Sustainable development: Decision making using fuzzy logic and sensitivity analysis

Sustainable development is a process associated with social, economic, and environmental decisions. First one has to define and assess sustainable development and then devise decision-making mechanisms. We have a model called SAFE (Sustainability Assessment by Fuzzy Evaluation) which uses data about environmental integrity, economic efficiency and social welfare, and then processes them via fuzzy logic to derive measures of human, ecological, and overall sustainability. A sensitivity analysis identifies the factors affecting sustainability. About eighty indicators are thus tested and classified according to sensitivity as promoting, impeding, or having no effect on sustainability. The method could become a useful tool to politicians and decision makers as they strive towards sustainability. The model is applied to the Greek and American economies.