The effects of environmental and social dimensions of sustainability in response to the economic crisis of European cities

Abstract

The concept of sustainable development, which has emerged over the last few decades, has moved away from the global to the local level. The sustainability measurements at the global level use the triple bottom line, considering environmental, economic and social dimensions; however, the limited data available at the local level has driven what little research there is to use these optics when considering cities sustainability. In this paper, we use a sustainability city index based on the intellectual capital approach, which considers the three dimensions for European cities. Concretely, we use the environmental and social dimensions of this city index to analyze the effect of different levels of development in terms of sustainability over the main economic variables with available information. The results highlight the importance of the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability in cities economic recovery and show that cities with best positions in sustainability have better performance in economic terms.