From Growth Engines to Sustainable Drivers: Benchmarking Special Economic Zones against the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have long been recognised as pivotal engines of economic growth; however, their sustainability performance remains a pressing challenge. Assessing their contribution through the lens of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offers a meaningful benchmark for evaluating their broader developmental impact. This study develops a novel hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework to rank SEZs based on their alignment with the SDGs, as demonstrated through an empirical case study of Iran’s SEZs. The proposed approach integrates the Fuzzy Best–Worst Method (FBWM) with a modified Fuzzy VIKORSORT (Fuzzy VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje) sorting procedure to address uncertainty and complexity inherent in multi-dimensional sustainability assessments. FBWM determines the relative importance of SDG-related criteria. At the same time, an eight-step Fuzzy VIKORSORT process classifies SEZs into three categories using limit profiles that reflect both optimistic and pessimistic perspectives. A sensitivity analysis of SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) reveals that SDG 6 has the greatest influence on SEZ performance. The findings confirm the robustness of the proposed framework and underscore the predominance of economic planning over sustainability considerations. The study offers policymakers a systematic, data-driven, and adaptable decision-support tool for evaluating SEZs and fostering sustainable regional development in line with the UN SDG agenda.