Is it worth polluting? A multimodal MCDM approach to understand the environmental harm done globally

Sultan Çoşkun Kaya; Kadir Özdemir; Ahmed Yusuf Sarıhan

doi:10.35208/ert.1657700

Authors

Sultan Çoşkun Kaya Kastamonu University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of International Trade and Logistics https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9403-3580
Kadir Özdemir Bursa Technical University, Faculty of Human And Social Sciences, Business Administration Department https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2034-4797
Ahmed Yusuf Sarıhan Bandirma Onyedi Eylul University, Ömer Seyfettin Faculty Of Applied Sciences, Department of International Trade and Logistics https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7119-9852

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35208/ert.1657700

Keywords:

Environmental degradation, trade openness, economic growth, waste import

Abstract

This study aims to determine whether environmental pollution caused by countries, their trade activities, and economic development is significant when considered collectively. Utilizing the most recent global data from (142) countries, six different Multi-Criteria Decision-Making methods were employed to assess which countries currently perform better. The correlations among the obtained scores were then analyzed to evaluate the robustness of the findings. The results revealed that the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands achieved the highest composite environmental–economic performance scores, while Burundi, Lesotho, and the Central African Republic ranked lowest. The Spearman correlation coefficients among the six methods exceeded 0.90, confirming the robustness of the rankings. The study's findings explore whether economic advancements justify environmental harm and whether the economic benefits are sufficient to offset environmental recovery efforts. Finally, it can be concluded that countries are willing to pollute the environment to gain more from the global economic system.

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