\_{d,j} = \frac{\sum \left( i\_{\mathcal{S} \in d, j} \right)}{n\_{\mathcal{S} \in d}} \tag{3}$$

Here, *ig*∈*C*,*<sup>j</sup>* is the importance of national goal *g* with criterion *C* as reported by the respondents *j*, *ng*∈*<sup>C</sup>* is the number of goals with the same criterion *C*, and *ng*∈*<sup>d</sup>* is the number of goals in domain *d*.

The importance and standardized importance of SD criterion *C* in each country were then calculated by Equations (4) and (5), respectively:

$$I\_C = \frac{\sum\_j I\_{C,j}}{n\_j} \tag{4}$$

$$S\_{\mathbb{C}} = \frac{\sum\_{j} S\_{\mathbb{C},j}}{n\_j} \tag{5}$$

Here, *nj* is the number of respondents in each country.

We calculated the relative future importance and the standardized relative future importance of each SD criterion *C* for each country in the say way.

### *2.3. Survey and Analysis*

An online questionnaire survey was conducted from 2013 to 2015 in four Asian countries: Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam, which are at different levels of economic development (see GDP per capita in Table 2). The respondents were the monitors of two survey companies, Cross Marketing in Japan and Cross Marketing Asia, who were 20 years of age or older. There were 500 respondents for each country, except for Japan, which had 1408. Quota sampling was applied for each country, with eight equal quotas for the combinations of the two sexes and the ages of the participants who were in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and over 50 (See Table A2 in Appendix B for the profiles of the respondents). Questions were prepared in Japanese and in English and were then translated from English to Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese. After the survey, we calculated the current/future importance of the above-mentioned 11 SD criteria perceived by members of the general public of the four Asian countries.

**Table 2.** Standardized importance ranks of the 11 SD criteria in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. Criteria ranked in top five for at least one country are presented. Per capita gross domestic product (GDP, PPP based) in 2014 is also shown.


### **3. Results and Discussion**

### *3.1. Current and Future Importance of SD Criteria*

The calculated current and relative future importance values of the 11 SD criteria as perceived by members of the general public are presented in Figure 3.

The current and future results were positively correlated (*r*2 = 0.766), meaning that the respondents in all four Asian countries perceived that the more important a criterion was at present, the more important it will become in the future (20 years). No criterion was perceived to become less important (i.e., all of the future values are positive), but differences in the degree of change in terms of future importance changed the rank between the present and the future. This means that the future importance rank of the criteria located relatively far to the right in Figure 3 can become more important than those located to the left, even if the ones on the left are higher. For example, compare security and self-sufficiency in Japan with inclusiveness and accessibility, respectively.

and

**Figure 3.** Current and relative future importance values for the 11 SD criteria in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Overall, Thai and Vietnamese respondents tended to evaluate the importance of the SD criteria higher than the South Korean and Japanese respondents. Previous studies (e.g., [52–54]) have argued that these kinds of differences may be rooted in the different response styles of people in these countries. That is, respondents in some countries tend to select middle answers, whereas others choose extreme answers. The former style is called the middle response style, and the latter is called the extreme response style. According to a literature review by Harzing [52], Japanese and Korean respondents tend to have a middle response style. This will be discussed in more detail in Section 3.4.

We identified criteria that could be considered to have the same level of importance between pairs of the four countries by using a *t*-test (see Table A3 in in Appendix C). Most of the importance values were significantly different, but the current importance of the six criteria and the future importance of one criterion between Japan and South Korea were not significantly different. In addition, the current importance of four criteria and the future importance of five criteria between Thailand and Vietnam were also not significantly different. In other words, respondents in Japan/South Korea and those in Thailand/Vietnam had relatively similar perceptions on the importance of SD criteria.

### *3.2. Standardized Importance of SD Criteria*

The results of standardized importance are presented in Figure 4. The relationship between the current and relative future importance values was stronger (*r*2 = 0.917) than it was in the unstandardized results shown in Figure 3. This indicates that measurement by standardized importance is less influenced by the countries' specific circumstances in terms of domains and respondent styles. People may think of the importance of national goals

based on the importance of a domain of concern first and then differentiate the importance of each goal based on criteria (i.e., the perception of domains is more influential). This type of two-phased consideration could be employed by people intentionally or unintentionally. To determine whether the domain or criteria is more similar, we applied cluster analysis to the current importance of the SD criteria for each country. The results (Figure A1 in Appendix D) showed that many clusters included goals in the same domains but did not include many goals within the same criteria. More study is needed on this topic.

**Figure 4.** Standardized current and relative future importance values of 11 SD criteria in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

We split Figure 4 into four quadrants by drawing a line through the value of one on each axis. Security, efficiency, and environmental capacity are the prominent SD criteria in the first (upper right) quadrant. These criteria are currently important relative to the others and the respondents anticipated that they would become even more important in the future. In contrast, convenience and variety were prominent in the third (lower left) quadrant, meaning that they are both currently less important and the respondents determined that they would become relatively less important in the future.

These are important findings in light of the objectives of this study. However, the question arises: do market prices properly reflect the importance placed on these SD criteria? In general, the results in Figure 4 do not appear to consistently align with actual market prices. Rare products and convenient products tend to be valued higher, but these criteria were located in the third (lower importance) quadrant. Security and efficiency are valued in the market but perhaps not to the extent that Figure 4 shows. In addition, environmental capacity is often externalized by market mechanisms. Thus, the relative importance of the SD criteria found in this study may differ from that inferred from current market prices. As is well known, market mechanisms place prices on products and services based on exchange values. In contrast, our methodology measures the inherent values of the SD criteria. The relationship between the inherent importance and market pricing of the SD criteria is an interesting topic for future study.

Only a few SD criteria were located in the second (upper left) and fourth (lower right) quadrants. Accessibility and inclusiveness were perceived to be relatively important at the present but less so in the future in some cases; for example, Japanese and South Korean respondents evaluated accessibility in this manner. These countries are developed and have higher levels of accessibility to a variety of infrastructure and public services, which can be taken for granted. Thus, it is not surprising that accessibility was located in the second quadrant. The Japanese respondents evaluated environmental capacity as relatively less important at the present but that it would become more important in the future. People's attention in Japan has shifted from local environmental pollution, which can draw strong attention, to global environmental issues, which can be harder to grasp on a personal level and may cause respondents to rank them as being of relatively lower importance. Worsening global warming has been found to draw the most attention among various environmental issues in Japan [55,56], which may also explain this result.

### *3.3. Differences in the Ranks of Importance of SD Criteria*

Here, we focus on the order of the standardized importance of the 11 criteria of each country and compare the ranks among countries for research questions 1 and 2. Harzing [52] concluded that ranking is generally a superior method for working with scores obtained from Likert scales and also thought that ranking can better avoid the issue of different response styles. Table 2 shows a summary of the ranking results. Among the 11 criteria, security, efficiency, accessibility, capability, and environmental capacity were commonly perceived as relatively important by respondents from all four countries; however, the ranks differed by country.

For example, environmental capacity was ranked lower, and inclusiveness was ranked higher as the per capita gross domestic product (GDP) (converted based on purchasing power parity [PPP]) increased. Environmental capacity and capability were seen as more important in Thailand and Vietnam, whereas resilience was more important in Japan and South Korea. Severe environmental pollution, such as PM2.5 air pollution (particulate matter < 2.5 μm in diameter) in Thailand and Vietnam [57], could influence the respondents' evaluations. Accessibility was ranked higher than resilience in Thailand and Vietnam but lower in Japan and South Korea. This probably relates to insufficient basic infrastructure and public services in Thailand and Vietnam, whereas the infrastructure issues have shifted from initial provision to maintenance in the other two countries. The rank of capability was higher than that of inclusiveness in Thailand and Vietnam but was lower in Japan and South Korea. This may imply that the Japanese and South Korean respondents believe that individual efforts are no longer sufficient and that society should care for vulnerable people.

### *3.4. Influences of Non-Economic Factors*

Not only economic factors but also non-economic factors might affect the importance of certain SD criteria for a country. Several studies have paid much attention to the cultures of different countries, and we hereby discuss the possibility of influences of such factors on the perception of the importance of the SD criteria (research question 3).

The World Value survey led by Inglehart and Welzel [58] and the survey by Hofstede et al. [59] are famous examples because they covered many countries. The latest results of the World Value Survey [60] present a new version of the so-called Inglehart– Welzel cultural map, which has two major axes of cross-cultural variation—traditional values versus secular-rational values (the vertical axis) and survival values versus selfexpression values (the horizontal axis). This new map shows that Japan and South Korea are located in secular areas (in the vertical axis), whereas Thailand and Vietnam are located in between secular and traditional. All four countries are located near the center of the horizontal axis, indicating moderate self-expression values. The difference between the Japan/South Korea pair and the Thailand/Vietnam pair may be attributed to differences in secular-rational values, or they may just reflect the degree of economic development

1 as shown by the per capita GDP differences in Table 2. The latest data from the Hofstede group's survey [61] are summarized in Table 3. The two abovementioned pairs apparently differ in uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation. These two cultural tendencies could result in high ranks for resilience in Japan and South Korea. In contrast, Thailand and Vietnam had high ranks for capability, which can be interpreted that, at least in the short term, they place more importance on the capability to solve current issues.


**Table 3.** Hofstede's six indices of national culture and their values in 2015 for Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

> Data retrieved from Geerthofstede.com [61]; the averages and differences were calculated by the authors.

> > Harzing [52] conducted a regression analysis between response styles and Hofstede's cultural values and found that people with a high power distance (a tendency to accept an unequal distribution of power) and individualism tended not to have a middle response style (*p* < 0.01). Power distance explains the results of our survey on the importance of national goals—Thai and Vietnamese respondents tended to rate the importance of national goals higher—however, those with a high level of individualism do not. Other factors such as the perceived seriousness of the issues and/or a strong motivation for improvement in each country's context could play an influential role in the responses.
