Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires countries to simultaneously advance renewable energy transitions, environmental innovation, carbon efficiency, and sustainable governance mechanisms. Although previous research has extensively examined sustainability transitions and environmental sustainability, comparative assessments integrating renewable energy, environmental innovation, carbon efficiency, fiscal instruments, and fossil fuel dependency remain limited. Using 2023 data from 31 OECD countries, the study analyzes eight sustainability-related indicators through an integrated CRITIC-ARAS multi-criteria decision-making framework. The CRITIC method is employed to determine objective criterion weights, while the ARAS method evaluates countries’ performance relative to an ideal sustainability profile. The findings reveal considerable differences in sustainability performance across OECD countries. CO2 emissions from air transport per capita emerge as the most influential criterion within the weighting structure. According to the results, Slovenia, Iceland, and Norway demonstrate the strongest transition performance. Countries with higher renewable electricity generation, stronger environmental innovation support, lower transport-related emissions, and lower fossil fuel dependency generally achieve better outcomes. Sensitivity analysis supports the overall stability of the ranking structure under alternative weighting scenarios, although the exclusion of the highest-weighted criterion produces noticeable ranking shifts for some countries. The results indicate that sustainability performance depends not only on environmental outcomes but also on countries’ ability to coordinate renewable energy policies, environmental innovation, fiscal instruments, and decarbonization strategies. From a policy perspective, the findings emphasize the importance of renewable energy expansion, environmental taxation, transport decarbonization, environmental R&D support, and fossil fuel subsidy reform for strengthening long-term sustainable development strategies. This study contributes to the sustainability assessment literature by providing a comparative and policy-oriented framework for benchmarking sustainability-oriented green transition performance across countries through integrated environmental, energy-related, and innovation-based indicators.
Terzioğlu et al. (Thu,) studied this question.