Measuring Social Sustainability

Investment Rating - The report does not provide a specific investment rating for the industry Core Insights - The report emphasizes the growing importance of social sustainability and the need for a consensus on its measurement to effectively monitor progress towards sustainable development goals [4][7] - It introduces the Social Sustainability Index, which measures multidimensional social gaps across four dimensions: inclusion, resilience, social cohesion, and process legitimacy, using 16 indicators [4][8] - The findings indicate that approximately two-thirds of the population in Peru and South Africa experience overlapping social gaps, with intensity rates of 47% and 53% respectively, highlighting significant social fragility [4][9] Summary by Sections Introduction - The report discusses the increasing global attention on social sustainability due to rising poverty and inequality exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic [7] - It highlights the lack of an empirical measure for social sustainability, which hampers effective policy design and monitoring [7][8] Conceptual and Measurement Framework - The report outlines a conceptual framework for social sustainability that includes social cohesion, inclusion, resilience, and process legitimacy [15][19] - It critiques existing literature for lacking a consensus on measurement and proposes a comprehensive approach to assess social sustainability across multiple dimensions [19][20] Methodology - The report details a new methodology based on the Counting Approach to measure social sustainability multidimensionally, identifying individuals experiencing multiple social gaps [28][29] - It describes the process of aggregating individual social gap data into a synthetic index, the Social Sustainability Index (SSI), which can be disaggregated by population group [31][32] Application - The report applies the proposed Social Sustainability Index in Peru and South Africa, demonstrating its utility in identifying vulnerable populations and the dimensions driving social sustainability gaps [4][9][34] - It emphasizes the importance of accountability and inclusion in policy design to address the identified social gaps [4][9]