抄録
In the last decade, and following the publication of Brundtland’s report on sustainable development, the number of books and papers with the word “sustainable” in their title has grown enormously. However, the word is used in many different ways. The elasticity of the concept has given rise to questions about what it is supposed to mean: the sustainability of what, for whom, for how long, and why ?
This paper aims to demonstrate the components of well-being which must be sustainable. To do this, the meaning of sustainability is first clarified. Next, it is shown that well-being consists of multiple factors;thus, well-being is defined as hierarchical in this paper. Then sustainability is considered from the viewpoint of the fundamental theory of welfare economics. In particular, it is shown that there should be a much greater focus on both intra-generational and inter-generational equity in the compensation principle than is commonly the case. It is pointed out that multiple criteria analysis is a promising method for addressing a wide range of well-being simultaneously.
Two applications of multiple criteria analysis are presented: one is to rectify the vulnerability of water utilization in Bangladesh, and the other is to improve the waterside environmental management of the Kamo River in Kyoto city, Japan. In both cases, people’s well-being is treated as being multifaceted. With regard to Bangladesh, dealing with the first level of well-being involves remedying the vulnerability of water utilization, but it is emphasized that it is necessary to consider social well-being, including not only adequate information on water quality but also people’s satisfaction with respect to income, family and so on. For the Kamo River, it is shown that management of the waterside environment includes the improvement of people’s life conditions such as the survivability of their region through constructing a regional environmental valuation.
Finally, it is suggested that a hierarchical multiple criteria analysis be applied to improve a regional welfare problem, as people’s well-being is considered to have a hierarchical constitution.
JEL Classification: D63, Q01, Q56, R11
