Jacques Theys
In France, as in many countries, averages at the national level are of limited significance. Evaluation tools are needed at the local level. Indicators of sustainable development, however, must take into account the regional or global scale as well. Local and international indicators are both needed, but priorities may vary from country to country. The system proposed must be flexible and must reflect the different kinds of information meaningful to the intended audience.
Undoubtedly, there is a normative aspect in the concept of sustainable development. It is, however, important to distinguish between the description of a fact or situation (state or trend indicators) and the evaluation of a performance (distance to a target value). Ideally, a target value, determined either by the scientific community or by policy-makers, should be accompanied by all kinds of factual information.
It is unlikely that we will ever have a broad and scientifically sound enough system to provide us with a complete description of the problems of sustainable development. However, accumulating data without pointing out a clear direction seems fruitless. A solution should be to find agreement on a consistent framework before selecting (according to the priorities and the data already available) the information to be collected. The idea is to supply policy-makers with a tool that will enable them to choose the most relevant indicators.
The complexity of the system must not conceal the essential points, i.e. the necessity to make an information system, based mainly on flow variables (income, production, consumption, emissions, resource use, etc.), evolve into a stock measurement oriented-system ( capital, funds, stocks, wealth, potentialities, vulnerability, etc.).
PROPOSALS FOR A FRAMEWORK: A 10-POINT STRUCTURE
The proposed multi-dimensional structure is organized into 10 points. Each one is characterized by homogeneity and specificity. Of course, these points are supposed to fulfil the requirements mentioned above. The logic of the structure is taken from the definition of sustainable development by the Bruntland Commission. An illustration is depicted in Figure 1.
The key part of the structure (Point 1) shows the way populations and activities turn resources (nature, labour, capital, knowledge) into products, services, income and by-products (waste, pollution, etc.). In the scope of sustainable development, the important point here is the transformation of efficiency: economic productivity (economic dimension), employment and production (social dimension), resource and pollution intensity (environmental dimension). The main question surrounds the 'de-coupling' of economic growth and resource use or contaminant emissions (either at the global level -GDP- or at the sectoral or local level). Point 1 also tackles the question of the activities, products and services related to the environment.
Point 2 illustrates the link, at a national level, between flow variables (of natural resources, investments, waste, emissions, etc.) and stock measurements. Both extractions and additions are considered here. The environmental ratios: 'Resource use/Stock growth' (source indicators), or 'Pollution flow/Pollution stock or Critical load' (sink indicators) are found in Point 2. From a purely economic point of view, the rate of capital replacement will be placed here as well.
To calculate these ratios, a precise evaluation of the stocks and of their evolution is needed. Point 3 contains indicators of wealth and of scarcity at the national and subnational levels (district, ecozone, etc.). Capital must be understood in a broad sense. It should reflect not only what is traditionally evaluated in National Account Systems, but also 'human or social capital' (knowledge, education levels, culture, etc.), savings, real estate, infrastructures, natural resources, etc. The evaluation must consider both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of resources (renewal rate, diversity, vulnerability, scarcity, etc.). Priority must be given to the evaluation of non-renewable resources.
In Point 2, global ratios describe how stocks are affected by flows (extraction or addition). Point 4 deals with the same problems, but a spatially-related approach is stressed here. Descriptive indicators (density, distribution of wealth, etc.) and normative indicators (critical loads, absorptive capacities of an ecosystem for pollution and encroachment, etc.) are addressed. Scales need to be adapted to the question being tackled and GIS (Geographic Information Tools) can be a precious tool to explore the different kinds of interactions.
Point 5 deals with another geographical dimension: the relationships between the national level and the rest of the world. On the one hand, it contains descriptive indicators, such as international trade, international aid to developing countries, pollution exports, and environmental degradation abroad. On the other hand, it also contains normative indicators that can be derived, for example, from the concept of 'environmental space' defined by Opschoor, the equity principle used for the allocation of resources and the 'right to pollute' (on a per capita basis). The important point is to find a reliable set of instruments to assess the national ( or subnational) contribution to the sustainable development of the earth (and the way local and national situations are affected by global problems as well).
The next four points (6 to 9) deal with the social aspects of sustainable development (welfare). From this perspective, Point 6 plays a leading role since it describes the inter-linkages between the productive system outputs (products, services, income, etc.) and the fulfilment of needs and wishes (of our generation and of future generations). These indicators illustrate, in particular, the structure and mechanisms of the re-distribution of wealth among the different social classes.
Many indicators can be found here, including: consumption or income level by social categories, quality of life, exposure to sanitation problems, environmental disease vectors, urban air pollution, aggregated welfare index, etc. Many reference levels can also be associated with these indicators (poverty threshold, medical norms, etc.). The problem is to identify the characteristics of sustainable development (or of unsustainable development). Another point to be stressed in Point 6 is the share of the flow of goods, services, externalities that is saved for the future generations (long-term savings, deferred income, sustainable consumption and products, etc.).
Besides the consumption of goods and services, the enjoyment of available resources can constitute an important contribution to welfare. A specific point (Point 7) must, hence, be dedicated to potential access to the different kinds of capital (economic, but also knowledge, education, nature, etc.) described in Point 3. The conditions of this potential access have to be taken into account. They depend on the social and geographical distribution of capital and the related institutional and juridical mechanisms (appropriation requirements, common capital management, etc.).
A third dimension has to be taken into account in the description of welfare - individual and collective preferences. Measuring the gap between these preferences and the way they are satisfied (e.g. measuring discontent or frustration) is also relevant from the perspective of sustainable development. The institutional, political, cultural and social dimensions that help in consulting, regulating and managing these preferences need to be described as well. All these aspects are considered in Point 8.
It also seems relevant to complete this analysis with indicators describing how preferences for the present and for the future are balanced. Point 9 contains indicators such as long-term interest rates, debt, saving rate, discount rate, investment/ consumption ratio, and attention paid to nature conservation and education.
The points presented above describe developments that can be more or less predicted by the analysis of current trends. However, sustainable development can also be seen as the ability of social, economic and ecological systems to react and adapt themselves to unforeseeable events or to break apart. This different approach is considered in the last point (Point 10) where indicators dealing with flexibility, adaptability, and resilience of systems, are found. Whether such indicators are feasible, and if they can help decision-makers, is still a matter of debate.
AN APPROACH DEDICATED TO MULTIPLE STAKEHOLDERS
It has been shown that the proposed framework constitutes a methodological tool that should help organize a set of indicators. However, it does not address the problem of selecting the indicators themselves. From this point, two possible steps can be determined: