Managing multinational sustainable development in the European Union based on the DPSIR framework

With 27 member states, the European Union has a population of nearly half a billion, making its sustainable development both important and multinational. Though the practicality of the Driving forces-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework is widely recognized in Europe, it has never been applied to choose sustainability indicators for the European Union. This study focused on using the DPSIR framework to establish a set of sustainable development indicators clearly displaying their casual links in the European region. The DPSIR framework was used to select 28 indicators, as well as to collect corresponding data for 27 member states between 2005 and 2006. After applying the partial-least-squares (PLS) technology to determine how each construct was related, experimental results proved all of the causal links other than the effects of ʹresponseʹ on ʹdriving forcesʹ, ʹpressureʹ and ʹstateʹ. This study also suggested some other environment-management methods related to the DPSIR framework for European authorities, together with a longitudinal assessment of the proposed model.