Methodological PLS-PM Framework for SDGs System

Sustainability is the biggest challenge of our generation, because civilization has reached a point where natural resources are in rapid decline. It’s a complex multidimensional phenomenon, which was studied for couple decades already. Nowadays different social concepts, such as sustainability, but also quality of life, satisfaction, are difficult and complex to define. The main problem for researchers is to find appropriate tools to obtain a composite indicator able to synthesize and represent these phenomena. The work focuses on building a system of composite indicators of Sustainability through to Structural Equation Modeling, specifically with the use of Partial Least Squares-Path Modeling. In recent years many advances have been developed, in the context of these models to solve some problems related to the role that the composite indicators play within that system; in particular on the aspects linked to the high level of abstraction, when a composite indicator is manifold, lacks its own manifest variables and is described by various underlying blocks. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how these recent developments in Partial Least Square-Path Modeling could help you to build a SDGs system and to provide a better measure of this complex social phenomenon.