Equity and sustainability: An empirical analysis

An empirical equity measure involving energy, taxes, and pollution is developed and analyzed statistically with economic, environmental, energy, and sustainability indicators. The pollution equity measure is an emissions‐to‐jobs ratio, the energy measure is the ratio of energy prices of the residential sector to the industrial sector, and the tax measure is the ratio of regressive tax revenues to progressive tax revenues. A composite equity index is calculated and correlated with indicators of sustainability across the 50 states of the United States Sustainability indicators used were poverty, unemployment rates, personal income and disparity, energy use, waste generated, and the Green Index scores. As the equity index improves, indicating more equality, the economic, environmental, and energy parameters improve, indicating better sustainability. Equity appears to be related to economic conditions, energy use, environmental quality, and sustainability, and has implications for policy development. Equality of conditions is proposed as a necessary condition for sustainability.