Comparative analysis of Brazil-Russia-India-China-SouthAfrica-Turkiye in terms of environmental pollution indicators using multi criteria decision making methods

This study aims to determine the ranking of criteria contributing to environmental pollution for Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa-Turkiye countries using multi-criteria decision-making methods based on average data for 2023. It also aims to rank the selected countries according to their performance. Environmental pollution criteria include carbon dioxide emissions, ecological footprint, per capita national income, renewable energy in primary energy consumption, trade, net foreign direct investment inflows, population, environmental policy stringency index and environmentally related technologies. The findings were determined according to the expert opinion-based method as follows: fossil energy use (0.123), carbon dioxide emissions (0.118), population (0.108), per capita national income (0.104), trade (0.099), environmental technologies (0.095), net foreign direct investment inflows (0.094), ecological footprint (0.093), environmental policy stringency index (0.090) and renewable energy in primary energy consumption (0.075). Accordingly, the ranking of the countries—from best to worst—was Turkiye, India, Brazil, South Africa, China and Russia. However, according to the objective method, the variable weights were determined as population (0.152), net foreign direct investment inflows (0.121), environmental technologies (0.118), national income per capita (0.108), fossil energy use (0.101), trade (0.095), ecological footprint (0.094), renewable energy in primary energy consumption (0.089), carbon dioxide emissions (0.062), environmental policy stringency index (0.055). Accordingly, the ranking of the countries—from best to worst—was Turkiye, India, South Africa, Brazil, China and Russia. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Iranian Society of Environmentalists (IRSEN) and Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University 2025.