Evaluation of Eco-efficiency in cities in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) using the Benefit of the Doubt (BoD) approach.

This study proposes the formulation of a composite indicator (CI) to quantify urban eco-efficiency in cities in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) using the Benefit of the Doubt (BoD) approach through the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique. The CI model considered Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of urban eco-efficiency reported in the literature, related to sustainable consumption and production patterns, and aligned with the UN vision for 2030 and 2050. As this is an illustrative model, only seven LAC cities were considered in the analysis. The data used were open access from the World Bank. The BoD approach allowed the weighting of KPIs, maximizing the performance evaluation of each city. The result showed that only three cities obtained maximum scores, being the cities of Buenos Aires, Mexico and Lima, indicating an optimal performance in relation to the KPIs analyzed.