In 2015, all 193 member states of the United Nations (UN) adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These 17 goals, 169 targets, and 232 indicators (including over 650 indicators if all the subdivisions are included) are intended to guide and improve sustainable wellbeing and life satisfaction for everyone on earth. Challenges include the fact that many indicators are not measured or reliably tracked in many countries, the cost of tracking is unclear, and no explicit overarching goal exists. To highlight some of the problems with this approach, we model life satisfaction (LS) survey scores by country, as a proxy for overall wellbeing, as the dependent variable against the official 232 SDG indicators. Using a constrained linear regression approach (LASSO), we identify a model that includes only 8 of the 232 indicators and explains 84% of the variation in LS. These eight indicators are proxies for economic, social, and environmental variables. We also cluster countries according to these indicators and LS showing correlation within geographical and cultural regions. We discuss these results with regard to the meaning and measurement of sustainable development vs. sustainable wellbeing and its relationship with LS and the SDGs. We recommend how these results can be used to prioritize goals and measurement efforts to create more meaningful and useful measures of sustainable wellbeing.

中文翻译：

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更好地衡量可持续发展和福祉：少数可持续发展目标指标可靠地预测生活满意度

2015 年，联合国（UN）所有 193 个成员国都通过了可持续发展目标（SDGs）。这 17 个目标、169 个具体目标和 232 项指标（如果包括所有细分，则包括 650 多项指标）旨在指导和改善地球上每个人的可持续福祉和生活满意度。挑战包括许多国家没有衡量或可靠跟踪许多指标，跟踪成本不明确，不存在明确的总体目标。为了突出这种方法的一些问题，我们按国家/地区模拟生活满意度 (LS) 调查得分，作为整体幸福感的代表，作为官方 232 项可持续发展目标指标的因变量。使用约束线性回归方法 (LASSO)，我们确定了一个模型，该模型仅包含 232 个指标中的 8 个，并解释了 LS 中 84% 的变化。这八个指标代表经济、社会和环境变量。我们还根据这些指标和 LS 对国家进行聚类，显示地理和文化区域内的相关性。我们就可持续发展与可持续福祉的意义和衡量标准及其与 LS 和可持续发展目标的关系讨论这些结果。我们建议如何使用这些结果来确定目标和衡量工作的优先级，以创建更有意义和有用的可持续福祉衡量标准。我们还根据这些指标和 LS 对国家进行聚类，显示地理和文化区域内的相关性。我们就可持续发展与可持续福祉的意义和衡量标准及其与 LS 和可持续发展目标的关系讨论这些结果。我们建议如何使用这些结果来确定目标和衡量工作的优先级，以创建更有意义和有用的可持续福祉衡量标准。我们还根据这些指标和 LS 对国家进行聚类，显示地理和文化区域内的相关性。我们就可持续发展与可持续福祉的意义和衡量标准及其与 LS 和可持续发展目标的关系讨论这些结果。我们建议如何使用这些结果来确定目标和衡量工作的优先级，以创建更有意义和有用的可持续福祉衡量标准。