Measuring Sustainable Development in the European Union Based on the 2030 Agenda Indicators

The author's research was based on the indicators of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which are used to explore the measurement of sustainable development in the European Union for the period 2014-2018. Various statistical and econometric methods were used in the quantitative research, such as factor analysis, correlation analysis, scale alignment transformation and cluster analysis. The main objective of the research is to show the diversity of the possibilities for measuring sustainable development and the extent to which the indicators in the 2030 Agenda database can be reduced by the selected methods. The results suggest that the set of indicators for the 2030 Agenda can be reduced in size without significantly reducing the information content. The established sustainable development factors show a strong relationship with GDP and HDI indicators. Sustainable development can be analysed using a single composite indicator (CSDGI) for the five years under study and, last but not least, EU Member States can be clustered according to their characteristics.