LAUSR

Abstract The Green Economy Progress measurement methodology is used to construct a multidimensional composite index, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)-9 Progress Index, which measures the progress of countries in meeting the industry-related targets of SDG-9. The index differs from performance indicies in that it focuses on changes over time rather than levels of performance at points in time. Another feature of this index is that it shows the progress of countries in relation to their targets, which differ from country to country. The index is based on five indicators for the three industry-related targets of SDG-9, those where sufficient data are available: manufacturing value added (MVA) as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product, MVA per capita, manufacturing employment as a proportion of total employment, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per unit of MVA, and the proportion of medium and high-tech industry in MVA. Application of the SDG-9 Progress Index shows that out of 124 countries, 58 progressed towards their targets over the period 2000–2016 while 66 regressed away from them. No correspondence is found between the country rankings identified with the SDG-9 Progress Index and those identified with three performance indicies using the same or relatively similar CO2 indicators for index construction but different methodologies. An examination of the weighting specifications in the SDG-9 Progress Index for the CO 2 emission intensity indicator shows that improvements in this indicator for six out of the ten most progressive countries have the greatest potential among the five indicators for improving their rankings.