Envisioning Energy Sustainability: An SDG 7 Synthetic Index and Novel Tangential Policy Framework Across 40 Countries

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 is proposed to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. The progress in SDG 7 is paramount for accomplishing the Paris agreement, decarbonization and climate action. Therefore, monitoring the progress of countries towards SDG 7 is pivotal. This study improved an existing SDG 7 composite index and termed it as SDG 7 synthetic index for assessing the energy sustainability performance of various countries. This study is propounded as a research work in terms of improved SDG7 synthetic index and its application to the selected 40 nations around the world. A novel scenario-based tangential policy suggestions has been proposed for the obtained results to conceive SDG 7. The SDG 7 synthetic index consists of six criteria covering the dimensions of clean energy, carbon intensity, energy security, energy intensity, energy accessibility and energy affordability. These 6 criteria are built from twelve sub-criteria to accurately depict the performance of a country towards SDG 7. Overall, 40 countries have been selected across the globe and the process of data acquisition, normalization, weightage allocation and aggregation are accomplished to evaluate the synthetic index by adopting the methodology of SDG 7 synthetic indicator. The energy sustainability assessment through the synthetic index highlights that Norway, Iceland and Costa Rica attain the top rank with scores (on a scale of 0 to 1) of 0.8003, 0.6912 and 0.6828 respectively. The entrenched SDG 7 synthetic index can be utilized to annually monitor the relative progress of countries and concentrating the policy efforts on establishing energy sustainability. • Introducing energy affordability dimension to the existing SDG 7 composite index • Energy sustainability assessment of 40 nations using robust SDG 7 synthetic index • Norway, Iceland and Costa Rica emerged as top 3 countries in the overall ranking • Proposed a tangential policy framework to conceive SDG 7 on global landscape • Actionable policy suggestions for all the 6 criteria of SDG 7 synthetic index