The PASHMINA Indicators for Sustainable Energy Development – How Does the EU Perform?

In recent years the scientific discussion on how to best measure societal progress has gained increasing attention in the political arena. The underlying question is, whether the indicators currently used, are able to provide adequate information and are appropriate for guiding political decision making with respect to societal progress and welfare as well as with respect to the concept of sustainable development. Closely related to the concept of sustainable development a wide range of measurement approaches evolved that focus on different aspects relevant for societal wellbeing and progress. Energy plays a central role for all dimensions of sustainable development which is widely recognised in the different indicator sets. This report takes the energy indicators developed in the PASHMINA project as starting point. In order to summarise the development of the indicators for the EU total as well as EU 15 and the new member countries we calculate composite indices for sustainable energy development for the five sectors energy supply, manufacturing, services, households and transport as well as an aggregate index. A cluster analysis is performed to identify differences and similarities among countries with respect to selected energy indicators in the five sectors.