INTRODUCTION

The paradigm of consumption and unlimited accumulation without restrictions goes against ethics and human dignity (^{Sen, 2001}; ^{Castells & Himanen, 2016}). It also compromises the survival of natural ecosystems, whose value in terms of their multiple goods and services surpasses the global GDP (^{Costanza et al., 2014}). Additionally, responses to this issue have focused on the idea of sustainable development and mechanisms such as retributive rates. However, this vision tends to be focused on one sector only and is fragmented, which emphasizes the concept of unlimited economic growth (^{Dasgupta, 2013}; ^{Shindell, 2015}; ^{Spaiser et al., 2017}; ^{Selomane et al., 2019}). Nevertheless, it has been demonstrated that classical economic paradigms such as perfect competition, rational consumption, perfect information, and diminishing returns have no theoretical support (^{Romer, 1986}; ^{Lucas, 1988}; ^{Stiglitz, 2002}; ^{Krugman, 2011}).

^{Ocampo (2021)} states that intragenerational and intergenerational equity aspects are at play, as poorer people are the most affected by environmental degradation, with stronger consequences to the rural poor. He defines development as the ability of the countries or regions to diversify their production matrix, which agrees with ^{Hausmann (2006)} on the fact that the sophistication of exports is the main indicator of development. This limited scope, about the concept of development, which overemphasizes economic aspects, has generated a strong “post-development” school of thought (^{Escobar, 2008}) and has replaced the term with the alternative “good living”.

That is why the idea of development as a complex, multilevel, and multidimensional process has resurfaced, and it considers how it is built by both people and communities, as well as territories and nations, that are seek a solidary and collective future, a “better life” shared with nature. In other words, it is a continuous process of transitioning from an antrophocentric civilization with a high social and ecological debt to an ecocentric culture (^{Raworth, 2014}).

Taking all of this into account, in this research, we used the Sustainable Territorial Development Index (^{Índice de desarrollo territorial sustentable, IDTS}), which balances five types of wealth that should harmonically coexist and grow within a territory (^{Fonseca, 2018}). These types of wealth are human, intellectual, environmental-natural, public-institutional, and private. It is important to note that, if these types of wealth have a similar growth, it is possible to achieve virtuous cycles; whereas if the growth is different between them or inexistant for any, we arrive at a vicious cycle (^{Fonseca et al., 2016}).

METHODS AND MATERIALS

We analyzed the result of using the IDTS in all of the municipalities and departments in Colombia by applying the principal component analysis. The instrument was applied after redefining the key concepts mentioned below:

The Moran index was applied to the principal component analysis (PCA) to determine the existence or inexistence of clusters. Regressions were also used to establish the model’s sensitivity to geographical control variables such as average distance to capital departments, or average distance to ports like Buenaventura or Cartagena.

Programming in R was used to perform the statistical testing, while information tables were built in Excel. The raw data were processed for each variable so that their value was positive and tending to 1.

The final estimation for the IDTS considered the explicative weight each variable had in each type of wealth and their theorical and philosophical significance for each department and municipality. Each of these weights represent their variance contribution (VC).

RESULTS

60 variables were selected and grouped into the five types of wealth by applying statistical and spatial methods such as the Moran index and clustering. Regression analysis with geographical control variables was also used.

The results for each of the types of wealth are shown below. They are presented as a consolidation for departments and municipalities.

Table I. Human wealth in municipalities and departments of Colombia (2000-2010) 

Source: ^{Fonseca et al., 2016}

Table II Intellectual wealth in municipalities and departments of Colombia (2000-2010) 

Source: ^{Fonseca et al., 2016}

Table III Natural/environmental wealth in municipalities and departments of Colombia (2000-2010) 

Source: ^{Fonseca et al., 2016}

Table IV Public wealth in municipalities and departments of Colombia (2000-2010) 

Source: ^{Fonseca et al., 2016}

Table V Private wealth in municipalities and department of Colombia (2000-2010) 

Source: ^{Fonseca et al., 2016}

During the PCA analysis, we found that almost all the variables both at the municipal and departmental levels are sensitive to the selected control variables.

In the same way, even when some indexes show encouraging numbers, particularly those related to public or private healthcare and education, others are insufficient, like those related to environmental protection, or investment in science, technology, and innovation, as well as to institutional healthcare.

On the other hand, with PCA we determined that four out of the five types of wealth are growing (human, intellectual, public, and private). However, this growth is at the expense of the natural and environmental wealth, which poses a problem in terms of sustainability.

In other words, Colombian development is happening with considerably high natural and environmental costs, which increases risks for people, particularly if one considers risks related to seismic activity, avalanches, and floods. This shows that this development is environmentally unsustainable.

CONCLUSIONS

Classic works in the field of economics have considered multiple factors and perspectives in the study of development and welfare (^{Smith, 1776}; ^{Singer, 1952}; ^{Lucas, 1988}; ^{Azariadis & Drazen, 1990}; ^{Meier & Rauch, 1995}; ^{Schumpeter & Backhaus, 2003}). However, the environmental perspective has only recently started to be considered (^{Gómez-Contreras, 2014}), particularly considering the differentiated and sometimes contradictory effect of human groups (^{Foladori, 1999}; ^{Granato et al., 1996}).

This study works with the hypothesis that development is a complex process, which occurs in different dimensions and heterogeneous scales. Because of that, one must consider a dynamic perspective to achieve both individual and collective welfare, which brings a responsible use of wealth into consideration. It is also necessary to strengthen people’s capabilities and skills in the use of available wealth, especially because the Anthropocene, as both a socio-ecological and social decision-making system, helps to comprehend the needs and expectations of the people (^{Fonseca-Zárate et al., 2020}).

The importance of knowledge, innovation, the environmental and socio-ecological perspective has only recently been considered (80’s) to be fundamental for the right to a “good” development of countries and regions. ^{Fonseca (2018)} recalls that development is a complex, multidimensional, multi-spatial process that involves identifying, agreeing, and achieving society’s goals and expectations. He proposes IDTS as a different approach to assess “sustainability” by observing the coincidence or opposition of the five wealth vectors using the PCA statistical tool and the observation of the distance between their individual values.

Consequently, the processed information showed that:

Therefore, it is really important to modify the existing exploitation model (^{García-Ubaque, 2016}) and contribute to decreasing the distance between the five types of wealth. This will require much more science and technology, particularly in fields related to engineering and social and institutional innovation, which must be closely related to understanding our mega-biodiversity and socioecological complexity.