Synergies or Trade-offs? A New Method to Quantify Synergy Between Different Dimensions of Sustainability

Abstract

This paper presents a new assessment tool developed for the analysis of synergies and trade-offs between selected development trends. We suggest new quantitative measures for the concepts of synergy, trade-off and delinking. The tool is developed to analyse the synergy between two different trends, but it can be used to analyse simultaneously the synergy between three trends representing the three different dimensions of sustainable development. The use of the tool is demonstrated with several examples from European Union countries. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.