While great quantities of efforts and capital have been inputted to maintain economic statistics and information system, researches or statistics on environment information has not been satisfied with the demand of the public. Indexation of environmental field has proceeded variously, however, the generalized method like in the economic field has not been suggested. So far standardized index system estimating sustainable development has not been developed. Therefore it is necessary to develop the simplified and integrated Sustainable Development Index(SDI) easily understood by the public.
Through the methodology for SDI estimation, this study will introduce basic background that can evaluate state of national sustainable development and help the public understanding about the trend of sustainable development.
So far a number of private and public organizations have developed a range of Aggregated Environmental Indices, and some organizations have already announced their individual indices.
To establish SDI, in the first place, the function of sub-index valued the extend of the sustainable development should be made up. The next process of establishing SDI is to integrate the sub-index, which is the most significant process in estimation of sustainable development index.
In this study, AHP(Analytical Hierarchy Process) introduced by Saaty(1980) is manipulated for calculation of weight that is the important process in estimation of SDI. The AHP is mainly utilized in policy decision-making on evaluation, selection and prediction, and finding the fast method inves