Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

by Donella Meadows

A Report to the Balaton Group

Published by The Sustainability Institute • 3 Linden Road • Hartland VT 05048 © The Sustainability Institute, 1998.

Published by The Sustainability Institute • 3 Linded Road • Hartland VT 05049 Phone 802-436-1277 • FAX 802-436-1281 • Email: [email protected] For additional copies of this report, send US$10 to The Sustainability Institute. Indicators and Information Systems for ultimate ends Sustainable Development by Donella Meadows

intermediate ends

intermediate means

ultimate means

A Report to the Balaton Group • September 1998

Contents

The origin of this work iii Acknowledgments v Notes on the format vii Summary viii

1. The nature of indicators, the importance of indicators 1

2. Indicators, models, cultures, worldviews 6

3. Why indicators of sustainable development? 11

4. The challenge of coming up with good indicators 17

5. Suggestions for indicator process and linkage 22 Hierarchy: coherence up and down the information system 22 The selection process: experts and citizens together 25 Systems: making indicators dynamic 27

6. A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators 40 The hierarchy from ultimate means to ultimate ends 40 Natural capital (ultimate means) 47 Built capital (intermediate means) 53 Human capital (intermediate means/ends) 57 Social capital (intermediate ends) 61 Well-being (ultimate ends) 66 Integration (translating ultimate means into ultimate ends) 68

7. Sample indicators 72

8. Implementing, monitoring, testing, evaluating, and improving indicators 76

i Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

ii The origin of this work

The origin of this work

This paper grew out of a five-day • Wouter Biesiot, Center for En- workshop on sustainable develop- ergy and Environmental Studies, ment indicators attended by a small University of Groningen, the subset of the two hundred members Netherlands; of the Balaton Group. The Balaton Group, founded in 1981, is an inter- • Valdis Bisters, Ecological Center, national network of scholars and ac- University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia; tivists who work on sustainable de- • Hartmut Bossel, Environmental velopment in their own countries and Systems Research Center, Univer- regions. We come to our work from sity of Kassel, Germany; a cross-disciplinary, whole-systems perspective. Individually and jointly • Joan Davis, Federal Institute for we have been thinking about and test- Environmental Sciences and Tech- ing indicators of sustainable develop- nology, Dubendorf, Switzerland; ment in local, national, or international contexts for many years. • Bert de Vries, RIVM, Bilthoven, The workshop was held at the the Netherlands; National Institute for Public Health • Thomas Fiddaman, System Dy- and Environmental Protection namics Group, MIT, Cambridge, (RIVM) in Bilthoven, the Nether- MA, USA; lands, April 13–17, 1996. The participants (identified here by their • Genady Golubev, Faculty of Ge- place of employment, though we par- ography, Moscow State University, ticipated as individuals) were: Russia;

• Alan AtKisson, Redefining • Jane King, Centre for Human Progress, San Francisco, CA, USA; Ecology, University of Edin- burgh, Scotland; • Alp Baysal, Programme for Sys- tems Management, University of • Donella Meadows, Environmen- Cape Town, South Africa; tal Studies Program, Dartmouth

iii Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

College, Hanover, NH, USA; a new vision of the kinds of information and indicators we would • Lars Mortensen, Division for Sus- need to guide ourselves toward a sustainable Development, Depart- tainable world — whether on the ment of Policy Coordination and level of a community, a nation, or Sustainable Development, Uni- the whole planet. We were all ex- ted Nations, New York, NY, USA; cited. I was given the task of trying to • Jørgen Nørgard, Department of write up the kaleidoscope of insights Buildings and Energy, Technical we had produced. I did my best, University of Denmark, Lyngby, though I didn’t and still don’t feel Denmark; adequate to the task. I prepared a • Michael Ochieng Odhiambo, draft that circulated among Balaton Centre for Environmental Policy Group members for a year, collect- and Law, Nakuru, Kenya; ing comments and amendments and starting a few heated arguments. • John Peet, Department of Outside reviewers sent us primarily Chemical and Process Engineer- praise and requests for more copies. ing, University of Canterbury, Whatever we had produced, it was Christchurch, New Zealand; clearly unfinished, still a work in progress, but equally clearly useful • Laszlo Pinter, International Insti- enough to justify compiling all the tute for Sustainable Develop- responses and putting out a final ment, Winnipeg, Canada; printed version. A subcommittee as- • Rosendo Pujol, Department of sembled to do that. That commit- Civil Engineering, University of tee consisted of Alan AtKisson, Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica; Hartmut Bossel, Joan Davis, Bert de Vries, Donella Meadows, Jørgen • Aromar Revi, The Action Re- Nørgard, John Peet, Laszlo Pinter, search Unit, New Delhi, India; and Aromar Revi. This is the result. It bears only • Detlef von Vuuren, RIVM, my name as author, because the Bilthoven, the Netherlands. Balaton Group is made up of far too many diverse and independent Whenever Balaton Group members thinkers to suggest that they are all get together, new ideas fly and old of one mind about anything, except ideas come together in sudden and the basic desirability and urgency of striking connections. This workshop sustainable development and more was no exception. We emerged with powerful indicators thereof. Some of

iv The origin of this work

the group strongly object to some have made no headway if we had not things written here, though I think been able to think about and build all are in agreement with the basic upon years of intense discussion thrust (and I try to signal the areas of about indicators of sustainable devel- significant discord). The drafting opment on the part of thousands of committee decided it would be bet- people throughout the world. In par- ter to give me free rein to write in my ticular we would like to acknowledge: own voice, choose my own empha- ses, and be responsible for my own • The program on indicators of the quirks, rather than to try to hammer United Nations Commission on out a document that might please Sustainable Development (CSD); everyone and therefore become col- orless. • The formulation of indicators of So, while recognizing an enor- natural, human, and social capi- mous debt to those who were respon- tal by the World Bank; sible for the ideas, funding, and prac- • Compilations of environmental tical efforts that made this work pos- indicators assembled by the sible, I take personal responsibility for United Nations Statistical Divi- everything written here. sion, the OECD, the European Environment Agency, and Eurostat;

Acknowledgments • The Project on Indicators of the Scientific Committee on Prob- The entire group is thankful to lems of the Environment Mariette Commadeur and Bert de (SCOPE); Vries of RIVM and Betty Miller and Diana Wright of the Balaton Group • The Human Development Re- for their efficient and cheerful logis- port of the United Nations De- tical support. velopment Programme (UNDP); Financial support was provided • The initiatives of the World Re- by RIVM, the Jenifer Altman Foun- sources Institute (WRI), in par- dation, the Wallace Global Fund, and ticular in the areas of biodiversity, the Gellert Foundation. Special georeference indicators, and ma- thanks to the John D. and Catherine terials flows; T. MacArthur Foundation for the fel- lowship that allows me to work for • Studies by the Dutch National the Balaton Group. Institute of Public Health and The workshop participants could Environmental Protection

v Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

(RIVM) in cooperation with the Hartmut Bossel (orientor theory and United Nations Environment Scenarios A and B), E. F. Schumacher Programme (UNEP), especially (definitions of human capital), and in the area of indicators sup- ecologists and ecological economists ported by dynamic modeling; too numerous to mention. Finally I would personally like to • Local indicators projects in many thank Balaton Group members at parts of the world, most particu- home and on-line who sent ideas, larly Sustainable Seattle; comments, and reactions, and who have helped build up over many years • The overview of sustainable de- the intellectual capital we all brought velopment indicator initiatives to this exercise. published by the International The format was designed by Meg Institute on Sustainable Develop- Houston of Fonta. ment (IISD);

• Initiatives at the national level by countries such as Canada, Costa Rica, Japan, the Netherlands, the United States, and others, and regional initiatives in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia;

• The Worldwatch Institute’s annual report Vital Signs.

The Balaton Group owes an ongoing intellectual debt to many thinkers in the fields of systems, sustainability, and development, whose ideas influ- ence our every meeting as well as this document. They include Jay Forrester (system dynamics), Herman Daly (the Daly triangle, the Daly laws), Amory Lovins (least-cost end-use analysis), Vassily Leontief (input-output analysis), Michael Thompson (cultural theory), Manfred Max-Neef (fundamental human needs), Will- iam Rees (ecological footprints),

vi The origin of this work

Notes on the format backed by the partial but not unani- mous enthusiasm of members of the The summary is assembled from the working group, are summarized in main headings of the various parts of the last section. the text. Examples of indicators are high- lighted throughout, using a different font. For example:

Suggested dynamic indicators:

Turnover time, which is stock size relative to stock change rate. Especially relevant for understanding the time it takes for aquifers or surface water bodies (or the atmosphere) to flush out pollution, or the time it takes for industrial capital stocks (such as the automobile fleet) to be replaced.

In some cases, the indicator examples are long enough to warrant pulling them from the columnar text, in which case you will find them in a separate box with any accompanying graphic illustrations. These examples are meant to be provocative, to be suggestive, to stimulate your own creative juices, to trigger ideas for other indicators that might be more directly useful to you for your own situation and purposes. They are not necessarily indicators recommended by the author or the Balaton Group as the ultimate or best indicators of sustainable development. We don’t even claim that they can necessarily be measured easily, maybe not at all. The author’s recommended indicators, which are

vii Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

Summary Indicators need not be purely objective, and in fact few of them are. Chapter 1: The nature of Despite their difficulties and un- indicators, the importance of certainties, we can’t manage without indicators indicators. The search for indicators is evo- Indicators are natural, everywhere, lutionary. The necessary process is part of everyone’s life. one of learning. Indicators arise from values (we measure what we care about), and they create values (we care about what Chapter 3: Why indicators of we measure). sustainable development? When indicators are poorly chosen, they can cause serious malfunc- Development and sustainability are tions. old problems; now they come to- Indicators are often poorly cho- gether on a global scale and in an ur- sen. The choice and use of indicators gent time frame. are processes full of pitfalls. Sustainability indicators must be The choice of indicators is a criti- more than environmental indicators; cal determinant of the behavior of a they must be about time and/or system. thresholds. Development indicators should be more than growth indicators; they Chapter 2: Indicators, models, should be about efficiency, suffi- cultures, worldviews ciency, equity, and quality of life.

Indicators are partial reflections of reality, based on uncertain and im- Chapter 4: The challenge of perfect models. coming up with good indicators We need many indicators because we have many different purposes — It’s easy enough to list the character- but there may be over-arching pur- istics of ideal indicators. poses that transcend nations and cul- It’s not so easy to find indicators tures, and therefore there may be that actually meet these ideal charac- overarching indicators. teristics. We need many indicators because Most of us already have indica- we have many worldviews — but in- tors in the backs of our minds, “be- dicators may help narrow the differ- loved indicators” that reflect issues of ences between worldviews. great concern to us. It’s important to

viii The origin of this work

get them out on the table. be done with care. Indicators can take many forms. They don’t have to be numbers. They Systems: making indicators dynamic can be signs, symbols, pictures, col- Systems insights can help in the ors. design of indicators that identify criti- What is needed to inform sustain- cal linkages, dynamic tendencies, and able development is not just indica- leverage points for action. tors, but a coherent information sys- Distinguish between stocks and tem from which indicators can be flows. Stocks are indicators of the derived. state of a system and its response time. Flows may be leading indicators of change. Chapter 5: Suggestions for Exponential growth rates (the indicator process and linkage strengths of vicious or virtuous cycles) are sensitive points to monitor in sys- Hierarchy: coherence up and down tems. the information system The ratio of change rate to re- The information system should sponse rate is a critical — and usu- be organized into hierarchies of in- ally critically missing — indicator of creasing scale and decreasing speci- the degree to which a system can be ficity. controlled. Information from the hierarchy Watch for unbalanced or missing at all levels should be available to control loops. people at all levels. An important indicator of the Information should also come resilience of a system is the redun- from all levels. The public can be dancy of its controlling negative feed- important contributors to, as well as back loops. users of information and indicators. Nonlinearities in systems (turning points, thresholds) are key points The selection process: experts and for the placement of indicators. citizens together A primary indicator of the long- The process of indicator develop- term viability of a system is its evolu- ment is as important as the indica- tionary potential. tors selected. Wherever possible, indicators The indicator selection process should be reported as time graphs works best with a combination of rather than static numbers. expert and grassroots participation. Indicators should be combined But integrating expert and non- with formal dynamic modeling. expert opinion has its costs and must

ix Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

Chapter 6: A suggested sociated with natural capital on both framework for sustainable the source and sink end of the flow. development indicators Natural capital is being used unsustainably if sources are declining The hierarchy from ultimate means to or sinks are increasing. ultimate ends Indicators should highlight lim- The “Daly Triangle,” which re- iting natural capital stocks. lates natural wealth to ultimate hu- Natural capital should be moni- man purpose through technology, tored at whatever geographic level economy, politics, and ethics, pro- makes sense. vides a simple integrating framework. We need to allow estimates in our Sustainable development is a call indicators for life support systems to expand the economic calculus to that we do not yet understand. include the top (development) and the bottom (sustainability) of the tri- Built capital (intermediate means) angle. Built capital is human-built, The three most basic aggregate long-lasting physical capacity — fac- measures of sustainable development tories, tools, machines — that pro- are the sufficiency with which ultimate duces economic output. ends are realized for all people, the The nature and amount of built efficiency with which ultimate means capital determines the standing de- are translated into ultimate ends, and mand for human capital (labor and the sustainability of use of ultimate skills) and for throughput from natu- means. ral capital (materials and energy). Extending the definition of capi- That fraction of built capital that pro- tal to natural, human, and social capi- duces more built capital (investment) tal could provide an easily understood determines the rate of economic base for calculating and integrating growth. the Daly triangle. Sustainability on the level of built capital means investing at least as fast Natural capital (ultimate means) as capital depreciates. Across levels it Natural capital consists of the means keeping the throughput needs stocks and flows in nature from which of built capital appropriate to the sus- the human economy takes its mate- tainable yields and absorptive capaci- rials and energy (sources) and to which ties of natural capital and keeping la- we throw those materials and energy bor and management needs appro- when we are done with them (sinks). priate to the sustainable use of hu- The human economy uses many man capital. kinds of throughput streams, each as- There are many categories of built

x The origin of this work

capital. A useful indicator would re- The “forbidden numeraire,” flect the proper balance among cat- whose stocks, flows, and distribution egories to permit the most produc- could lend itself to indicators, is tive use of all forms of capital. power. Social capital can be a high-lever- Human capital age transformative factor in the pro- (intermediate means/ends) cess of channeling ultimate means The base of human capital is the into ultimate ends. population, including its age and gen- Rough indicators of social capi- der structure. tal are better than nothing. Along with numbers, ages, and genders, human capital can be mea- Well-being (ultimate ends) sured by attributes such as health and The most important indicator, education. without which the others make no Human capital is in one sense an sense, is an indicator of ultimate ends. intermediate means, in another sense Indicators of ultimate ends may an intermediate end. not be numerical or precise, but they Population with its attributes, like are findable and usable. built capital, is an indicator of the necessary throughputs and potential Integration (translating ultimate outputs of a society. means into ultimate ends) The universal resource available The central indicators of sustain- to all human beings, and the currency able development will integrate the of most value to them, is time. Time whole Daly triangle. accounting may be key to human The information system from capital accounting. which these central indicators can be derived will measure capital stocks at Social capital (intermediate ends) every level and the flows that increase, Social capital is a stock of at- decrease, and connect those stocks. tributes (knowledge, trust, efficiency, There are systematic schemes for honesty) that inheres not to a single assessing the total viability of a sys- individual, but to the human collec- tem. These schemes can serve as tivity. checklists for sustainable develop- Just as time is a key currency for ment indicators. human capital, information may be a key currency for social capital. Chapter 7: Sample indicators Another possible measure of social capital would be density or frequency or intensity of human relationships.

xi Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

Chapter 8: Implementing, monitoring, testing, evaluating, and improving indicators

Indicators don’t guarantee results. But results are impossible without proper indicators. And proper indicators, in themselves, can produce results. Indicator measurement can be a costly, bureaucratic process. But it can also be relatively simple. There may be clever ways to measure indicators that don’t even require numbers or disturbing the system in any way. The process of finding, implementing, and improving sustainable development indicators will not be done right at first. Nevertheless it is urgent to begin.

xii The origin of this work

xiii The nature of indicators, the importance of indicators

1. The nature of indicators, the importance of indicators

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it...

— Abraham Lincoln, speech to the Illinois Republican state convention, June 16, 1858

Indicators are natural, Pilots and power plant operators everywhere, part of everyone’s life. have whole panels of instruments in front of them.

Intuitively we all use indicators to Economists use leading indicators, lagging indicators, cost-of-living indi- monitor complex systems we care cators, employment indicators, the about or need to control. Nikkei or Dow-Jones index, and the most famous and criticized of all in- Mothers are alert to the activity level dicators, the GDP. of their children, the brightness of their eyes, the way they breathe in sleep. Some indicators are legends — the canary in the coal mine, the sea bird The learning of every school child is that hints of the yet-invisible land, the expressed as test scores and grades. puff of smoke from the Vatican chim- Farmers scan the sky for weather ney. fronts, squeeze the soil to measure its moisture, watch how many earth- worms are turned over in a shovelful We have many words for indicator of earth. — sign, symptom, omen, signal, tip,

Doctors take your temperature, look clue, grade, rank, data, pointer, dial, at your tongue, do blood tests and warning light, instrument, measure- CAT scans. ment. Indicators are a necessary part

Mechanics use calipers and pressure of the stream of information we use gauges and listen to the sound of the to understand the world, make deci- motor. sions, and plan our actions.

1 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

Indicators arise from values Clearly some values (and hence indi- (we measure what we care about), cators) are place- or culture-specific, and they create values others are common to all humanity. (we care about what we measure). Some are quantitatively measurable, while others, which may be equally What do you keep an eye on, to be important, can only be felt qualita- sure your home or workplace or com- tively. munity is in good shape? What would Not only do we measure what we you ask about a place you might move value, we also come to value what to, to find out if you would like to live we measure. The Dow-Jones index there? What would you want to know arose from the information needs of about your society fifty years from stockholders, but now the general now, to be sure your grandchildren are public sees it as an indicator of na- living good lives? The answers people tional economic health. No one give to questions like these reflect their cared about a blood cholesterol level values. over 200 until doctors started in-

Various U.S. communities, asked to cluding it in our annual checkups. define indicators of their own long- Opponents of the Vietnam War term welfare, have responded with: made converts by creating an indi-

• whether we have to lock our cator: the nightly body count. houses and cars; Indicators can be tools of

• whether the children will go on liv- change, learning, and propaganda. ing here or move away; Their presence, absence, or promi- nence affect behavior. The world • whether wild salmon still run in the rivers (Seattle); would be a very different place if nations prided themselves not on their • whether, when we open the win- dows, we can smell the sage (Den- high GDPs but on their low infant ver). mortality rates. Or if the World

A group of Portuguese young people Bank ranked countries not by aver- once listed as the top three ques- age GDP per capita but by the ratio tions they would ask about a strange of the incomes of the richest 10 per- country: cent to the poorest 10 percent. • how many days in a year does the We try to measure what we value. sun shine? We come to value what we measure. • how many kilometers are there of This feedback process is common, in- clean beach? evitable, useful, and full of pitfalls. • when you walk down the streets, are the people warm and friendly?

2 The nature of indicators, the importance of indicators

When indicators are poorly state of chosen, they can cause serious inflows the system outflows malfunctions. perceived If you manage a national economy state discrepancy to maximize GDP, you get GDP. You goal do not necessarily get justice or freedom or environmental quality or even, sometimes, real wealth. If you run a company to increase its stock market value, you may very well produce a rise in the stock market value — perhaps at the cost of un- derpaid workers or poor quality products, and therefore, over the long term, a downturn in the stock market value. The perceived state is an indi- When the success of the family cator. It may not be measured ac- planning program in India was mea- curately. It may measure not the ac- sured by the number of intra-uterine tual system state, but some proxy devices (IUDs) inserted per month, or associated state. (It’s impossible, some family planning workers, it is for instance, to measure the exact said, inserted IUDs in unknowing population of fish in the ocean, so women, in infertile women, and even we measure the catch and assume in women who already had IUDs. the population.) The indicator may The indicator looked fine, but the be delayed. It may be “noisy,” so its birth rate, the actual target, was central tendency is hard to deduce. hardly affected. It may be deliberately or acciden- Indicators are both important tally biased. and dangerous because they sit at the If an indicator of the state of the center of the decision-making pro- system is poorly chosen, inaccurately cess. Nearly every human decision measured, delayed, noisy, or biased, is intended to bring some important decisions based on it cannot be effec- system condition or state (literacy of tive. Misleading indicators will cause the population; pollution in the lake; over- or under-reactions, changes that national debt) to some desired state. are too weak or too strong to bring Action is taken depending on the the system exactly to the desired state. discrepancy between the desired We can’t steer accurately, if we don’t state or goal and the perceived state know where we are. of the system.

3 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

Indicators are often poorly chosen. ground abundance of oil, when it The choice and use of indicators primarily tells us about the built ca- are processes full of pitfalls. pacity of oil wells relative to the built capacity of oil-consuming devices. Pitfalls in the process of choosing and Deliberate falsification. If an using indicators include: index carries bad news, someone may Overaggregation. If too many be tempted to alter it, delay it, change things are lumped together, their terms or definitions, unfund it, lose combined message may be indeci- it, or otherwise suppress it. For ex- pherable. The GDP is the classic example, the U.S. counts as unem- ample, adding together money flows ployed only those people who are ac- caused by “good” economic changes tively looking for jobs, not those who (more education, say, or better food) have given up looking. Some govern- and “bad” changes (more hospitaliza- ments have been known to report ag- tions from automobile accidents). ricultural yields based on five-year Another example: measuring the plans, rather than actual harvests. strength of a fishery by total tons of Diverting attention from direct fish caught may disguise the fact that experience. Indicators may mesmer- more valuable species are diminish- ize people with numbers and blind ing, but smaller, less desirable fish are them to their own perceptions. The being substituted. stock market is going up, so the Measuring what is measurable, economy must be in great shape, de- rather than what is important. The spite the fact that many of us are de- area covered by forest rather than cidedly poorer. the size, diversity, or health of the Overconfidence. Indicators may trees; tons of hazardous chemicals lead people to think they know what rather than toxicities; the amount they’re doing, or to think what they’re of money people have rather than doing is working, when in fact the the quality of their lives; the indicators may be faulty. amount spent per school child Incompleteness. Indicators are rather than actual learning. not the real system. They may miss Dependence on a false model. many of the subtleties, beauties, won- We may think that the birth rate re- ders, warnings, diversities, possibili- flects the availability of family plan- ties, or perversities of the real system. ning programs, when it may actually reflect the freedom of women to use those programs. We may think the price of oil tells us about the under-

4 The nature of indicators, the importance of indicators

The choice of indicators is a People can’t respond to information critical determinant of the they don’t have. They can’t react ef- behavior of a system. fectively to information that is inadequate. They can’t achieve goals or Indicators are leverage points. Their targets of which they are not aware. presence or absence, accuracy or inac- They cannot work toward sustainable curacy, use or non-use, can change the development if they have no clear, behavior of a system, for better or timely, accurate, visible indicators of worse. In fact, changing indicators can sustainable development. be one of the most powerful and at Conversely, if there are good in- the same time one of the easiest ways dicators of sustainable development, of making system changes — it does it will be almost impossible not to not require firing people, ripping up make decisions and take actions that physical structures, inventing new make the indicators improve. technologies, or enforcing new regu- lations. It only requires delivering new information to new places.

For example, when a new U.S. law required every plant emitting toxic air pollutants to list those pollutants pub- licly, an indicator was created. Local newspapers began reporting the “top ten polluters.” Companies acted quickly to get off that list, and toxic emissions decreased by over 40 percent in three years, though there was no law against them. The presence of the indicator was suffi- 1 cient in itself to change behavior.1 Environment Today, 6, no.1 (Jan/Feb 1995): 16. The 40 Similarly, when new Dutch houses percent reduction was achieved not so much by reducing the were built with the electric meter in generation of toxics as by the front hall where it was easily vis- diverting them from disposal into ible (instead of out of sight in the the air to disposal by injection cellar), electricity use in those houses into the ground (and hence into groundwater). This example went down by one-third though there illustrates another hazard of was no change in the price of elec- indicators — bizarre behavior tricity. There was simply a clear indi- designed not to solve a problem cator of electricity use situated but to evade revelation by an indicator. where no one could avoid seeing it.2 2 This story was told in 1973 at a system dynamics workshop in Kollekolle, Denmark, and its source is lost — but systems people tell it over and over until it has become legend.

5 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

2. Indicators, models, cultures, worldviews

The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes.

— Marcel Proust

Indicators are partial reflections Our mental models are enormously of reality, based on uncertain and varied, which is one reason why we imperfect models. have trouble agreeing upon common indicators with which to inform our The grade is not the knowledge in decisions. the head of the student. The stock Some of our models are formal, market price is not the value of the written down or otherwise expressed company. No indicator is the real sys- outwardly so others can see them. For tem. Indicators are abstractions from instance spreadsheets, maps, written systems. Furthermore, they are ab- papers, or mathematical equations are stractions from abstractions, from formal models. models, or sets of assumptions about All our models, mental and for- how the world works, what is impor- mal, are only models. They are nec- tant, what should be measured. essarily incomplete. None of us has We experience the world perfect information. We don’t under- through models, most of them fil- stand everything that is happening. tered through our senses and hidden We’re unclear about what causes in our minds. We don’t carry reality what. Even with the help of comput- in our heads, we carry mental mod- ers, there is a limit to the degree of els, assumptions about the world, complexity we can comprehend or based on our personality, culture, process. If we somehow could as- language, training, and experience. semble all relevant information, we

6 Indicators, models, cultures, worldviews

wouldn’t be able to absorb its full that the rest of us don’t even perceive. buzzing complexity. We would have Every jiggle in stock prices carries vi- to abstract and simplify. The aston- tal information only to those who ishing success of our species testifies watch the market every day. An indi- to our ability to do so accurately cator is useful only if it carries its in- enough to serve many purposes. The formation to a mind prepared to re- record of our failures, accidents, sur- ceive it, educated to its terms and prises, and disasters testifies to the units of measurement, and actively limits of our modeling ability. engaged with the system illuminated It helps to maintain humility by that indicator. about our models as we search for Therefore we will probably never indicators of sustainable develop- settle on a single global index of sus- ment. Sustainable development is a tainable development — too many social construct, referring to the long- different people work on different term evolution of a hugely complex problems and need different kinds system — the human population and of information. Some people are economy embedded within the eco- more interested in “development,” systems and biogeochemical flows of others in “sustainability.” Some are the planet. Our models of this sys- looking for “warning lights” telling tem are and will always be incom- when a key resource will become plete. Our indicators will be imper- scarce or an ecosystem is likely to be fect. We will be making decisions driven into irreversible collapse. under uncertainty. Our task is to re- Others are interested in the welfare duce that uncertainty. We will not be of a particular city or nation, or in able to eliminate it completely, at least bringing to public attention a par- not any time soon. ticular pocket of poverty or pollution or under-capitalization. So, rather than a single index, we We need many indicators, need an information system — one because we have many purposes at least as sophisticated as the system — but there may be over-arching that presently tracks flows of money purposes that transcend nations around the world — to inform vari- and cultures, and therefore there ous decision makers at various levels may be overarching indicators. with various purposes related to sustainability and development. Football scores are meaningful indi- Having said that, I must also say cators to football fans and gibberish something that sounds contradictory. to everyone else. A farmer can read The comprehensive task — bringing signals from a field of growing grain about a socioeconomic system that

7 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

enhances quality of human life while ity. They tell us what the environment preserving natural support systems — is (limited and fragile or infinite and is particular to cultures and ecosys- robust, outside ourselves or continu- tems, but is also, in essence, the same ous with ourselves, a luxury or the everywhere. Planet Earth operates by most basic of necessities), what human just one set of physical and biologi- beings are (honest, devious, generous, cal laws, though they manifest as di- greedy, fallen angels, unrecognized verse climates and ecosystems. Hu- buddhas, competitive rationalists, man beings have the same fundamen- myopic egotists), and how people and tal needs for sustenance and belong- nature should interact (through doing and meaning, though their ways minion, stewardship, harmony, part- of meeting those needs are culturally nership, competition, exploitation, varied. Global resources such as the love). Our worldviews define what is oceans and atmosphere are important important, what questions can be to everyone. Therefore it may be pos- asked, what goals are possible, what sible to derive from a multiplicity of can and should be measured. specific local indicators an overarching Worldviews not only give mean- set of global indicators that inform ing to information, they actively common problems and purposes. screen information, only admitting These indicators can report to all of what fits our preconceived models. us about the increasingly integrated Someone who is convinced that tech- global socioeconomic system con- nology can solve any problem, for ex- tained within the undeniably inte- ample, can read the newspaper and grated global biogeochemical system. find articles about wonderful new I suggest a few overarching indi- technologies. Someone with a skep- cators later in this document. tical view can read the same paper and see nothing but articles about technical foul-ups. Each is screening for We need many indicators the information that fits his or her because we have many paradigm. If contrary evidence does worldviews — but indicators may penetrate our paradigmatic screens, help narrow the differences we have ways of dismissing it or dis- between worldviews. counting the people who present it to us. We see information that The deepest reason why people need disconfirms our worldview as the ex- different indicators is that they have ception and information that con- different fundamental worldviews or firms our worldview as the rule. paradigms. Worldviews are mental Therefore people of different models about the very nature of real- worldviews live literally in different

8 Indicators, models, cultures, worldviews

worlds. They see different things and Indicators need not be purely take their information from different objective, and in fact few of indicators. Scientists who see the them are. world as flows of energy will want different indicators than will econo- It is conventional within a scientific mists who see the world as flows of worldview to distinguish between “ob- money — who will want different jective” and “subjective” indicators. indicators than will people who see Objective indicators are sensed by in- the world as flows of time or social struments outside the individual — relationships or moral obligation or thermometers, voltmeters, counters, political power. Our worldviews don’t dials, rulers. They can be verified by even use the same currency! No won- others. They can be expressed in num- der we argue about indicators! bers. Subjective indicators are sensed Given the multiplicity of perspec- only within the individual by means tives, one option is to disagree end- that may not be easily explained and lessly. We can promote our own in- in units that are probably not numeri- dicators and ridicule others’. Another cal. Objective indicators primarily option is to acknowledge the inher- measure quantity. Subjective indica- ent ambiguity in the choice of mod- tors primarily measure quality. els and the design of indicators. If that Objective indicators are usually is done, if worldviews and models are considered more reliable and valu- exposed to view, if their plurality is able. They are certainly more easily not only recognized but appreciated, communicated and validated by oth- indicators can play an emancipatory ers. But there are vital purposes that role. Different indicators giving con- depend on subjective, qualitative in- flicting reports about the state of the formation. The scientific worldview global system can provide an oppor- is just one way to see the world, a very tunity to inquire into the underlying useful one, but not comprehensive models that produced the discrep- enough to be used exclusively. A ancy. Indicators can be a tool for ex- choice to pay attention only to what panding, correcting, and integrating is measurable is itself a subjective worldviews. choice, and not a wise one. Every hu- (Note: everything written here man being knows that some of the about worldviews is a worldview.) most important things in life — freedom, love, hope, harmony, even the beauty of scientific precision — are qualities, not quantities. All indicators are at least partially subjective. The very choice of an in-

9 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

dicator is based upon some value, The search for indicators is some inner human purpose that tells evolutionary. The necessary us what is important to measure. The process is one of learning. choice of what is important is inherently subjective. A lot of planes crashed before people Indicators of quality, “subjective learned what instruments to put in indicators,” are worthy of respect, the cockpit. Many patients died be- however hard they may be to define. fore doctors figured out how to take The fact that people consider some- temperatures and blood tests. When thing ugly or beautiful, harmonious a system is extremely complex, it takes or dissonant, noble or ignoble, is not trial, error, and learning to produce a to be swept away as “mere opinion.” serviceable set of indicators. If we guide our decisions only by The human economy and the quantitative indicators and not quali- planet Earth together make up a sys- tative ones, we will produce a world tem we can’t afford to crash. We have of quantity without quality. Many of to learn from the experience of local our social and personal problems arise economies and ecosystems (some of from the fact that we are well on our which have crashed or are crashing) way to doing exactly that. and improve our indicators as best we can, using many types of human experience and knowledge and models. Despite their difficulties and That is an enormous job. While uncertainties, we can’t manage we’re learning, we should view our in- without indicators. dicators and models with utmost humility. We should open ourselves to Indicators are hard to define. They are disproof, which is a faster way of learn- based on uncertain models. Their se- ing than looking only for proof. (Sci- lection and use are full of pitfalls. They entists are trained not to prove a carry different messages to different theory but to try to disprove it.) We minds. These difficulties don’t mean, should subject every model, especially however, that we shouldn’t use indica- our favorite ones, to as much scru- tors. We have no choice. Without them tiny and as tough testing as possible. we fly blind. The world is too complex There’s no shame in having a wrong to deal with all available information. model or a misleading indicator, only We have to choose a set of indicators in clinging to it in the face of contra- small and meaningful enough to com- dictory evidence. The more flexible prehend. Rather than discourage us, the we can be, the faster we will find good pitfalls and difficulties should give us sustainable development indicators. ideas about how to design better indicators, and motivation to do so.

10 Why indicators of sustainable development?

3. Why indicators of sustainable development?

Indicators of sustainable development need to be developed to provide solid bases for decision making at all levels and to contribute to the self-regulating sustainability of integrated environment and development systems.

— Chapter 40.4 of Agenda 21, from the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio, 1992

Development and sustainability urgency. Question one is how can we are old problems; now they come provide sufficiency, security, good lives together on a global scale and in to all people? (The development ques- an urgent time frame. tion.) The second is how can we live within the rules and boundaries of the The world economy is doubling biophysical environment? (The sus- roughly every twenty years. The tainability question.) With the world population is doubling every economy globally linked, the ocean fourty to fifty years. The planet that fisheries depleting, the atmosphere supplies the materials and energy nec- changing in composition, open essary for the functioning of the spaces filling in, and much of the hu- population and economy is not grow- man population still living in poverty, ing at all. That means whatever plan- these two questions now come to- etary resource was one-fourth-used a gether with urgency. How can we and generation ago is half-used today. our children live good lives without Whatever waste sink was half-full a eroding the health and productivity of generation ago is full today. What- the physical planet — and therefore the ever was full a generation ago is possibility for future generations to lead overfull today. good lives? Each successive doubling of the The indicators we need to answer human system causes new stresses and that question are not immediately ob- raises new questions, or rather brings vious, because the question is so new. two old questions together with new It is new because most human his-

11 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

tory thus far has occurred in a world Sustainability indicators must be with few apparent limits. With more than environmental twenty-year doublings, however, the indicators; they must be about human endeavor is rapidly approach- time and/or thresholds. ing and in some cases exceeding physical limits. The unsustainability Governments already maintain many of many of our activities is becoming environmental and resource indica- apparent. Suddenly we need indicators, such as the emission rate of sul- tors that we never needed before. fur dioxide, concentration of carbon “Sustainability” and “develop- dioxide in the atmosphere, concen- ment” are value words. Like all value tration of lead in drinking water, es- words — freedom, fairness, beauty, timated reserves of fossil fuels. justice, security, sufficiency, democ- An environmental indicator be- racy — they are subjective, nearly im- comes a sustainability indicator (or possible to define, nevertheless pos- unsustainability indicator) with the sible to sense (or to sense their ab- addition of time, limit,or target. sence), and vitally important. Taken The central questions of sustainabil- together — “sustainable develop- ity are: How long can this activity ment” — the two words may seem last? How long do we have to respond contradictory but nevertheless must before we run into trouble? Where are be achieved together. we with respect to our limits? There- Good lives for all people in harmony fore sustainability indicators are ide- with nature. The urgency and scale ally expressed in time units. If we keep of achieving that goal challenge old on mining or fishing or logging at this models and worldviews. Hence the rate, how many years will the resource demand for new ways of thinking and last? If we keep emitting this pollut- the need for new indicators. ant at this rate, how long before we accumulate a dangerous concentration in nature or in ourselves?

Ecological sustainability is the domain of the biologist and the physical scientist. The units of measurement are different, the constructs are different, and the context and time scale is different.

— Ismail Serageldin, Vice President, Environmentally Sustainable Development, World Bank

12 Why indicators of sustainable development?

For example, a common resource indicator is the amount of fossil fuel reserves known and estimated — roughly 1000 billion barrels of known oil reserves globally, plus perhaps 500 billion barrels estimated but undiscovered.3 This amount by itself is not a helpful number. It is too huge to be imaginable, and it is not related to our own activities or limits.

If we compare the estimated supply of 1500 billion barrels to recent rates of oil consumption, about 25 billion barrels per year,4 we can put that reserve in terms of a more understandable index: years of consumption remaining:

(1000+500)/25 = 60 more years of oil at present consumption rate.

If we assume not present consumption, but a rate of growth slightly higher than population growth — let’s say 2%/year on average — we get a strikingly different number:

ln (.02*60 + 1)/.02 = 39.4 years with 2% consumption growth.

We may (and will) argue about how much more oil might be discovered and about what the future growth rate might be. Different estimates will produce different indicated lifetimes for the oil resource. For example:

Suppose four times as much new oil is discovered as is currently estimated, but consumption growth proceeds at 5% per year:

(1000+2000)/25 = 120 years at present consumption rate, but

ln(.05*120 +1)/.05 = 38.9 years at 5% consumption growth.

Suppose twice as much new oil is discovered as is currently estimated but consumption growth stays as low as 1% per year:

(1000+1000)/25 = 80 years at present consumption rate.

ln(.01*80 +1)/.01 = 58.8 years at 1% consumption growth.

Even given great uncertainties about future oil discoveries and future consumption growth, a few calculations of such an indicator of time remaining gets across the central message: the time is bounded and limited to decades, not centuries, if oil consumption keeps increasing.

A useful indicator in such an inherently uncertain arena ought to cover the range of possibilities. Perhaps something like this: Known and estimated and speculative oil reserves will last roughly approximately 60 to 120 years if there is no increase in consumption, and 30 to 60 years if there is steady exponential growth in consumption.

3 Worldwide Petroleum Industry Outlook, 14th ed. Tulsa, Okla.: PennWell Pub. Co., 1997; Energy Statistics Sourcebook, 12th ed. Tulsa, Okla.: PennWell Pub. Co., 1997.

4 Ibid.

13 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that the world economy would need to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 60% in order to stabilize the chemical composition of the atmosphere.5 If we define the sustainable emission rate as 1.0, that means our current emission rate is 1.6 — clearly beyond sustainability.

Similarly, suppose that a fishery’s biology experts estimate that the current rate of fish harvesting is about 20 percent above the rate that would allow fish populations to regenerate.6 Sustainability index = 1.2 — over the limit.

Distance from a sustainability target can be expressed even more graphically by showing a time trend related to a target, as in the following example from the Netherlands.7

Deposition of acidic pollution on Dutch soil

6,000 deposition

target 3,000 5 Intergovernmental Panel on target Climate Change, Climate target Change: The IPCC Scientific sustainability level

Assessment, edited by J. T. acidification equivalents 0 Houghton, G. J. Jenkins, and J. 1980 1995 2010 J. Ephraums. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

6 That is roughly what the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated for excess fishing capacity on average worldwide, though such an indicator makes most sense only when it is calculated fishery by If they are not expressed in units of Development indicators should fishery. See, for example: J. A. Gulland, ed., The Fish Resources time, sustainability indicators should be more than growth indicators; of the Ocean. Surrey, U.K.: be related to carrying capacity or to Fishing News Ltd., 1971; M. A. they should be about efficiency, Robinson, Trends and Prospects in threshold of danger or to targets. sufficiency, equity, and quality World Fisheries, Fisheries Circular Tons of nutrient per year released into No. 772. Rome: FAO, 1984; of life. FAO, Marine Fisheries and the waterways means nothing to people. Law of the Sea: A Decade of Change, Fisheries Circular No. Amount released relative to the In an empty world, development can 853. Rome: FAO, 1993; FAO, amount the waterways can absorb easily be confused with growth. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 1996. Rome: FAO, without becoming toxic or clogged Growth simply means getting larger 1997. begins to carry a message. — not necessarily getting better. 7 Dr. A. Adriaanse, Most of our economic indicators, es- Environmental Policy Performance Indicators. Sdu Uitgeverij Koninginnegracht, May 1993, pp. 33.

14 Why indicators of sustainable development?

To take a more ambitious example, Wackernagel and Rees have defined the “ecological footprint” — a rough Ecological Available Surplus or estimate of the average amount of Footprint Capacity Deficit land required by a given nation to Nation (ha/cap) (ha/cap) (ha/cap) supply all that nation’s physical con- Australia 8.1 9.7 +1.6 sumption (food, energy, water, materials, waste purification).8 If the Bangladesh 0.7 0.6 -0.1 ecological footprint is larger than the Brazil 2.6 2.4 -0.2 actual area of the nation, then that nation must be either importing re- China 1.2 1.3 +0.1 sources from outside its borders Germany 4.6 2.1 -2.5 (which is fine, as long as the export- ing countries’ footprints are smaller Indonesia 1.6 0.9 -0.7 than their actual area) or drawing Japan 6.3 1.7 -4.6 down its own or other countries’ resources (which is clearly unsustain- New Zealand 9.8 14.3 +4.5 able). Russia 6.0 3.9 -2.0

Here are some Wackernagel and United States 8.4 6.2 -2.1 Rees estimates of ecological footprints related to land capacity for selected nations of the world:9

tablished several doublings ago, are ciency, and sufficiency. They must shift defined around growth, with the emphasis from money to physical GDP per capita as the most obvious units and from quantity of material 8 M. Wackernagel and W. Rees, example. throughput to quality of life. These Our Ecological Footprint. In a full world, development and distinctions begin to point to the real Philadelphia: New Society Publishing, 1996. physical growth must be decoupled. purpose of economic development, As economist Herman Daly has which is not to have money but to 9 M. Wackernagel et al., “Ecological Footprints of pointed out, growth is about getting have better lives. This sort of rethink- Nations,” Center for Sustainabil- bigger, development is about getting ing can also create openings for con- ity Studies, Xalapa, Mexico, March 10, 1997. better.10 Development indicators must cepts not only of under-development 10 R. Goodland, H. Daly, and S. begin to reflect quality, equity, effi- but of over-development, and there- El Serafy, introduction to fore for concepts of “enough.” Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development: Building on Brundtland, The World Bank Environment Working Paper no. 46, July 1991, pp. 2-3.

15 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

Human One of the first attempts to indi- In a similar vein, the health- Development cate actual human development based magazine Prevention has rather than money flows is the Index invented an index to measure Human Development Index, pio- Nation (HDI) the healthfulness of a nation’s neered by the UN Development lifestyle. It is an aggregation of Programme. The HDI is a (fairly Canada 0.951 twenty-one indicators, deter- complex) mathematical average USA 0.940 mined largely by polling data. of three indicators: average life They include:12 expectancy, average educa- Japan 0.938 What percent of the adult popu- tional attainment, and GDP per Russia 0.804 lation: capita. Here are some sample HDI values for selected coun- Brazil 0.796 • do not smoke? tries (1993 data).11 Indonesia 0.641 • engage in frequent strenuous exercise? China 0.609 • maintain proper weight? Kenya 0.473 • get 7-8 hours of sleep a night? Nigeria 0.400 • fasten seat belts while riding Afghanistan 0.229 in a car? Somalia 0.221 • refrain from excess alcohol consumption?

11 United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1996. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 136- 137.

12 The “Prevention Index” is available from Prevention magazine, 33 East Minor Street, Emmaus, Pennsylvania.

16 The challenge of coming up with good indicators

4. The challenge of coming up with good indicators

Indicators must be simultaneously meaningful in two different domains: that of science and that of policy.

— Wouter Biesiot

It’s easy enough to list the Feasible: measurable at reason- characteristics of ideal able cost. indicators. Sufficient: not too much information to comprehend, not too little Most study groups on indicators start to give an adequate picture of the situ- by making a list of the qualities of a ation. good indicator. Just about every in- Timely: compilable without long dicator report contains a list similar delays. to the following.13 Appropriate in scale: not over- Indicators should be: or under-aggregated. Clear in value: no uncertainty Democratic: people should have about which direction is good and input to indicator choice and have ac- which is bad. cess to results. Clear in content: easily under- Supplementary: should include standable, with units that make sense, what people can’t measure for them- expressed in imaginable, not eye- selves (such as radioactive emissions, 13 For a definitive list agreed glazing, numbers. or satellite imagery). upon by a large international Compelling: interesting, excit- Participatory: should make use of body of experts, see “The Bellagio Principles,” in B. ing, suggestive of effective action. what people can measure for them- Moldan, S. Billharz, and R. Policy elevant:r for all stakehold- selves (such as river water quality or Matravers, Sustainability Indicators: A Report on the Project ers in the system, including the least local biodiversity) and compile it to on Indicators of Sustainable Development (SCOPE). powerful. provide geographic or time overviews. Chichester and New York: John Wiley, 1997.

17 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

Hierarchical: so a user can delve It’s not so easy to find indicators down to details if desired but can also that actually meet these ideal get the general message quickly. characteristics. Physical: money and prices are noisy, inflatable, slippery, and unsta- Having made a list like the one above, bly exchangeable. Since sustainable the typical indicator study group dis- development is to a large extent con- bands, encouraging someone else to cerned with physical things — food, come up with actual indicators that water, pollutants, forests, houses, meet all these wonderful criteria. Or health — it’s best wherever possible alternatively, the study group pro- to measure it in physical units. (Tons ceeds to recommend a long list of in- of oil, not dollars’ worth of oil; years dicators that don’t meet the criteria. of healthy life, not expenditures on As one of our Balaton colleagues has health care.) written: “International organizations, Leading: so they can provide independent on consensus of their formation in time to act on it. members, assemble indicator sets that Tentative: up for discussion, measure the noncontroversial issues learning, and change. (We should in overwhelming detail, while leav- have replaced the GNP index decades ing out information on controversial ago, for example, but it became too issues. It’s like cramming an airliner’s institutionalized to do so.) cockpit with ship chronometers, cuckoo clocks, swatches, hour glasses, and thermometers, without making sure that vital instruments like air- speed indicators and compass are on board.”14 Having tried the exercise our- Oh please! Not again new indicators! I only want to see simple indicators that can be used selves, however, the Balaton work- by politicians and let the scientists stop with shop members found ourselves in ever more complicated stuff! sympathy with others who have failed to come up with perfect indicators. — A very high UNEP official It was easier to complain about other indicators, to spew out theoretical lists of hundreds of (mostly unmeasurable) indicators, or to philosophize about the Ideal Indicator, than it was

14 H. Bossel, “Finding Indicators to produce a limited, comprehensible of Sustainable Development,” number of compelling, effective in- Center for Environmental Systems Research, University of dicators. Our understanding is im- Kassel, draft, September 1997.

18 The challenge of coming up with good indicators

perfect, our worldviews get stuck, sys- Most of us already have tems are complex, people disagree, we indicators in the backs of our fall back on our narrow specialties, minds, “beloved indicators” that we fail to summon the enormous cre- reflect issues of great concern to ativity we need. One wants to throw us. It’s important to get them out up one’s hands and go do something on the table. easy. To keep ourselves from ducking We noticed each time we did the forc- the difficulties, some of us created, ing exercise that we each had “beloved at irregular intervals throughout the indicators,” which we kept putting workshop, an imaginary challenge to back on our lists because we just plain come up with ten, just ten, crucial wanted them there. (See the list on indicators we would recommend to the next page.) These indicators were the nations of the world, “or else be different for different people; they shot at dawn.” Under that pretended may not be the best ones to put into pressure, most of us did produce in- the cockpit of the sustainability jet- dicators.15 We were unhappy with liner, but they are worth paying at- our forced lists and pleaded for more tention to. When we try to explain time. We repeated the exercise and why we want them, we find ourselves our lists changed as the workshop bringing out our deepest worldviews proceeded and we thought more and values. They may suggest practi- deeply. We didn’t like to be forced to cal indicators of great importance — produce (who does?) but in fact even or at least once they’ve been acknowl- our imperfect suggestions were prob- edged and talked through, our minds ably improvements on existing indi- can be at rest and ready to think about cators. And the forcing exercise other indicators. brought out questions, consider- ations, doubts, and ideas that led us to more creative indicators. If you aren’t too dignified, I would recommend the “ten indicators or be shot at dawn” exercise when you find yourself bogging down. Otherwise it’s too easy to indulge in 15 Some of us considered the theorizing or politicizing or some whole exercise undignified and other evasive activity. refused to participate. Others declared that the process of choosing indicators was more important to them than the product — and that the proper broad base of constituents was not present at the workshop.

19 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

Here are some of the beloved indicators that participants in the Balaton workshop kept insisting upon (which may tell you more about us than about sustainability indicators):

• Percent of the food supply that is grown organically. We are worried about the effects of chemical agriculture on ecosystems and human health.

• Percent of streams you can drink from safely. Seems to us it should be 100 percent.

• Average age of the trees in the forest. Old ones signify to us undisturbed ecosystems, too many young ones signify unsustainable forestry.

• Population trends of migrating songbirds. To us life would be unbearably sad without songbirds, and migrating birds are sensitive measures of environmental health over large areas.

• Food miles (average distance an item of food travels before being eaten). Local food is likely to be more fresh, nutritious, good-tasting, and resilient to supply interruptions. It has also used less packaging and transport energy.

• Average distance between creators and consumers of art and media. Prefer- ably there is no distance at all — a measure of community, participation, identity, self-expression.

• Percent of elections in which you get to vote for a politician you really trust. This one could be an embarrassing indicator of real democracy.

• Average distance between living places of members of extended family. For affection, social resilience, and energy efficiency, the closer the better.

• Average number of minutes spent daily in prayer, meditation, or quiet time.

• Percent of people who say they have “enough.” We wonder if a society is happy if significant numbers of people, however rich, constantly want “more.”

20 The challenge of coming up with good indicators

Indicators can take many forms. the people of the world about their They don’t have to be numbers. welfare and the sustainability of their They can be signs, symbols, planet as goes into reporting to them pictures, colors. about tomorrow’s weather!

We thought of many different types What is needed to inform of indicators — digital and analog, sustainable development is not monetary and physical, aggregated just indicators, but a coherent and disaggregated, static and dy- information system from which namic, additive and multiplicative, indicators can be derived. normalized and absolute. We particularly distinguished be- As we went back and forth, suggesting tween three types of indicators that specific indicators, then backing off to would be necessary in any airplane talk about the philosophy of what we cockpit, for which there are obvious were doing, we realized that we were analogies in sustainable development: searching not just for indicators but • gauges and warning lights to sig- also for an information system about nal obstacles or dangers ahead; sustainable development, of which in- • indicators of the comfort and dicators are just one part. That is to say, safety of the passengers; we were talking about the design not • measures of the heading and dis- only of the instrument panel (indica- tance to go toward the destination. tors) that governments and citizens We got into long, hot discussions need to see to steer the ship and avoid about the meaning of symbols (more obstacles, but also the design of the about this later). We began to imag- background wiring (information sys- ine different ways of presenting indi- tem) that collects and sorts informa- cators — illuminated control panels, tion and delivers it to the panel. hypertexted Web pages, pictures, dy- We saw that we were working on namic models, maps, compasses. We three levels. First, we were evolving ideas talked about the power of the famous for process, linkage, and worldview Bulletin of Atomic Scientists “Minutes explication that could aid the search to Midnight” clock that powerfully, for indicators. Second, we were devel- if qualitatively, measures the politi- oping a framework (a model) to orga- cal tension of the nuclear arms race. nize and link together an entire sustain- We thought of the creative ways that able development information system. TV weather reporters deliver complex Third, we were coming up with indi- information. cators. Our discussions on these three Surely as much effort and inge- levels constitute the next three sections nuity ought to go into reporting to of this report.

21 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

5. Suggestions for indicator process and linkage

Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.

— Albert Einstein

Hierarchy: coherence up and information is needed. So we pic- and down the information ture a nested set of indicators, each system informing the “system in focus” at its own level (say, actual water quality The information system should be in this lake) and aggregating to in- organized into hierarchies of form the system at the next higher increasing scale and decreasing level (average water quality in the specificity. region’s lakes). Aggregation is necessary to keep Whether or not the world is actually from overwhelming the system at the arranged in hierarchies, our mental higher levels of the hierarchy. The models perceive the world that way. brain cannot and need not process ev- We see a hierarchy from the indi- erything happening to every cell in vidual to the family, the neighbor- the body. The leaders of nations can’t hood, the community, the region, the keep track of every family, species, nation, the world. Or from the or- business, or lake. But actors down the ganism to the population to the eco- line, in the family, near the lake, need system to the biome to the planet. Or detailed information to keep their from the employee to the division to part of the system functioning well. the firm to the sector to the national Aggregation must be done with economy to the global economy. At care, because information is lost at each of these levels, actions are taken each stage. Ideally only important in-

22 Suggestions for indicator process and linkage

formation should be passed up to Information from the hierarchy at higher levels, but what information all levels should be available to is important will change over time people at all levels. and with different purposes. There- fore it should always be possible to Like a library, an information system go down as many levels as necessary rich at every hierarchical level yet to see the numbers that have been put clearly organized so that one can find together to make the aggregate indi- one’s way among the levels, would be cator and to create new indicators. maximally useful for matching di- (For example, it should be possible verse kinds of information to the di- for anyone to find out not only that verse purposes for which people need the GDP went up, but what went up information. — home construction or weapons One of the pitfalls of such a flex- construction, cleaning up after natu- ible information system, however, is ral disasters or cleaning up the envi- that it can be manipulated. It allows ronment.) the user to choose only those indica- “Clicking a hypertext page” is the tors that serve a pre-conceived out- phrase we used to indicate our vision come. Selecting information to jus- of the way a user could navigate a hi- tify only one point of view is a trap erarchical information system. that even well-meaning users can fall

The main “cockpit” would show the into. The only way to get around it is most critical and aggregated indica- to be sure the information system is tors (say, for example, the quality accessible to users with many points and adequacy of human capital). A of view. Then multiple interpreta- “click” on that indicator would open a more detailed set of information tions can emerge and can be discussed (say, size of population and primary not at the futile level of throwing con- attributes — age, sex, health status, tradictory statistics at each other, but education, income, employment). at the level of examining the models Another “click” on health status could open boxes of information and purposes that cause those statis- about age-specific mortality and tics to be selected from the full set morbidity rates and causes. Further available. “clicks” could give the same infor- Making sure that “cockpit indi- mation about specific geographic sub-areas. And so forth. cators,” the aggregated ones at the top of the hierarchy, are comprehensive can also help overcome the all-too- human tendency to pay attention only to the news you want to hear. If, for example, economic productivity indicators are improving nicely,

23 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

It comes back to local but indicators of the security of Information should also come knowledge. People have households, say, or the integrity of from all levels. The public can be said that the beaches are communities are falling apart, and if important contributors to, as well more polluted than what the cockpit indicator blends those as users of information and they’ve been. I could two sources of information, then at indicators. have told you that. least the question will rise, “why isn’t Because I’ve seen from this indicator rising, when the Governments have the scientific and upstairs for thirty years and looked out the economy is doing so well?” Presum- financial resources to gather informa- window every day and ably a scan of the indicators at the tion that is inaccessible to citizens, seen the color of the sand next level down in the hierarchy will such as satellite imagery or radiation change color. Whereas it answer that question. leaks. Citizens can provide detailed used to be like everyone ground-truth that is inaccessible to imagines sand, it’s now a governments. browny color.

— focus group participant, Lancashire County, UK16

For example, a nongovernmental Costa Rica has organized through Counts conducted by Audubon So- organization called River Watch in its Instituto Nacional de Bio- ciety volunteers, originally in North the United States organizes high diversidad (INBio) thousands of its America, now throughout the school science teachers to involve citizens as local naturalists, trained Western Hemisphere, are proving students in regular chemical and to collect and preserve insects, one of the most reliable long-term biological monitoring of a stream plants, birds, and to send them to bird population data bases in ex- near each school. The schools link taxonomists for classification. istence.19 their findings through computer Working in their spare time, the la- networks, thereby creating moni- borers, students, housewives, and toring networks for entire streams retired people in this program are and rivers. They have been able to cataloguing the vast biological di- detect changes in water quality versity of their nation. They have quickly, and even, by comparing discovered hundreds of new spe- data on successive reaches, to pin- cies. The species catalog is com- point the source of a problem puterized and made available at emission. If enough sections of libraries and schools throughout river could be covered this way, the country. When the catalog is the information could be aggre- done, the citizen naturalists can be- gated upward into, for example, an come monitors of population size, index of what percent of the breeding success, and other at- nation’s surface water is of swim- tributes of biological diversity.18 mable and drinkable quality, and Similarly the Christmas Bird how that index is changing over time.17

24 Suggestions for indicator process and linkage

Citizens could survey many things at more people involved in indicator se- the local level: soil erosion, child nu- lection the better. Indicators for an trition, adequacy of housing, use of entire social system should not be de- local energy sources, quality of roads, termined by a small group of experts water, jobs, schools, or forests. Citi- or politicians or civil servants sitting zen monitoring not only can provide together in rooms out of contact with excellent information at low cost, it the people who are expected to un- can also contribute to the education derstand and use the indicators. of the people and to widespread ap- preciation for natural and societal The indicator selection process wealth. works best with a combination of expert and grassroots participation. The Selection Process: experts and citizens Many indicator-defining groups have together 16 Quoted in P. Hardi and T. found that they made greatest head- Zdan, eds., Assessing Sustainable way in finding useful indicators if Development: Principles in Practice. Winnipeg, Manitoba: The process of indicator they put together experts on the sub- International Institute for Sustainable Development, 1997, development for social systems is ject in question with interested non- p. 107. as important as the indicators experts. 17 River Watch Network, 153 selected. Experts are necessary to supply State Street, Montpelier, VT comprehensive understanding, per- 05602. Another such organization is the Global Rivers As indicators are selected and defined, spective on the development of the Environmental Network system over time, knowledge of what (GREEN, 206 South Fifth Ave., values are expressed, purposes are Suite 150, Ann Arbor, Michigan agreed upon, worldviews are at play, data are available, realism about what 48104, U.S.A.) and models are developed and shared can be measured, and credibility to 18 INBio, Sto. Domingo 3100, (implicitly or explicitly). Therefore the process. But experts, left to their Heredia Costa Rica, Tel.: (506) 36-7690, Fax: (506) 36-2816. the selection process is the place own devices, can get lost in details, can want to measure everything that 19 The data are complied and where legitimacy and comprehension maintained by the Patuxent are built, as people see their values is intellectually interesting rather than Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, what is policy-relevant, can invent Maryland. The CBC started on and worldviews incorporated into the Christmas Day, 1900. Today, indicators. The process of indicator technical indicators that carry no over 45,000 people from all 50 meaning outside the expert commu- states, every Canadian province, selection is also one of the key places the Caribbean, Central and where social learning about indica- nity, and can be blindered by the nar- South America, and the Pacific Islands (all areas where the tors and models takes place. row specificity of one area of study. breeding birds of North America Non-experts tend to push to spend their winter) participate in For all these reasons — to be in- about 1700 counts held during a clusive, to gather a full compilation make the indicator relevant and un- two and one-half week period. derstandable. The non-expert may be The Christmas Bird Count has of viewpoints, to legitimize the prod- evolved into the largest and uct, and to enhance learning — the more open than the expert to creative longest-running wildlife survey ever undertaken.

25 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

linkages and syntheses, more likely to strong ties to the community or au- capture the “big picture,” more likely dience for whom the indicators are to be sure a diversity of interests are intended. The working group is most represented. Just as the expert brings effective when it combines experts scientific credibility to the indicator and non-experts from the outset, but selection process, the non-expert the critical element is long-term com- brings political credibility. mitment to the process. 2. Clarify the purpose of the indicator set— whether it is meant to But integrating expert and non- educate the public, provide back- expert opinion has its costs and ground for key policy decisions, or must be done with care. evaluate the success of an initiative or plan. Different purposes give rise Involving “everyone” can produce dis- to different indicators and publica- proportionate representation of some tion strategies. stakeholders, too little technical 3. Identify the community’s knowledge, too much focus on imme- shared values and vision. The indi- diate interests, risk of incomplete map- cator set must be able to speak to the ping of the area of interest, and no ho- hopes and aspirations of the people listic understanding. Furthermore, it it is meant to serve. can be inordinately time-consuming, 4. Review existing models, in- may be difficult to enroll sufficient dicators, and data. The working participation, requires skilled facilita- group takes a look at other indicator tion, tends to get stuck in process dis- projects as examples to learn from. It cussions, and tends to produce low- also reviews what indicators are al- level “concrete” indicators. ready published locally and what data Some practitioners who have are generally available. weathered these challenges suggest 5. Draft a set of proposed in- the following ten-step process for de- dicators. The working group draws veloping an indicator set.20 They rec- on its own knowledge, the examples ommend that the process be managed it has collected, and the advice of by impartial facilitators whose role is outside experts if needed to prepare to coordinate meetings, guide the dis- a first draft. The draft may go cussion, prepare background docu- through several revisions before it is ments, and synthesize results. ready for the next step. In particu- 20 “The Community Indicators 1. Select a small working group, lar, initial indicator sets tend to be Handbook,” available for US$20 from Redefining Progress, 1 responsible for the success of thevery long. In later drafts, they need Kearny Street, 4th Floor, San entire venture. The working group to be pruned down and made more Francisco CA 94108. Tel.: (415) 781-1191, Fax: (415) 781-1198, needs to be multi-disciplinary, with focused and practicable. Email [email protected]

26 Suggestions for indicator process and linkage

6. Convene a participatory se- 10. Update the eporr t regularly. lection process. The draft indicators Indicators make little difference, or need to be presented to a broad cross- indeed little sense, if they are not pub- section of the community for their lished periodically to show change input. This process serves several im- over time. This requires an institu- portant goals. It educates the partici- tional base that can be relied upon to pants, gathers their collective creativ- reproduce steps 8. and 9. on a regu- ity and expertise, and makes them lar basis, and to go back and revisit stakeholders in the success of the the other steps as needed. Each new project. Often it also gives rise to new version of an indicator report be- relationships and alliances among the comes an opportunity to revise the participants and can even generate indicators, develop new research new action initiatives to address prob- methods, and add linkages. If perfor- lems identified by the indicators. mance targets have been set, they can 7. Perform a technical eview.r be assessed and, if necessary, adjusted. An interdisciplinary team of knowl- And when targets are met, celebra- edgeable people sorts through the tions can occur! proposed final draft indicators and se- These steps may sound daunt- lects for measurability, statistical and ing, but they are being put into prac- systemic relevance, etc., trying to stay tice by hundreds of community- and true to the intentions and preferences regional-level indicator movements expressed by the citizen review pro- around the world.21 cess. The technical review helps to fill in gaps, weed out technical problems, and produce a final indicator set that Systems: making We should not tackle is ready to be fleshed out with data. indicators dynamic vast problems with 8. Research the data.At this half-vast concepts. stage, the indicators are usually sub- Systems insights can help in the — Preston Cloud ject to additional revision, driven by design of indicators that identify data concerns and new learning. critical linkages, dynamic 9. Publish and promote the in- tendencies, and leverage points dicators. This requires translating for action. them into striking graphics, clear language, and an effective outreach cam- Systems change over time, and it is of- paign. It helps to link the indicators ten exactly their dynamic behavior that to the policies and driving forces that we want indicators of sustainable de- affect them, to illustrate their link- velopment to tell us about. Is the popu- ages, and to point to the actions that lation or the economy growing more can be taken to improve them. or less rapidly than it used to be? Are 21 Ibid.; and also P. Hardi and T. Zdan eds., op. cit.

27 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

weather patterns becoming more or less Distinguish between stocks and variable? For how long can the fish flows. Stocks are indicators of the population support this rate of harvest, state of a system and its response and what happens if it can’t? time. Flows may be leading System dynamics is a field of ex- indicators of change. pertise that specializes in understanding the unfolding behavior over time Stocksdescribe the state of the sys- of whole systems. Therefore it can be tem at any particular time — the useful in finding linkage indicators, amount of biomass in a forest, people leading indicators, and leverage points in a nation, factories in an economy, where systems are especially likely to money in the bank, water in an aqui- signal change or respond to action. fer, greenhouse gases in the atmo- This section contains a brief sum- sphere. Stocks are accumulations of mary of some insights from system the past history of the system. The dynamics about how to design dy- sources in nature from which raw namic indicators. materials are drawn are primarily stocks. So are the sinks in the environment into which pollutants are poured, or the factories and tools that inflowsstock outflows make up the productive capital of a nation. Stocks are generally the most countable elements of systems, and hence they make obvious indicators. Stocks are usually slow to change. Even if CFC emissions cease today, the accumulation of chlorine in the birthspopulation deaths stratosphere will take decades to decline. If a new energy source is invented tomorrow, there would be a long delay before existing stocks of cars and furnaces and industrial boil- ers that burn the old types of energy can be replaced. Therefore the size regenerationfish natural deaths population and lifetimes of stocks can give us useful indicators of response atesr — how long it will take a system to cor- fishing harvest rect a problem, adjust to a change, or

harvest take advantage of a new opportunity. rate

28 Suggestions for indicator process and linkage

Suggested dynamic indicators: of recycling or absorption. Deforesta- Turnover time, which is stock size tion is indicated not when the forest relative to stock change rate. Espe- is gone, but when the rate of harvest cially relevant for understanding the first exceeds the rate of regrowth. time it takes for aquifers or surface water bodies (or the atmosphere) to Suggested dynamic indicators: flush out pollution, or for the time it Harvest/regeneration, the essential takes for industrial capital stocks measure of sustainable use of a re- (such as the automobile fleet) to be newable resource, whether fish, wa- replaced. ter, forest, soil. If the index is above Coverage time, which is stock size 1.0, the harvest is not sustainable. relative to the drain on the stock. Es- Emission/absorption, where ab- pecially relevant to calculate ad- sorption means any process, natural equacy of supply. Fossil fuel reserve/ or human-mediated, that renders a consumption is an example already pollutant harmless. This is an essen- given here. Food reserves relative to tial measure of the sustainability of food consumption (number of days any waste stream, with values above current supplies can cover consump- 1.0 indicating unsustainability. tion), or inventory relative to sales rate are other examples. Note always Since some of these flows may be the difference between coverage at hard to measure directly (regenera- steady consumption and coverage at tion in a forest, absorption in the soil), exponentially increasing consump- they can be measured indirectly by tion. changes over time in the relevant stock. Any resource stock that is falling is being used unsustainably. Any For leading indicators, we need to pollution sink that is filling is being monitor flows. Flows are the inputs or used unsustainably. outputs (measured per time unit) that increase or decrease stocks. Harvest and growth of trees, births and deaths in the population, construction and depreciation of capital are all flows that change stocks. Flows in turn are driven tree growthbiomass natural deaths in forest by other stocks. (Tree harvesting depends on the number of chainsaws and loggers and trucks, as well as on the tree harvest stock of trees in the forest.) Advance warning comes from the balance of flows affecting a stock. A investmentlogging depreciation equipment buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, for example, is predictable when the rates of emission of those gases begin to exceed their natural rates

29 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

The stock-flow orientation is related cation and other erosion processes to the pressure-state orientation com- can degrade soil in a vicious down- mon to United Nations and other in- ward spiral — fewer trees have fewer dicator systems. Stocks are measures roots, which are less able to hold soil of system states. Flows are measures against erosion; less soil allows less of pressures that change those states. plant growth, still fewer roots, still more erosion, and so forth. Interest on debt is also a downward exponen- Exponential growth rates (the tial spiral, increasing the debt more strengths of vicious or virtuous each year than the year before, unless cycles) are sensitive points in repayments exceed interest charges. systems. Whether the cycle is vicious or virtuous, small changes in growth rate A revealing indicator in dynamic sys- can signal large potential changes in tems is the rapidity of exponential the system. For example, a growth growth processes (which systems ana- rate of 1 percent per year means that lysts call positive feedback loops). over a century the population (or Exponential growth is growth that economy) will grow to 2.7 times its feeds on itself — the more you have, present value. A growth rate of 2 per- the more you get. The two most ob- cent means that in a century the vious places where that type of growth population or economy will grow by occurs are population and economic a factor of 7.4. A growth rate of 3 output. In fact, the most basic devel- percent over a century will produce a opment indicator is the ratio between population or economy twenty times the two — the rate of growth of out- its original size! put per capita. Positive feedback loops drive more than population and economy, however. Teachers teaching more teachers builds up the educational capacity of a nation. Knowledge leads to more knowledge. Natural populations, such as fish or trees, grow exponentially, when they grow at all. Epidemics proceed through positive feedback loops — more sick people infect more people, who then infect more people. Pest populations can explode exponentially. Desertifi-

30 Suggestions for indicator process and linkage

Suggested dynamic indicators: Doubling time or halving time. Similarly, halving times of entities Exponential growth against a Percent changes are hard to imag- that are decreasing exponentially limiting resource. A powerful ine; doubling times are more eas- are 70 divided by the decrease way to communicate the implica- ily understood. The doubling time rate. A forest being cut by 3.5% tions of an exponential growth proof an exponential growth process per year will be half gone in 20 cess is to relate it to a fixed or is 70 divided by the growth rate. years. Soil eroding at 1% per year limiting resource — to show the So a city growing at 7% per year will be half gone in 70 years. A fos- exponentially shrinking resource will double in 10 years (and double sil fuel resource being consumed per capita. For example, Hawaiians again in another 10 years, if that at 7% per year will be half gone in understood the implications of growth rate continues). A popula- 10 years. exponential population growth, tion growing at 3.5% per year will when they started plotting over (Calculating doubling or halving double in 20 years. An agricultural time the miles of beach per per- times does not imply that an ex- yield going up by 2% per year will son. China took population growth ponential growth rate will continue double in 35 years. seriously when it extrapolated fig- unchanged over any future period. ures for cultivable land and avail- The point of a doubling or halving able water per person. Many cities time calculation is usually to point would be shocked to plot over out that it can’t or shouldn’t!) time their miles of road per car.

The ratio of change rate to ing by about 7 percent per year. That response rate is a critical — and makes a doubling time of 10 years. It usually critically missing — takes a CFC molecule ten to fifteen indicator of the degree to which a years to rise from the earth’s surface system can be controlled. up to the stratosphere, where it breaks apart and starts destroying the ozone Rates of change around positive feed- layer. Given that growth rate and that back loops are even more useful in- lag, the problem doubled before it could dicators when they are combined even be measured. with information about possible re- Clearly a system that is changing sponse times. In fact, the combination faster than anyone can know or react of the two — change rate compared is a system that cannot be managed, with response rate — makes an indica- controlled, or protected against dam- tor of the controllability of the system. age. The concept of change/response During the 1970s, the produc- as a measure of system safety has been tion of CFCs in the world was grow- highly developed in the field of

31 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

nuclear engineering. The time it takes Such an indicator could be applied, for a nuclear reactor to “go critical” for example, to: and reach an irreversible rate of neu- • the depletion time of any resource tron generation (in other words an relative to the time to develop a substitute; explosion) is called the respite time. The response time is the time it takes • the rising educational needs of a growing population relative to the for operators to notice a problem, rate of training teachers and building track down its source, and mobilize schools; control rods to absorb and slow down • the spread of pesticide resistance neutrons. A reactor with a response relative to the time to develop a new time longer than its respite time is pesticide; inherently unsafe.22 • the doubling time of greenhouse So is any system in which prob- gas emissions relative to the re- lems are generated faster than they sponse lags in the climate system can be responded to. Even if tech- that allows climate change to be de- tected; nologies are powerful, even if financial resources and political will can • population growth in a city relative be summoned, if a problem comes to the rate at which the city can add infrastructure to handle sewage, gar- on faster than technologies, money, bage, or traffic. or will can take effect, that problem will be unsolvable. The situation will Any system in which the rate of be equivalent to driving a car too fast growth of a problem is significantly — though the brakes may function faster than the rate of response is, perfectly, obstacles can’t be seen in quite simply, out of control. There time to stop. are only two ways to bring it back Therefore a powerful warning in- into the realm of manageability: dicator can be created from the rate of either quicken the response rate (if increase of a problem divided by response possible) or slow the growth rate of rate. This ratio could be measured as the problem (or both). rate of change in percent per year di- The concept of respite time ver- vided by rate of response in percent sus response time is new to many per year, an index that gets critical as managers and missing from most in- it approaches 1.0. Or, if, as in the dicator sets — and obviously critical ozone case, the problem is a discrete to any hope of achieving a sustain- lag in detection or response, the ratio 22 The respite time/response able society. time indicator was suggested to could be measured as response time/ us by Wouter Biesiot and the respite time. staff of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, University of Groningen, the Netherlands, November 1995, draft prepared for our workshop.

32 Suggestions for indicator process and linkage

Watch for unbalanced or missing missing. Overfishing is almost inevi- control loops. table, if there is no system for regulating the catch depending on how Complex systems, whether natural or many fish there are. Forests may be human-designed, are managed cut down uneconomically if those through control loops (negative feed- doing the cutting are not assessed the back loops in systems terms) that value of the services provided by monitor the state of a system and act standing trees (such as flood protec- to keep it in balance. A common ex- tion or carbon sequestration). Rivers ample is the thermostat. When the are easily polluted if there is no way temperature in a room falls, the ther- downstream populations can regulate mostat switches on the furnace, caus- or claim damages from upstream pol- ing the temperature to rise again. luters. Those are all examples of miss- When the temperature rises, the fur- ing indicators, which, once they are nace is switched off. Other common restored, will supply the necessary control loops maintain blood sugar control loops to allow a system to level in the body, keep a plane flying adjust itself automatically. in its intended direction, and adjust The famous dilemma of “the prices to equilibrate supply and de- tragedy of the commons” is an ex- mand in an economy. ample of missing feedback control When systems behave pathologi- when there is a common resource and cally, it is often because balancing no price or penalty for use of the re- 23 G. Hardin, “The Tragedy of 23 the Commons,” Science 362, no. negative feedback loops are weak or source short of its exhaustion. 3858 (December 1968): 1243-48.

Examples of indicators and enforcement systems to supply missing feedback control:

A warning light on pumps taking A permit system for boats in a fish- Emission quotas for large-scale groundwater from an aquifer, to in- ery, cutting the allowed number of pollutants such as sulfur dioxide or dicate whether the aquifer is fill- boats or fishing days if the fish carbon dioxide, the total amount ing (green), stable (yellow), or population falls. to be determined upon biophysi- falling (red). Ideally the cost of the cal sustainability grounds, to be Required stickers (purchased from water would rise steeply as the auctioned off regularly to the high- the municipality) on municipally light turns red. est bidders. (Such a system would collected garbage, so that people put a price on the commons of A meter on the dashboards of cars, who generate more trash have to clean air and would allow the mar- showing the instantaneous rate of pay more for its disposal. ket to distribute efficiently the right fuel consumption (measured in to pollute. It would also provide a money expended) — which would control mechanism to keep total give drivers feedback on more and pollution within health and safety less wasteful driving habits. guidelines.)

33 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

Notice that in the above systems, the or the emergency cooling systems of indicator gains real force when it is a nuclear power plant, or the health coupled with a fee or regulatory sys- care capacity of a society, or the in- tem. surance policies from a business. Re- silience can be stripped away from a system without immediate cost (ac- An important indicator of the tually saving cost) and without affect- resilience of a system is the ing the functioning of the system, redundancy of its controlling until a crisis comes that demands that negative feedback loops. resilience. At that point the cost can be tremendous. When an ecosystem loses species, it You can see why it is important may lose control mechanisms by to sustainable development to have which predators and prey keep their indicators that measure resilience. If relative populations in balance. When immediate operating cost is the only a village loses access to lands from indicator, there can be great tempta- which it supplemented its food sup- tions to remove resilience or let it de- ply in times of famine, it has lost an teriorate in order to realize short-term element of emergency self-mainte- cost-saving. nance. Resilience is lost when family Resilience is not commonly or members are geographically scattered, easily measured; it will take some cre- or when a watershed loses wetlands ativity to invent good indicators here.

that absorb floodwaters, or when a The only specific suggestion I can nation becomes dependent upon a think of here is to use a concept fa- single, imported source of energy, or miliar to most economic-minded per- when a government fixes a price so it sons: insurance. There must be simple indicators that calculate for an can’t respond to supply and demand, enterprise how much is being ex- or when a body’s immune system is pended on insurance and how ad- compromised. equate that insurance is. (Companies Removing or weakening feedback willing to cut corners in all others areas rarely seem to stint on buying loops that provide resilience is equiva- insurance.) Could that concept be ex- lent to removing the fire detectors tended to families? Communities? and sprinkler systems in a building, Ecosystems? Planetary geophysical flows?

34 Suggestions for indicator process and linkage

Nonlinearities in systems (turning You can catch fish and open up points, thresholds) are key points ecological space for immigration or for the placement of indicators. reproduction of more fish — up to a point, after which the diminished You can erode the soil right down to population may be unable to breed the depth of crop roots without much or may be open to competitors, at impact, but erode it a little past that which point it plummets: point, and crop yields plummet: yield fish population

annual catch 0% percent of soil eroded 100% Turning points like these mark You can emit nutrients into a thresholds beyond which the behav- stream and natural bacteria will clean ior of a system changes radically, them up, but if you emit too much sometimes irreversibly. Clearly we too fast, the natural biota may be need indicators that signal them well killed off, and the stream turned into in advance. These “distance from the a sewer where wastes pile up without edge” indicators are like radar warn- amelioration: ing a ship or plane of an obstacle ahead. The faster the ship or plane (or economy) is moving, the farther ahead they have to look, to allow suf- n ficient braking or turning time. (Back tio n la io u t op a to the change rate/response rate dis- a p tr cteri en ba nc cussion!) co aste ambient w emissions rate

35 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

Suggested dynamic indicators: A primary indicator of the long- Time to turning or irreversibility term viability of a system is its point. If the threshold or nonlinearity evolutionary potential. is well understood, the time to reach it, given current rate of approach, should be calculable. The resilience of a system is its ability to recover and repair itself from Degree of risk. If the threshold is not shocks. Short-term resilience depends well understood, which is often the case (how many species can you on adequate controlling negative take out of an ecosystem before it feedback loops, as discussed above. collapses? how far down can you Long-term resilience depends on the bring the fish population before it no evolutionary potential of a system longer can restore itself? how much money can you allow private persons — its ability to adapt to new condi- to give to elected officials before all tions, to create new species, struc- trust in democratic government is tures, technologies, or ideas — to gone? how many greenhouse gases evolve. can you put into the atmosphere before you derail massive ocean cur- The most important reason why rents?), the challenge is to design biological diversity should be pre- indicators that convey the degree of served is because the gene pool is risk. One possibility is to deliver in- nature’s raw material for evolution. formation about the full range of estimates (as the IPCC scientists have For human societies, evolutionary done painstakingly in communicating potential lies in technology, knowl- about climate change). Even when edge, the variety of organizations in the uncertainties are great, consid- the civil society, foresight, tolerance, ered guesses are better than no information at all. and the mental and social flexibility to be open to new ideas, to test them quickly, to select the ones that apply best under present and impending future conditions, and to evolve new ideas and institutions. To measure sustainability, we need indicators of the potential for evolutionary change. These have to do with diversity, tolerance, ingenu- ity, open-mindedness, education, and truth-telling about the success or fail- ure of experiments.

36 Suggestions for indicator process and linkage

Possible indicators:

Ecological evolutionary potential Technological evolutionary poten- Cultural evolutionary potential might be measured by the rate of tial might be approximated by sci- might be captured in the number disappearance of species relative entists per capita, basic research of different races, cultures, reli- to the number of species originally expenditures per capita, inventions gions that live together in peace there (equivalent to the rate of dis- or scientific prizes per capita within a given geographic area. A appearance of books or journals in (though the latter is a lagging indi- leading indicator of the breakdown a library). cator, reflecting the training of the of this potential might be the fre- past generation, not coming ones.) quency of ethnic or cultural hate- A better measure than any of the talk in the public media, especially above would get more directly at when it comes from public lead- creativity, originality, quickness of ers. (Monitoring this indicator problem-solving, elegance and in- would have provided early warn- genuity of solutions. (Percent of ing of the development of the fas- high-school students working on cist regimes in Europe in the 1930s solar cars? Truly original inventions and the breakdown of Yugoslavia patented per capita? Number of in the 1990s.) startup companies based on completely new concepts? Average length of time major technical problems persist before they are solved?)

37 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

Wherever possible, indicators Worldwatch Institute in its an- should be reported as time graphs nual report Vital Signs devotes a two- rather than static numbers. page spread to each of its indicators (see below). One page is explanatory Time graphs show not only the text, the other shows the develop- present state of an indicator, but its ment of that indicator over time, both trend over time — improving, declin- as a table of raw data and as a time ing, fluctuating, becoming more or graph. Other graphs on the page may less unstable. It’s not really possible disaggregate the indicator to show its to understand an indicator unless one constituent parts or provide some knows its dynamics. It is often espe- other illuminating information.24 cially illuminating to compare one This is an economical way to time trend with another on the same communicate a great deal of infor- graph and same scale. mation to a wide audience, and especially to give that audience a grasp of the history and potential future of 24 L. R. Brown et al., Vital Signs 1998. New York: W. W. Norton each indicator. & Company, 1998, pp. 44-45.

38 Suggestions for indicator process and linkage

Indicators should be combined with formal dynamic modeling.

Most of the indicators mentioned in this section are potentially powerful, but not easy to define or understand unless they are accompanied by a dynamic model that can help, for example, spin out the future consequences of present exponential growth rates, or calculate the ability of control loops to stabilize a system. Models of this type are already being used to help understand climate change, fish population dynamics, changes in the stratospheric ozone layer, demographic developments in populations, and macro-economic growth.25 The co-development of indicators and dynamic models can help not only to identify trouble spots in the system, but can help test, gauge, and time corrective actions. Action will be taken on the basis of models in any case, mental models or formal models. The search for indicators is a search for better models, ideally dynamic models that can help us understand the timing of problems and solutions.

25 The literature is vast. For a start, see any issue of the System Dynamics Journal or the following websites: http://web.mit.edu/ jsterman/www/DID.html; http:// home.earthlink.net/~tomfid/ sdbookmarks.html; http:// sysdyn.mit.edu/road-maps/ rm-toc.html

39 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

6. A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

That which is good and helpful ought to be growing and that which is bad and hindering ought to be diminishing.... We therefore need, above all else, ... concepts that enable us to choose the right direction of our movement and not merely to measure its speed.

— E. F. Schumacher

The Hierarchy the rate and direction of change? from ultimate means Several tentative frameworks have to ultimate ends been suggested and discussed — among them the “pressure-state- The “Daly Triangle,” which impact-response” model used to or- relates natural wealth to ultimate ganize the first indicator efforts of the 26 See, for example, “Work human purpose through U.N. Commission on Sustainable Programme on Indicators of Sustainable Development of the technology, economy, politics, Development and other international Commission on Sustainable bodies,26 the “ecological footprint,”27 Development,” United Nations and ethics, provides a simple Department for Policy integrating framework. the “four capitals” (economic, natu- Coordination and Sustainable ral, human, and social capital) aris- Development, February 1996, 28 and “OECD Core Set of So what information needs to be dis- ing from the World Bank, and the Indicators for Environmental 29 Performance Review,” OECD played on the cockpit, to allow soci- idea of “genuine savings.” The Environment Directorate, ety to steer successfully toward sus- Balaton Group workshop found these October 1993. tainable development? What orga- forerunners useful; each seemed to 27 Wackernagle and Rees, op. cit. nizing framework makes intuitive capture an important piece of the 28 I. Serageldin, Sustainability sense, captures the relative impor- puzzle — but not the whole puzzle. and the Wealth of Nations: First We struggled to bring them together, Steps in an Ongoing Journey, tance of various indicators, and illus- World Bank Discussion Draft, trates their relationship to one an- to distill the message that each Second Edition, March 3, 1996. other? What could deliver at a glance seemed to carry, and to find a more 29 World Bank, Monitoring the essence of the present situation whole-system context within which Environmental Progress: A Report on Work in Progress, ESD Series, and its rate and direction of change to place them. We looked for a frame- 1995. and the policy levers that might alter work that would make sense on its

40 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

own terms and that would lend itself a triangle or pyramid, and for histori- both to a comprehensive underlying cal purposes I will use that symbol- information system and to underly- ism, though the shape is not neces- ing dynamic models. We wanted a sary to the logic (see page 42). Daly “data-base organizer” that could be himself abandoned it in later texts comprehended at all levels, in which and simply drew a vertical line. The one would not be likely to lose one’s important idea is to situate the hu- way, in which one would never lose man economy within a hierarchy, sight of what is most important for resting on a foundation of natural re- sustainable development. sources and reaching to the height of I believe we found it, but before ultimate purpose. I describe it, I must state that several At the base of the triangle, sup- of my Balaton colleagues have reser- porting everything, are what Daly vations about this scheme, more on calls the ultimate means out of the symbolic and philosophical lev- which all life and all economic trans- els than on the level of logical con- actions are built and sustained. This cepts. No scheme we came up with is natural capital, the matter of the was embraced by all without reserva- planet, the sun’s energy, the bio- tion. Our discussions of our doubts geochemical cycles, the ecosystems about each scheme were revealing, and the genetic information they showing the power of symbols and bear, and the human being as an or- the different interpretations different ganism. These ultimate means are not cultures can bring to the same sym- created by us; they are the heritage bol. I see no way around that diffi- we were born into, and out of them culty, except to choose a framework we fashion everything we have or that seems to capture the central logic know. They are studied by the sci- one is trying to communicate, and ences and converted through technol- then, through use and example, to ogy to intermediate means. imbue that framework with the in- The intermediate means are tended meaning. That is how every tools, machines, factories, skilled la- large-scale indicator, from the GDP bor, processed material and energy — to the Dow-Jones Index, has evolved. built capital and human capital and The framework I suggest is based raw material. These intermediate on a diagram Herman Daly drew means define the productive capac- more than twenty years ago.30 It pic- ity of the economy. Economists call tures the relationship between the hu- them inputs to the economy (system- man economy and the earth in a way atically ignoring nature’s unpriced in- that is, to me, logical, systematic, and puts from the level below). Interme- 30 H. E. Daly, Toward a Steady- State Economy. San Francisco: W. clarifying. Daly originally drew it as diate means are necessary but not suf- H. Freeman and Company, 1973, p. 8.

41 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

ultimate ends well-being: happiness, harmony, identity, fulfillment, self-respect, self-realization, community, transcendence, enlightenment theology & ethics

intermediate ends human capital & social capital: health, wealth, leisure, mobility, knowledge, communication, consumer goods

political economy

intermediate means built capital & human capital: labor, tools, factories, processed raw materials

science & technology

ultimate means natural capital: solar energy, the biosphere, earth materials, the biogeochemical cycles

42 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

ficient to accomplish all higher pur- bonum,” and insists, from his own poses. Managing, valuing, distribut- monotheistic point of view, that it is ing, maintaining, and using these in- singular, not plural. termediate means is the concern of I have added to the diagram some economics and politics, or the politi- other words that people use to define cal economy. the ultimate end of human economic The intermediate ends are the activity and human life — happiness, goals that governments promise and harmony, fulfillment, self-respect, economies are expected to deliver — self-realization, community, identity, consumer goods, health, wealth, transcendence, enlightenment. The knowledge, leisure, communication, impossibility of defining these words, transportation — what economists or agreeing on ultimate end or ends, call output. They are what everyone demonstrates that we are discussing wants, but they by no means guaran- quality, not quantity, something im- tee satisfaction, as is revealed by soci- material, not material, though it re- eties where intermediate ends are quires the whole material triangle un- abundant but people still feel their derneath to support it. lives are empty. That is because in- Now for the reservations. Several termediate ends are not ends in them- members of the Balaton Group have selves, but instruments to achieve problems, not with the basic idea something yet higher. The conversion behind this triangle, but with its sym- of intermediate ends to ultimate ends bolism. It is too hierarchical and depends on an effective ethic or reli- “Western minded” for some; too an- gion or philosophy that can answer thropocentric for others; or too static; the question: what are health, wealth, or there’s too much vagueness about and education for? the top of the triangle, where objec- At the top of the triangle is the tive physical stuff somehow gets ultimate end, desired for itself, not transformed into subjective human the means to the achievement of any satisfaction or arguable spirituality. other end. The definition or measure- We all like the idea of the ment of the ultimate end is fraught economy being borne up by and with difficulties, especially for people drawing from nature and the idea of of Western cultures. Daly was vague the economy serving higher goals and about it: “Our perception of the ul- not being an end in itself. We regard timate is always cloudy, but necessary those two ideas as essential to the un- nonetheless, for without a perception derstanding of sustainable develop- of the ultimate it would be impos- ment. We tried redrawing the Daly sible to order intermediate ends and diagram, turning it into concentric to speak of priorities.”31 He called circles of “nested dependencies,” into the ultimate end the “summum a flower (see the title page of this re- 31 Daly, op. cit., pp. 7-8.

43 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

port), even into a Möbius strip. We supply human ends.) The logical re- made it into a compass (a likely indi- lationship among the levels of the cator to find on a cockpit instrument hierarchy is what’s important to me, panel), with N=Nature, E=Economy, along with the challenge of orienting S=Society, and W=human Welfare. indicators toward the two things that We got into snarls with the compass ultimately count for me — the health symbol too; some people interpreted of nature and real human well-being. it as saying that N is the best direc- I find the Daly pyramid the most in- tion to go, or that if you go E, you tuitive of the many frameworks I have can’t simultaneously go W, etc., etc., seen for organizing indicators, one etc. The compass, while preserving that organizes the links among many most of the content of the Daly tri- aspects of sustainable development, angle (except the ultimate end, which and one which, as I will demonstrate some people are glad to get out of the here, lends itself naturally to dynamic picture), loses the sequential, depen- modeling, pressure-state-response dent relationships among the various schemes, ecological footprints, and levels. various kinds of capital. The whole discussion, which became very emotional, taught us a lot about the humorlessness with which Sustainable development is a call human beings take their symbols — to expand the economic calculus a vital lesson for the design of indica- to include the top (development) tors! and the bottom (sustainability) of I don’t insist on the triangle, the triangle. though out of deference to Daly’s original vision, I use it here. I cer- Industrial society has thousands of in- tainly don’t intend to convey by it the dicators from the middle of the pyra- idea that the only purpose of nature mid, but few from the bottom and is to fulfill human ends, an interpre- almost none from the top. tation to which most Balaton mem- That is probably why “sustainable bers strongly object. (Rather, I see the development” has become a global triangle as saying there’s no way hu- rallying cry. Obviously, the purpose man ends can be realized without of life is more than economic, and healthy, functioning natural and eco- life is supported by more than that nomic and social systems. Others see to which we can assign an economic no problem, because they assume that price. Sustainable development asks high human purposes must naturally us to pay attention to the bottom and include valuing nature in its own the topof the pyramid, the health of right, independent of its ability to nature and the well-being of people,

44 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

one measured in physical terms, one Sustainable development indica- measured in subjective terms; one the tors could rise if, say, total electricity domain of science, the other the do- use goes down through more efficient main of philosophy and psychology. technology that provides light or turns Seemingly incommensurable, essen- motors with less current. The indica- tially undefinable, sometimes appar- tors could rise if more comfortable and ently at odds with each other, the two convenient mobility were provided concepts of sustainability and devel- with fewer cars (or if unnecessary opment clearly derive from the top mobility were eliminated by better and bottom of the pyramid and are spatial planning.) They could rise if linked through the intermediate people learned to satisfy their non- steps. material needs (such as self-esteem) Indicators can be derived from through nonmaterial means, instead each level of the triangle separately of through heavily marketed material (as I will illustrate), but the most substitutes (such as clothes or cars). important indicators will reflect the To provide more ends with fewer connections between one level and means, the entire triangle, from tech- another. nology through philosophy, must be balanced and integrated. If there is wisdom about ultimate ends but no The three most basic aggregate technology for tapping ultimate measures of sustainable means, the wisdom will rest on a development are the sufficiency foundation of physical scarcity. If with which ultimate ends are there is technical proficiency supply- realized for all people, the ing an abundance of intermediate efficiency with which ultimate means, but unjust politics and dis- means are translated into ultimate torted economics, there will be plen- ends, and the sustainability of use tiful capital, labor, and energy but of ultimate means. poorly distributed health, education, and wealth. Powerful technologies It is conceivable that health, educa- and an efficient, equitable economy tion, happiness, and harmony could may make a society rich in interme- increase, even if the mobilization of diate ends, but if that society is spiri- energy, materials, capital, and labor tually barren, its abundance will not decreased. That would obviously be bring fulfillment. If technologies are a step in the direction of sustainable destructive of the ultimate means, the development. In fact, it would be a entire structure will crumble at its primary goal of a sustainable society to foundation, regardless of the excel- produce the greatest possible ends with lence of its upper levels. the least possible means.

45 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

Integration of the triangle from It’s easy enough to say “some kind of bottom to top requires good science aggregate measures of human welfare and just and efficient political and and environmental integrity,” but not economic systems and a culture that at all easy to produce these measures. illuminates the higher purposes of The rest of this document is an at- life. The focus of such a society would tempt to begin to think through how be wholeness, not maximizing one to do it. I invite others to join in the part of the system at the expense of thinking. other parts. The goal of perpetual eco- In order to develop these aggre- nomic growth would be seen as non- gate indicators, we need an informa- sensical, partly because the finite tion system for each step in the tri- material base cannot sustain it, partly angle. Those information systems because human fulfillment does not depend upon the notion of several demand it. The focus would be on kinds of capital. quality, not quantity, and yet quantity sufficient for the physical needs of all would not be lacking. Extending the definition of capital to natural, human, and social Therefore the most basic indicators of sustainable development would capital could provide an easily be the sufficiency, efficiency, and understood base for calculating sustainability of the entire triangle, and integrating the Daly triangle. determined by some kind of aggregate measures of: To a bank or a university or a busi- • real human welfare; ness or an endowed charitable foun- • environmental integrity; and dation, “development” means in- • the ratio between the two, which creasing your stock of wealth, and is a measure of the efficiency with “sustainability” means living on the which environmental resources are income from that wealth, not eating translated into human welfare. into principle. No accountant would credit as “income” a temporary burst of money that comes from the drawing down of capital faster than it is earnings principle expenditures replenished. interest added That idea extends easily to “natu- interest ral capital.” We should draw water rate from the outflow of a lake, not drain down the lake; catch fish at the rate at which they regenerate, not consume the breeding population; harvest for-

46 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

ests no faster than they can grow back; The Balaton working group farm so the soil doesn’t erode. agreed unanimously that the idea of Herman Daly captured the con- capital — all forms of capital — is cept of natural capital in the three central to information systems for basic “Daly Rules” for sustainability:32 sustainable development. Combined Renewable esourr ces (fish, for- with the Daly triangle, various capi- ests, soils, groundwaters) must be tal structures can capture develop- used no faster than the rate at which ment and sustainability and their re- they regenerate; lation to each other. They allow the Nonrenewable esourr ces (min- stock-flow analysis that can make in- eral ores, fossil fuels, fossil dicators dynamic. And they begin to groundwaters) must be used no faster suggest a conceptual framework to than renewable substitutes for them keep track of the linkages among can be put into place; many forms of capital and to derive Pollution and wastes must be indicators that could help people and emitted no faster than natural systems nations build up the several kinds of can absorb them, recycle them, or wealth that are necessary for a people- render them harmless. enriching, nature-preserving system. These three rules suggest sustainability indicators for each resource that flows through the human Natural Capital economy. More on that in the next (ultimate means) section. The World Bank is now trying Natural capital consists of the not only to establish natural capital stocks and flows in nature from accounts, but also to extend the con- which the human economy takes 33 cept to human and social capital. its materials and energy (sources) Surely there is a stock or endowment and to which we throw those of health, skills, and knowledge that materials and energy when we can be invested in, enhanced, and are done with them (sinks). used to produce a steady stream of productivity, or that can be overused, The materials and energy used in the eroded, allowed to depreciate. Surely human economy do not appear from there must be social capital in the nowhere. Nor, when we are done with form of functioning civic organiza- them, do they disappear. They are tions, cultures of personal and com- taken from and return to the Earth’s 32 Herman Daly, “Toward Some munity responsibility, efficient mar- biogeochemical systems. Operational Principles of kets and governments, tolerance and Sustainable Development, To borrow some useful but Ecological Economics 2 (1990): 1-6. public trust. unbeautiful terms from engineering, 33 Serageldin, op. cit.

47 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

It would be a real achievement if ... AL ECOSYS capital assets, natural OB TEM solar GL assets, and energy environmental assets were equally “real” and subject to the same Planetary Sources high-grade scale of values, indeed energy the same bookkeeping conventions. Deeper materials & fossil Economic ways of thinking might fuels Subsystem be affected. population & capital low-grade — Robert Solow energy wastes & Planetary pollution Sinks heat loss

we can call the flows of material and sphere by the natural capital of green energy from nature into the economy plants photosynthesizing. inputs, the flows of wastes back to Notice that forests are source nature outputs, and the combined capital for the input of wood prod- flows throughputs. Then the capi- ucts and sink capital for the output tal/income idea can be stated clearly. of carbon dioxide. Many forms of Throughput is the income derived natural capital play both source and from a natural capital stock. A sink roles. Aquifers provide drinking throughput stream of lumber and water but also may be sinks for paper and wood fuel comes from the leached pesticides or leaked petro- natural capital of a forest. Ground- leum. Soil provides nutrients for water is pumped up from the natural growing crops and receives deposits capital in the aquifer. A stream of of heavy metals from the atmosphere. food can be obtained from the natu- The connections among the elements ral capital of the nutrients in the soil. of natural capital — the oneness of the On the sink side, an output flow of global system — is a major cause of sewage can be released to the natural sustainability problems and a major capital of organisms that break the reason why indicators (and formal sewage back down to nutrients. The models of our complex natural sup- Illustration after: R. Goodland, et carbon dioxide from burning fossil port systems) are so badly needed. al., op. cit. fuels can be removed from the atmo-

48 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

The human economy uses many ing (foresters, soil scientists, atmo- kinds of throughput streams, each spheric chemists) are not in regular associated with natural capital on contact with national accountants, and both the source and sink end of for some (ocean fish, soil bacteria, oil the flow. under the ground) accurate measurement is very difficult to do. Think of the throughput flows sum- Nevertheless, we could compile moned continuously and in great vol- and organize many kinds of natural ume by any city or nation. Water and capital measures and relate them to many kinds of food. Oil, coal, natu- their associated throughput flows. ral gas and other fuels. Construction That would form the basis for a natu- lumber, plywood, cardboard, paper. ral capital accounting system. Steel, copper, aluminum, and a host of other metals. Rubber, plastics, glass, cement. Tens of thousands of Natural capital is being used kinds of chemicals.34 unsustainably if sources are All these substances flow in from declining or sinks are increasing. nature and flow out after use, usually in haphazard mixes, into air, water, soils. The indicators of the sustainability To keep track of these many of use of most forms of natural capi- throughput flows is a large but not tal are obvious; they are the direc- impossible task, no worse in principle tions and rates of change of sources than keeping track of the money and sinks. As previously discussed, flows through all industrial sectors they could be expressed dynamically that make up the GDP. Input-out- as the ratio between use rate and res- put tables are easily adapted to the toration rate (with 1.0 standing for task. Material and energy flow tables, sustainability) or as the amount of 34 For illustrative throughput combined with money flow tables, time until the resource can no longer numbers for the city of London, should and could be an essential part be a source or sink. see H. Girardet, The Gaia Atlas of Cities: New Directions for 35 of national accounting. Sustainable Urban Living. New Material and energy flows through York: Doubleday, June 1993; for Hongkong, see S. Boyden, An the economy are at least theoretically Integrative Ecological Approach to the Study of Human Settlements. measurable, even though they are not Paris: Unesco, International Co- yet always measured. It is more diffi- ordinating Council of the Programme on Man and the cult to keep track of the natural capi- Biosphere, 1979. tal stocks that are the sources and sinks 35 For a pioneering example, see of the flows — difficult because for A. Adriaanse et al., Resource some we haven’t done it before, for Flows: The Material Basis of Industrial Economies. Washington others the people who do the measur- DC: World Resources Institute, 1997.

49 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

If a forest is cut faster than it grows, “Daly rule” indicators such as the throughput stream of products these are simple, leading sustainabil- from the forest will not be sustained. Natural capital is being spent, reduc- ity measures easily understood and ing future productivity. Whatever the readily measured for many through- indicator, the value of the excess put streams. They should be imple- harvest should be counted not as in- mented wherever possible. come but as depletion of capital.36 However, it is important to note If groundwater is pumped down to that the “Daly rules” are static, and irrigate farmland and there is no investment in an alternative water they are stated with regard to quanti- source to keep that land in produc- tative flows of separate throughput tion after the groundwater is gone, streams. They may not capture either that is drawdown of capital. qualitative degradation nor interac- On the sink side, if an output stream tions between one form of natural builds up wastes that are not re- capital and another, nor do they nec- cycled or rendered harmless, then essarily reveal the seriousness of un- that practice cannot be sustained without serious repercussions some- sustainability through “time to ex- where. An indicator can signal how haustion” or “time to unacceptable far above a sustainable absorption threshold.” Indicators that reveal rate the output is, or how long it will these important factors will require be until an unacceptable level of waste accumulates. The value of the integrated dynamic models. throughput stream creating the waste ought to be discounted either by the eventual cost of dealing with the pollution or by the actual damage that pollution is causing to built capital, human capital (such as health), or some other form of natural capital.

Indicators can signal unsustainability long before a resource “runs out” or a sink overflows, even if natural capital cannot be measured directly. It’s hard to measure ocean fish populations, for example, but a leading indicator of their decline is decreasing catch per fishing effort (per boat, per 36 See R. Repetto et al., The hour of trawling, per dollar of operat- Forest for the Trees? (Government Policies and the Misuse of Forest ing or investment cost, per gallon of Resources); Wasting Assets fuel burned). We do not know the (National Resources in the exact size of undiscovered petroleum National Income Accounts); and reserves, but a drop in yield per dis- Accounts Overdue (Natural Resource Depreciation in Cost covery effort is a leading indicator of Rica). Washington, DC: World a depleting resource. Resources Institute, 1988-1991.

50 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

Indicators should highlight Natural capital should be limiting natural capital stocks. monitored at whatever geographic level makes sense. If nitrogen is lacking in the soil, it doesn’t help that there is plenty of The stock of nutrients in soil is mea- phosphate. If chromium is lacking to sured most meaningfully at the field make stainless steel, it doesn’t matter or farm level. It can be aggregated to that there’s an excess of iron. If the the national level as the percentage output from burning coal stresses an of agricultural land that is losing nu- atmospheric sink, it is of little com- trients faster than they are replaced. fort to know that on the source side The stock of greenhouse gases in coal is abundant. Like all complex the atmosphere makes sense only at systems, the physical economy de- the global level. At the national level pends not on its most abundant one can keep track of the national throughputs, but on its most limit- contribution to the global imbalance ing. The limits can come from either in that stock. the source or the sink side of the flow. The appropriate geographic level for measurement is obvious for most Ideally a complete information sys- resources. More tricky is the question tem would keep track of all forms of of imported resources. It should be a natural capital and their throughputs, but cockpit indicators would empha- concern at the national level to know size the most limiting factors. (Like the sustainability of whatever natu- lights on an instrument panel, you ral capital outside the country sup- only need to pay attention to the ones plies a critical stream of resources to blinking red.) the country. This could be done by calculating a national Ecological The warning lights must blink far Footprint. enough in advance to allow preventive action and must illustrate inter- connections, so the preventive action will not simply throw the load onto another natural capital stock, which would then become limiting. Again, this is a research agenda and a task for dynamic modeling.

51 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

The Ecological Footprint, invented by We need to allow estimates in our William Rees of the University of indicators for life support systems British Columbia, measures a person’s, city’s, industry’s, or nation’s that we do not yet understand. environmental impact by the amount of land (anywhere on earth) that en- Most of us didn’t understand the life- 37 tity requires for its maintenance. For sheltering function of the strato- example, Rees calculates that the city of Vancouver, through its food, spheric ozone layer, until scientists water, energy, and waste-disposal noticed that that layer was eroding. demands, actually occupies an area Whole communities of poorly of land (an Ecological Footprint) four- understood soil microbes serve as teen times the area of the city. fertilizer-generating factories in The use of land as a numeraire, rather healthy organic soils. than money or energy, makes the footprint easy to understand and also The unpriced value of nature’s di- permits provocative calculations. For rect services to the human economy example, Rees calculates that if all (through pollination, flood control, people on earth had the same foot- drought protection, pest control, print as the average American (5 hectares), we would need three waste recycling, species protection, Earths to supply everyone! He cal- nutrient regeneration, soil formation, culates a “fair earthshare” (total pro- and a dozen other critical functions) ductive land area divided by world has been conservatively estimated at population) of 1.5 hectares, a number that goes down as the popula- $33 trillion per year (as compared tion grows. He points out that the with the economic system’s output of average footprint of a citizen of India $18 trillion per year).38 is just 0.5 hectares, but because We only dimly understand the in- there are 910 million Indians, the total footprint of India is 35% greater tricately woven web of geophysical than the actual area of India. processes and life forms that make up Planet Earth and support our endeav- The Ecological Footprint captures many useful ideas within one num- ors. ber, and it has a strong intuitive and Therefore we should create at least metaphorical appeal. It is an excel- one indicator to measure the amount lent summary indicator of sustainable of nature we have left untouched, an development, with the following ca- “insurance factor” for the knowledge veats. There needs to be a consid- we don’t yet have about the forms ered scientific review to codify its 37 Wackernagel and Rees, op. cit. of natural capital we don’t know calculation. (Rees’s method is rough enough to value. 38 R. Costanza, R. d’Arge, R. de and ready, fairly easy to implement, Groot, “The Value of the World’s but oversimplified.) As Rees himself Ecosystem Eervices and Natural points out, it should have a marine Capital,” Nature 387 (May 15 1997): 253-60; G. Daily, ed., resources equivalent. And it needs Nature’s Services: Societal to be made dynamic, so it reflects Dependence on Natural not only present footprints, but im- Ecosystems. Washington, DC: plications for future ones. Island Press, 1997.

52 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

Built Capital steel mills that may be technically (intermediate means) obsolete long before they actually wear out. Built capital is human-built, long- One simple development indica- lasting physical capacity — tor is built capital per person. An ef- factories, tools, machines — that ficiency indicator would measure the produces economic output. amount of built capital (and throughput) necessary to meet final demand We have come to think of money for intermediate ends — the lower capital as interest-bearing — able to the number, the more efficient the produce a steady stream of income capital. Capital lifetime is another without itself being depleted — be- good indicator — the longer the life- cause there is a form of real capital time, the more value over time each that can behave that way. It is “built piece of capital supplies (assuming no capital” — the human-made tools, technical obsolescence). machines, factories, smelters, electric generators, pumps, trucks that create output without themselves being consumed (or at least that create output while themselves depreciating only slowly). Built capital is the physical stock from nature ... energy, labor, of productive capacity of an resources management economy. It is steel mills, cement plants, car factories, construction equipment, lathes, tractors, build- output ... to consumption, investment ings, oil wells, chainsaws, power plants, the most solid measures of economic development. Built capi- investmentbuilt depreciation capital tal is increased by investment (usually after a construction delay). It is decreased by depreciation or obso- pollution ... to nature lescence (which can be postponed by maintenance and retrofitting). Built capital usually lasts for decades, pro- viding both stability and inflexibil- ity to the economy. Built capital has an age structure just as population does. New steel mills age into old

53 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

The nature and amount of built does wear out physically, that does not capital determines the standing physically change even if prices demand for human capital (labor change. For the moment we probably and skills) and for throughput must construct indicators of built capi- from natural capital (materials tal in money terms, but in a more and energy). That fraction of built elaborate information system for sus- capital that produces more built tainable development, we may want capital (investment) determines to specify them in terms of output the rate of economic growth. capacity (megawatts, tons of steel per year, cars per year) and input require- Built capital sits on the second level ments (fuel, labor, material per year). of the Daly pyramid; it is intermediate means. It is a key element in integrating the pyramid, because a piece Sustainability on the level of built of built capital — a furnace, say, or a capital means investing at least paper mill, or an irrigation system — as fast as capital depreciates. requires a specific stream of through- Across levels it means keeping put from natural capital (materials, en- the throughput needs of built ergy, water) in order to function. It re- capital appropriate to the leases a specific stream of waste and sustainable yields and absorptive pollution. It requires particular types capacities of natural capital and of labor and management (human keeping labor and management capital). As long as it is running to ca- needs appropriate to the pacity, it produces a known stream of sustainable use of human capital. output, which is either consumption (on the next level of the Daly pyra- To sustain built capital, investment mid, intermediate ends) or investment must replace depreciation (in actual (some other form of capital). productive capacity, not in money Built capital is usually measured terms). Capital grows if investment is in money terms — the accumulated faster than depreciation. The self-gen- amount invested in it, or the amount erating growth of built capital (it takes it would take to replace it at current capital to produce more capital; the prices. There are problems with this more capital you have, the more new way of measuring, primarily because capital you can build) is one of the sen- money is an insufficient proxy for sitive positive feedback loops that pro- something that is actually concrete, vides a central indicator of both sus- that comes in many different forms tainability and development. and capacities, that does not inflate but

54 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

Development indicator: real invest- There are many categories of built ment (measured in concrete produc- capital. A useful indicator would tive capacity) divided by real depreciation (measured in physical reflect the proper balance among terms). If greater than 1., productive categories to permit the most capacity is growing. If equal to 1., pro- productive use of all forms of ductive capacity is just being main- capital. tained. If less than 1., the built capital stock of the economy is not being sustained. Built capital accounts could be kept

Note: such an indicator is common for every industrial sector, every city, in money terms, but doing it in physi- every company. In some countries, cal terms would reveal new informa- they are already measured on all those tion — for example it would signal levels, because on each level there are the erosion of capital through de- ferred maintenance much faster than decision-makers who need to moni- money accounts can do. tor capital accounts. (The job is not only similar to keeping accounts for Sustainability indicator: throughput need of built capital divided by sus- GDP, or national input-output tables, tainable yield from natural capital. If it naturally complements those ac- greater than 1., the economy has counts.) built itself beyond the capacity of the For indicators of sustainable de- resource base to supply it. velopment at the national level, a few Sustainability and development categories of built capital can be ag- indicator: labor and management need of built capital divided by labor gregated according to their large-scale and management capacities of hu- system function: man capital (which will be discussed Industrial capital is capital that in the next section). Greater than 1. can build more capital — the steel indicates insufficient human capacity to run and maintain the capital mills that make steel for more steel plant. Less than 1. indicates human mills, the machine tools that make resources going unused. (An infor- machine tools. This is the fraction of mation system that tracks built capi- built capital that provides real physi- tal could also track jobs and employment relatively easily.) cal investment, the engine of economic growth. Household capital consists of homes, cars, refrigerators, home com- puters, durable goods owned by families. It is a supporter or enhanc& r of human capital and a better measure of material well-being than income.

55 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

consumer goods

household capital

service capital industrial output

public infrastructure

industrial investmentcapital depreciation

military capital

resource–obtaining capital

pollution–abating capital

Service capital is hospitals, Military capital maintains the se- schools, government buildings, banks curity of natural capital, economy, — capital that provides services, some and society. of which enhance the functioning of The last three types of capital are other kinds of capital, some of which not directly productive; they are costs enhance human and social capital. of supplying or keeping safe other Consumer goods capital pro- kinds of capital. An efficient society duces nondurable consumer products will be structured to need as little of (food, paper, clothing), another mea- them as possible.

sure of material well-being. So a useful indicator would be the Public infrastructure is roads, ratio of the last three protective kinds bridges, ports, water lines, and other of capital to the first five productive public investments that serve the kinds of capital. (But if, for example, necessary pollution-abating capital is whole economy. not built, some other form of capital, Resource-obtaining capital con- probably natural or human capital, will sists of mines, oil wells, and other be degraded. A proper capital ac- built equipment that extracts counting system should assess those costs.) throughput from natural capital. Pollution-abating capital, such as sewage treatment plants, trash in- For some kinds of capital, national cinerators, or stack scrubbers, ame- accounts would need to distinguish liorate damage when throughput is that which is used for 1) domestic released back to nature. production, 2) export production,

56 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

and 3) import production (“virtual Human Capital Development does not capital” in other countries). The first (intermediate means/ends) start with goods; it starts two of these generate in-country jobs, with people and their pressure on natural capital, and pol- education, organisation, Human and social capital are diffi- and discipline. Without lution. The first and third generate cult to define; indeed, it is a signifi- in-country consumption. these three, all resources cant question whether “capital” is the remain latent, untapped, Another important indicator would be right conceptual framework for them. potential.... We have had the balance among various kinds of Neither human nor social capital can plenty of opportunity to capital. There are countries, for be adequately denominated in terms observe the primacy of example, with roads so bad that vehicles get shaken apart by of materials, energy, or money. Fur- the[se] invisible factors potholes. This is unnecessary thermore, drawing a line between the after the war. Every depreciation of household capital “human” and the “social” is depen- country, no matter how because of an under-investment in dent on worldview. What is seen in devastated, which had a public infrastructure capital. In other some cultures as human capital (be- high level of education, countries, under-investment in organization, and energy production (resource- cause it is carried within the minds discipline, produced an obtaining capital) occasionally shuts and bodies of individuals) is seen by down industrial or household capital. “economic miracle.” others as social capital, because the There are places where insufficient — E. F. Schumacher39 service capital hampers the individual is only given identity and functioning of all other forms of purpose by the group. capital because of an unskilled or However, given those caveats, it is unhealthy labor force. possible and useful to talk about and Therefore, an indicator should mea- create indicators for human and so- sure the balance among the kinds of cial capital, both of which can accu- capital (what fraction of total capital is represented by each), to reflect the mulate over time, can be invested in, extent to which they enhance rather can depreciate, and must be essential than undermine each other’s produc- factors in sustainable development. tivity. Ideally, lights should start to blink on the social instrument panel, when over- or under-investment in one kind of capital degrades the ef- The base of human capital is the fectiveness of another kind of capi- population, including its age and tal. (It is widely believed that the free gender structure. market automatically takes care of such capital imbalances, but the widespread existence of capital im- Demographic models, derived from balances illustrates that delays and fairly accurate censuses in most coun- imperfections keep the actual mar- tries, are already available. Popula- ket a long way from fulfilling theoretical expections.) tions are countable stocks, increased by births and inmigrations, decreased by deaths and outmigrations. Each 39 E. F. Schumacher, Small is person in the population carries with Beautiful. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.

57 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

him or her a set of attributes, the most parents and teachers build that edu- obvious of which — age and sex — cation level still further. are already reported in the census. I will define attributes that inhere Because of the long lifetimes of not to individuals but to groups as most people, populations change social capital and discuss them in a only slowly, with great momentum. moment. Much about their future is predictable from their age structures — this year’s five-year olds will be (minus mi- Human capital is in one sense an gration and mortality) the twenty- intermediate means, in another year olds of fifteen years from now sense an intermediate end. and the sixty-five-years olds of sixty years from now. Demographic mod- Seen as a labor force, human capital eling can spin out the future impli- is an intermediate means, a factor of cations of today’s population events. production, which interacts with Modeling can also calculate the built capital and throughput from future consequences of a crucial ex- natural capital to produce economic ponential growth indicator: net output. As the health and education population growth rate. (See the dis- of a population increase, other forms cussion of positive feedback loops of capital can be more productive. earlier in this report.) Human capital, if we had a way of accounting for it in money terms, might prove to be at various stages of Along with numbers, ages, and development the most lucrative pos- genders, human capital can be sible investment on pure grounds of measured by attributes such as economic return. (That becomes health and education. again a matter of balancing the various types of capital so they do not Demographic databases can also in- hold each other back.) clude information about attributes Human capital is also, however, imbued within the minds and bod- an intermediate end. Education and ies of people — most obviously their health (and other individual at- levels of education and health. Invest- tributes) have purposes beyond mak- ment (especially in service and hu- ing a person more productive in the man capital) can build up those at- economy. They also serve the top of tributes. Neglect can allow them to the triangle — the ability to lead a depreciate. Investment in human joyful, fulfilling life. If we could mea- capital can also be seen as a positive sure the degree to which human capi- feedback loop — the more education tal serves ultimate goals, investment in a population, the more educated in it might look like an even better

58 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

deal. Relative to built capital, human trying to untangle this knot for years. capital probably delivers more well- It might be clearer not to try to make being from less money, less built capi- a clean separation of what is actually tal, and less material and energy a systematic partnership. Through- throughput than any other invest- puts and outputs might best be speci- ment (with the possible exception of fied for the human-and-built-capital social capital). system as a whole.

Population with its attributes, like The universal resource available built capital, is an indicator of the to all human beings, and the necessary throughputs and currency of most value to them, is potential outputs of a society. time. Time accounting may be key to human capital accounting. Human capital relates to the top of the triangle through well-being. It We each have an equal endowment relates to the bottom of the triangle of twenty-four hours a day. Much of through the flows of material and real economics has to do with com- energy necessary to maintain a per- mandeering the time endowments of son. It relates to the middle of the some people to serve other peoples’ triangle through the flows of eco- intermediate or ultimate ends. We nomic output that a person (with the had the feeling in the workshop that aid of built capital) is capable of pro- time budgets could be even more reducing and consuming. vealing than money budgets, espe- Thus human capital, like built cially as we begin to relate to the top capital, can be seen as a standing de- of the triangle. We’re not sure yet how mand for material and energy to integrate them, but clearly another throughput. Different people with attribute that could be correlated with different attributes and in different each person in a human capital stock cultures require very different would be the allocation of that throughputs. (They have very differ- person’s time. ent Ecological Footprints.) They are Human time can be sorted into capable of producing very different many possible categories, such as: outputs. (They have different labor Survival tasks: eating, sleeping, productivities.) preparing food, gathering fuel, etc.; In order to avoid double count- Learning: acquiring the skills ing, we need to distinguish the necessary to survive and to exchange throughput needs and output poten- in the time economy; tial attributable to human capital and Wage work: time exchanged in to built capital. Economists have been the market for compensation;

59 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

In the table is an example from India of the kinds of information revealed by data systems built upon time.40 Notice the strong differences between women and men and between landless and landed women.

TIME USE (% of total hours) forest hill landless landed urban middle Women tribe tribe rural rural slum class sleep 40 33 34 50 34 39 survival 12 27 17 13 17 11 reprod. work 12 17 13 8 14 10 wage work 13 10 26 — 19 17 learning 232847 recreation 17 558811 religion 4 4 3 13 4 5 Men sleep 43 49 47 48 47 48 survival 966232 reprod. work 622121 wage work 19 22 30 26 28 26 learning 543668 recreation 15 14 10 13 11 13 religion 442443 Life Expectancy (years) 45 60 60 60 60 75

Child rearing: time invested in A key indicator is how much healthy the next generation of human capital; time is available to people (subtract- ing time spent sick, immobile, or Leisure: time spent on psycho- aged to the point of feebleness).41 logical maintenance, spiritual devel- A second would be how that healthy opment, building and maintaining time is distributed among different relationships, entertainment, sports, genders, ages, and social classes or income groups. Time spent on sur- etc. Viewed in some cultures as time vival tasks, indexed for equity, is of little value; viewed in others as time essentially a proxy for depreciation invested in health, productivity, and rates of human capital. realization of the top of the triangle; 40 Aromar Revi, TARU, New A set of indicators based on Delhi, personal communication. Community time: time devoted to the needs of others, to community “time” could be a fruitful topic for 41 C. J. L. Murray, “Quantifying research, for indicators of sustainable the Burden of Disease: The functions, volunteer groups, neigh- Technical Basis for DALYs,” borhood duties, discussion and co- use of human capital and indicators Bulletin of the World Health Organization 72, no. 3 (1994) ordination of work in groups. of sustainable development. Some of :429-445. us think the prime characteristic of a

60 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

sustainable society would be that life We could think of public trust as a Equally important is the would slo-o-o-w down so there would stock of capital, decreased by tell- social side, and here we ing lies and increased by telling the mean equity, social not be a perpetual sense of scarcity truth. (Perhaps each lie or truth about time. But we didn’t have time should be weighed by the number mobility, social cohesion, in our hectic five-day workshop to de- of people who hear it. That way each participation, velop this idea! of us every day builds or depreciates empowerment, cultural the public trust, but public figures identity, and institutional who speak to millions can build or development.... It is, to erode the public trust far more my mind, an essential Social Capital quickly than can ordinary citizens.) (intermediate ends) part of the definition of Tolerance of ethnic, religious, or other sustainability, because, diversity might be a social capital let me remind you, the stock, built up by actions and words neglect of that side leads Social capital is a stock of that demonstrate good will, torn attributes (knowledge, trust, down by actions and words that ex- to institutions that are efficiency, honesty) that inheres press hatred. incapable of responding to the needs of society. not to a single individual, but to Efficient, well-regulated markets. the human collectivity. We see the consequences Technology and the ability to evolve of that in tragedies from new technology. Somalia to Rwanda and When you start thinking about so- Orderliness, reliability, creativity, cul- from Liberia to Bosnia. ture. cial capital, you begin seeing it — Ismail Serageldin around you. Knowledge is clearly an The ability to treasure what is valuable in the old and to seize what is accumulated stock, which grows useful in the new. through inflows of research, experi- ment, new understanding and is Museums, folksongs, jokes, city parks, sports teams, scouts. drained by outflows of forgetting. Parliamentary rules and other social All these things must have something to do with social capital. Adapt- behaviors that allow large groups to ability, resilience, the capacity to learn have fair and purposeful discussions and reorganize, repair damage or are learned painstakingly over time change direction, maintain a steady and must be maintained against de- course, muster resources for major efforts, all of these are dependent on preciation. The ability of a house- having an adequate “stock” of social hold to clean itself, of a community “capital.” to police itself, of businesses to make and enforce contracts, of citizens to Indicator selection for social capital is propose, debate, pass, and obey laws difficult indeed. Suggested social capi- — all these could be considered so- tal indicators often measure depletion cial capital. They can be invested in. or malfunction: crime, for example. They depreciate. They don’t change Crime is surely an indicator of decline quickly. They bear the history of all in social capital, driven by inadequate past investments and depreciations. investment in other kinds of capital.

61 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

Social capital is terrifically varied, tion streams are organized and ac- incredibly hard to measure, but most cessed. Wisdom is the capacity to uti- of us not only acknowledge its exist- lize knowledge in decision-making, to ence but can sense its presence or integrate knowledge and informa- absence. “You can feel it when you tion with new experience, to see the walk down the street,” one member system whole, to grasp the necessity of our workshop said. It is based in and yet the uncertainty of models, the integrity and efficiency of insti- to move between and within levels tutions, information systems, and hu- in a model, to be able to distinguish man relationships. between the system itself and models of the system, and to make ad- justments to models as necessary. Just as time is a key currency for Trust, relational capacity, and the human capital, information may efficacy of a society’s institutions all be a key currency for social depend on the quality of information capital. flows within a society. It is a central tenet of systems theory that a system Social capital is generally understood cannot be managed without adequate in terms of “cohesion,” but its pri- flows of information. mary component is information. More accurately, social capital is em- bodied in dense, meaningful, and Another possible measure of truthful information flows. social capital would be density or Indicators of social capital would frequency or intensity of human be especially useful if they could dis- relationships. criminate not only quantity of information (which can be measured by How often do you see your relatives, stocks and flows of megabytes), but and for what length of time? Does quality of information — the differ- that measure the stability, resilience, ence between data, information, functionality of your family? knowledge, and wisdom. Data are How many neighbors do you bits of information, which can rap- know by name, talk to often, under- idly become distracting, overwhelm- stand something about their lives? ing, stupefying, or a management Does that give an idea of the social nuisance (as is currently the case integrity of your neighborhood? with most of the Worldwide Web). Do you have a face-to-face human Information is data sorted and se- relationship with your employer or lected to “make a difference” to some employees? With the makers and sup- system or some decision. Knowledge pliers of the things you buy? With is understanding of the way informa- the people who teach your children,

62 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

who heal your body, to whom you The “forbidden numeraire,” grant the power of governance? Is so- whose stocks, flows, and cial capital enhanced or decreased as distribution could lend itself to institutions become bigger and more indicators, is power. powerful but human relationships become more distant and abstract? I have no idea how to measure power. Decentralized, relatively immo- I don’t think many of us do. I sus- bile societies such as traditional vil- pect that is not so much because it is lages have a high density and fre- unmeasurable as because it is not quency of face-to-face interactions, politically acceptable to raise the topic which builds up a palpable, func- (especially among those who have ac- tional social capital. A society based cumulated large quantities of power). on long-term personal relationships All the more reason to try to needs few if any contracts, papers, measure it. Clearly power has to do lawyers, rules, courts, judges. It’s with the ability to force people to do probably the absence of such relation- things they would not independently ship-based interactions in our lives choose to do. (It may be inversely re- that makes us romanticize such a de- lated to freedom, creativity, social re- centralized system — and it does have silience, and evolutionary potential.) real advantages. Here are some ideas for measures On the other hand, a decentral- of power: ized society can suffer from insular- • number and strength of weapons ity, inbreeding, narrowness of ideas and distribution among the popu- and viewpoints, suspiciousness of in- lation; novation, suppression of deviance. • ratio of number of employers to Perhaps a “cosmopolitan-ness” index number of employees; could counterbalance the human re- • income distribution, particularly the lationship index, to measure the ratio of extremely rich to extremely breadth of a society’s information poor; contacts and idea-base. • concentration of ownership of the Then comes the question, is it media (public and private); possible to devise a society that could • political prisoners as percent of the score high on both indices? population;

• percent of GDP earned by the ten or fifty largest corporations.

63 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

If the world’s Social capital can be a high- could be attained for all people on population had the leverage transformative factor in Earth. Somewhere within the con- productivity of the the process of channeling ultimate cept of social capital, combined with Swiss, the consumption means into ultimate ends. clever technical design of built capi- habits of the Chinese, tal and loving development of human the egalitarian instincts If a society has a low crime rate, a capital, is the capacity to meet mate- of the Swedes, and the history of common endeavor, and rial needs materially and non-mate- social discipline of the Japanese, then the habits of timeliness and cleanliness, rial needs non-materially with great planet could support then it probably can organize a pleas- efficiency in the use of ultimate many times its current ant, efficient mass transportation sys- means. population without tem that gives its citizens high mo- privation for anyone. bility with minimal cost in household On the other hand, if capital (cars) and natural capital Rough indicators of social capital the world’s population (steel, glass, rubber, fossil fuels, con- are better than nothing. had the productivity of crete, air pollution). High mobility Chad, the consumption can be obtained at low cost because It is tempting to refuse to deal with habits of the United of the high level of social capital. anything so messy (and politically States, the inegalitarian If a culture allows men to feel touchy) as social capital. It’s all too instincts of India, and manly without having to be sur- easy for experts in science or econom- the social discipline of rounded by tons of polished steel pro- ics, who like to deal in clean concepts Argentina, then the pelled at high speeds, that culture and precise numbers, to shift the planet could not support anywhere near could allow the realization of an im- topic quickly to prices or kilojoules its current numbers. portant ultimate end with great sav- or numbers of species. ings of all kinds of ultimate and in- While we didn’t make enormous — Lester Thurow, Technology termediate means. headway on social capital in our own Review, Aug/Sept 1986 It is well established for most of workshop, we recommend that this the industrialized nations that effi- topic become a major area of discus- ciency in the design of built capital sion, involving many kinds of people. can produce the same amounts of We believe it is possible and vi- economic output with half as much, tally important to find ways to mea- or even one-tenth as much, energy.42 sure social capital, even if those ways It could be true that efficiency in the are subjective (remember, all indica- design of social capital could produce tors are subjective). It is important equivalent well being with one-hun- partly because social capital can be dredth or one-thousandth as much such a powerful mediator in the trans- energy, materials, and built capital. lation of ultimate means to ultimate 42 See E. von Weiszacker, A. Lovins, and H. Lovins, Factor This possibility gives hope that truly ends, and partly because without any Four: Doubling Wealth - Halving Resource Use. Washington, DC: sustainable means of meeting the measure of social capital, many pur- Island Press, 1997. highest and most important ends ported “development” plans may eat

64 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

Examples of social capital indicators from community indicator projects:

Sustainable Seattle’s participants Among draft indicators in the “so- The World Bank provides a long list were determined to measure cial” dimension for the U.S. Inter- of possible indicators of social capi- “neighborliness” somehow. They agency Working Group on tal, among them:45 invented a telephone survey to Sustainable Development Indica- • index of democracy; ask: How do you define “neigh- tors are:44 bor?” How many neighbors would • index of corruption; • percent of children living in one- you say you have? How many of parent families; them do you know by name? • independence of court system; What kinds of interactions do you • percent contributing time or • contract enforceability; have with them? The answers re- money to charities; vealed strong differences by • strikes, riots, protests; neighborhood and by income • crime rate; • prisoners per 100,000 people; class, and suggested that the city • participation in the arts and rec- was not actually very neighborly.43 reation; • extent of trust in government, trade unions; • number in census tracts with over 40% poverty. • small credit availability; • index of political and/or economic discrimination;

• index of civil liberties;

• voter turnout.

Social capital is, essentially, a “shared wisdom index.“ Defining it requires a significant amount of wisdom! into this kind of capital without counting the cost. (Dams that flood out long-standing communities, employment patterns that break up families, mass information systems that swamp local cultures.) 43 Sustainable Seattle, Indicators Participatory indicator selection of Sustainable Community 1995, processes can be especially creative in available from Sustainable Seattle, 909 Fourth Avenue, Seattle, WA coming up with indicators of social 98104. capital. Even if they can only produce 44 U.S. Interagency Working agreement about the general direction Group on Sustainable Develop- of change (pedestrian streets in cities ment Indicators, Sustainable Development in the United States, increase social capital, freeways de- Interim Report, draft, April crease it; many small, local-based re- 1998. tail stores increase social capital, one 45 The World Bank, Expanding the Measure of Wealth: Indicators or two large “chain” distributors de- of Environmentally Sustainable crease it), the exercise is worth doing. Development, 1997.

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It [the GNP] does not Well-Being that it should be a participatory, not include the beauty of (ultimate end) an expert-dominated activity. We do our poetry or the know that, however uncomfortable strength of our If social capital was hard, how are we or difficult the topic, discussing the marriages, the top of the pyramid is the most im- intelligence of our ever going to define ultimate human portant task on the road to sustain- public debate or the fulfillment? able development. integrity of our public Not by going around doing shal- officials. It allows low polls that ask, simply, “are you neither for the justice in happy?” (Think what answers might our courts, nor the come forth if we asked, “Does your The most important indicator, justness in our dealings life allow you to contribute all you without which the others make no with one another. The have to give to society? If you had sense, is an indicator of ultimate Gross National Product complete control of your own time, ends. measures neither our would you spend it the way you do wit nor our courage, now? Do you see a purpose to your If we can’t define what our ultimate neither our wisdom nor life and are you able to achieve that ends are, how can we know whether our learning, neither we are approaching them, or with our compassion nor our purpose? Are you lonely? Are you loved? Is there beauty in your life? what efficiency, or even whether we’re devotion to country. It going the right direction? The measures everything, in Joy? Transcendence? If you knew qualitativeness, subjectiveness, elusive- short, except that which you would die tomorrow, would you ness, and culture-specificity of the ul- makes life worthwhile. be satisfied?”) The question of ultimate ends, timate ends does not for a moment — Robert Kennedy happiness, well-being has been a topic diminish their importance. If the sys- of discussion for thousands of years. tem orients itself around indicators That discussion has not produced that do not reflect real well-being, then nothing. Through many different it will produce whatever those indica- cultures and historical periods it has tors do measure (money flow, size of produced some strikingly constant the economy, personal material pos- insights, one of which is that “man sessions) rather than real well-being. does not live by bread alone.” Well- We need to press courageously to being requires a basic amount of discuss well-being and define indica- material throughput to sustain life, tors that reflect it, even if we suspect but after that point, more wealth is that this process will shake up our only loosely associated, if at all, with worldviews and challenge our power more happiness. structures and our lives. If those So how to measure the most power structures and lives are in fact qualitative, personal, culture-bound, creating well-being, then they won’t subjective, and important part of the be challenged. If they are not, then pyramid? We’re not sure. We suspect they should be shaken.

66 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

Indicators of ultimate ends may pensate for a deficiency in one by an not be numerical or precise, but excess in another — for lack of affec- they are findable and usable. tion, say, by an increase in protection, or for a loss of freedom by an im- The literature on human happiness/ provement in material subsistence. fulfillment/purpose/satisfaction/ Cultures differ, says Max-Neef, quality-of-life is far too extensive to not in these needs, which are essen- review in this short paper. I will quote tially human, but in their satisfiers, here only one scheme by which indi- their specific ways of satisfying the cators could be derived, more to il- needs. Participation may be realized lustrate that such schemes are possible in some societies by democratic vot- than to defend this particular one as ing, in others by long discussion, in best — though I personally find it others by a formal process of consen- thought-provoking and as good a sus. Identity could be established by basis for building “quality of life” in- particular kinds of decoration or dicators as any other I know. clothes, by possessions such as cars

Manfred Max-Neef, after many or houses, by celebrity in the mass cross-cultural studies, has come up media, by local nicknames or affec- with a list of nine universal “basic tionate jokes or a small community 46 human needs.” Only the first of knowing and respecting one’s unique them — subsistence — is clearly material. The others may have ma- set of strengths and weaknesses. Some terial underpinnings, but they are es- satisfiers can meet multiple needs. sentially qualitative: (Max-Neef cites breast-feeding,

• subsistence; which serves subsistence and affection, or barefoot-doctor programs, • protection (security); which serve subsistence, participa- • affection; tion, understanding, and identity.) • understanding; Some pseudo-satisfiers can appear

• participation; to meet needs but actually fail to meet them or even undermine them. (Ex- • idleness (leisure, rest); pensive brand-name sneakers may • creation; purport to establish identity or free- • identity; dom, but actually make their wear- ers look alike and manipulate them • freedom. for the benefit of corporations that make and market the sneakers.) Max-Neef insists that these needs are Satisfiers are the equivalent of in- not hierarchical or substitutable. All termediate ends on the Daly triangle. are necessary; none is more impor- 46 M. A. Max-Neef, Human Scale The list of basic needs might be a Development. New York: Apex tant than the others. One can’t com- fruitful beginning for indicators of Press, 1991.

67 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

We will know we’re ultimate ends. (I could think of oth- suppose we could measure the really talking about ers I might add, such as beauty and throughput from nature that is be- sustainable transcendence/enlightenment/grace.) ing used to achieve that well-being. development when the If we search sincerely and if we Then we would be able to come close conversation shifts from are open to answers that may not look to the three indicators that answer the efficiency to sufficiency. like scientific formulae, I believe that central questions of sustainable de- Efficiency is ultimate ends can be defined, at least velopment. quantifiable and satisfies the Cartesian qualitatively, and that the definitions are not so different from one human mind. Sufficiency will • Are people well-off, satisfied, drive the Cartesian soul to another. We may disagree happy? (Sufficiency and equity — mind crazy. hotly about our models of what top of the triangle.) means can lead to the ends, but when • Is the most possible well-being — Wes Jackson it comes to the ends themselves, the achieved with the least possible essential human values, we are, quite throughput of material and energy? (Efficiency of the translation simply, all human. mechanisms from the bottom to Even if we agree on no more than the top of the triangle.) this — that the dominant cultures are • Are the natural systems that sup- mobilizing enormous flows of report the material and energy sources, spewing out unsupportable throughput healthy, resilient, and quantities of wastes, building huge full of evolutionary potential? (Sus- capital structures, and not clearly tainability, bottom of the triangle.) achieving happiness — then there is already a strong reason to stop using The information system from indicators that count a larger physi- which these central indicators cal economy as “good” and to search can be derived will measure for indicators of more importance. capital stocks at every level and the flows that increase, decrease, Integration (translating and connect those stocks. ultimate means into ultimate ends) An integrated account of the interlinked stocks and flows at all levels of the pyramid, quantified where The central indicators of possible, estimated otherwise, could sustainable development will provide the information base from integrate the whole Daly triangle. which sustainable development indicators are derived. (Just as underly- Suppose that we could, by whatever ing accounts of interlinked money means you can imagine, assess the flows provide the base from which the well-being of a given society. And GDP is derived.)

68 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

happiness, ultimate ends realization fulfillment

population human social intermediate ends capital capital

consumer goods

household capital

service capital industrial output

public infrastructure

industrial intermediate means investmentcapital depreciation

military capital

resource–obtaining capital

pollution–abating capital

natural capital ultimate means

69 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

These stocks and flows should be There are systematic schemes for measured in whatever units make sense; assessing the total viability of a units that will be quite different at dif- system. These schemes can serve ferent levels of the system. There is a as checklists for sustainable tendency in economics, which mea- development indicators. sures almost everything with the numeraire of money, to assume that One of these schemes is Hartmut because money is interchangeable, then Bossel’s set of orientors, which mea- all forms of capital are intersubstitut- sure the ability of any system to meet able. If there is not enough labor, sub- environmental challenges by appro- stitute built capital. If there are not priate system responses.47 There are enough resources, compensate with seven Bossel orientors, which can be more resource-obtaining capital. measured for systems at any level, To some extent intersubstitutabil- from a single organism to a whole ity is possible, and within that possi- society. They are:

bility arise all the marginal cost and • existence (the ability to sustain benefit questions that are interesting physical needs); to economists. But, as Herman Daly • psychological needs (the ability to points out, it just doesn’t work to sub- generate internal well-being, satis- stitute fishing boats for fish, or saw- faction, happiness — applicable to mills for trees. The absence of trees human systems only); renders sawmills valueless, as the ab- • effectiveness (the ability to take ac- sence of fish does for fishing boats. tions that produce desired effects); Larger pumps can counter a falling • freedom of action; groundwater table for awhile, but this • security; substitution is not sustainable. Built capital and natural capital are more • adaptability; complementary than substitutable. The • coexistence (the ability to live in same could be said for human and harmony; not to create costs from incompatibility with others or with social capital and built capital. the environment. The assumption of total substi- tutability of any form of capital for Though Bossel derived these any other is just as simple-minded as orientors from systems theory rather is the assumption of no substitutabil- than from social science, they bear a ity. Therefore indicators should be resemblance to Max-Neef’s list of sought that capture, up and down the basic needs. Like Max-Neef, Bossel pyramid, the extent to which the vari- emphasizes that these orientors are ous forms of capital complement and 47 H. Bossel, Concepts and Tools of complementary, not substitutable. Each Computer-Assisted Policy Analysis. enhance or undermine and undercut of the orientors has to be satisfied to Basel: Birkhaeuser, 1977. each other.

70 A suggested framework for sustainable development indicators

a certain degree if the system (or person or society) is to be functional. A viable system requires balanced attention to all needs. Where one attempts to compensate a needs deficit by excess satisfaction of another need, pathological behavior results. I find the Bossel scheme a useful checklist to see that a proposed set of indicators is comprehensive. It sug- gests to me areas I might not have thought about, parts of the system that must be monitored, to be sure that the entire system can achieve sustainable development. Other more informal kinds of “integrative checks” emerged from our workshop conversations. We invented the “Nazi test” — if we applied any suggested set of indicators to Nazi Germany, would it have revealed the obvious problems of that society? Or the “Maya test” — if we could have measured these indicators for the Maya empire, would they have revealed its incipient collapse? In time to prevent that collapse?

71 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

7. Sample indicators

While you and I have lips and voices which are for kissing and to sing with who cares if some one-eyed son of a bitch invents an instrument to measure Spring with?

— e e cummings

The proof of any indicator scheme is There is no “best” answer to that in the indicators it produces, and the question. I have given many sample societal behavior those indicators help indicators throughout this report, to inform. The scheme suggested in hoping to stimulate creative thinking this report calls not only for indica- and even outrageousness on the part tors, but for an underlying informa- of many people, in order to shake tion system and set of dynamic mod- loose old thinking, welcome new els, none of which currently exist worldviews, and begin to suggest in- (though there are plenty of proto- dicators that can actually move us types). toward sustainable development. I’ll Where to start? What indicators give some more examples here. to start with? The Balaton Group workshop participants came up with this list:

72 Sample indicators

For natural capital For built capital For ultimate ends

• Renewable resources used/total • Average productive lifetime of • Population of the local “totem” natural resources used capital species (salmon in Seattle, eagles in Maine, seals in the • Time to oil or gas depletion / lead • Maintenance inputs to capital Netherlands) time for renewable substitute stock / productive output of capital stock • Proportion of leisure time per • Agricultural land loss (to urban- person (and equity of its distri- ization, desertification, erosion)/ • Capital stock / end use output bution) total arable land • Resource (material and energy) • Human openness in the streets • Loss of primary forests / total pri- throughput / end use output and squares mary forests remaining • Ratios (balance) between various • Number and size of places of • Unit of effort (money, labor, in- forms of built capital rest and beauty (e.g., forests, vestment, time) necessary to parks, temples) add a unit to identified reserves of nonrenewables For human and social capital • Flexibility in choosing transport mode and housing • Fish caught per unit of fishing • Infant and child mortality rate effort • Percent of people who say they • Total fertility rate (births per have “enough” • Soil organic matter content (time woman over that woman’s ex- trend) pected lifetime)

• Output to sink / capacity of sink • Education level of the bottom 10 to absorb or assimilate (espe- percent of twenty-year-olds cially for CO ) 2 • Education and skills attributes of population matched with educa- •CO2 emission per capita, relative to “fair earthshare” tion and skills requirements of built capital • Quality of river water entering country or city / quality leaving • Average layers of management country or city between employees and own- ers • Number of synthetic chemicals in use • Income of the top 10 percent / income of the bottom 10 percent • Area used for organic agriculture/ area used for chemical intensive • Percent of government office- agriculture holders’ total income coming from bribes, payoffs, and private campaign contributions

• Percent of time necessary to secure survival needs

• Percent of time contributed to civic, religious, and other non- profit causes

• Juvenile crime rate

73 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

A thoughtful list of fourty-one indicators developed for the United States includes the following, all of which are available with significant time series.48 Notice that many are grounded in critical capital stocks and in leading-indicator rates of flow.

Economic Environmental Social

• Capital assets • Surface water quality • Population

• Labor productivity • Acres of major terrestrial eco- • Children living in families with systems intact only one parent • Federal debt to GDP ratio • Contaminants in biota • Teacher training level • Investment as a percent of GDP • Accumulated quantity of spent • Contributions of time and money • Energy consumption per capita nuclear fuel to charity and per $ of GDP • Status of stratospheric ozone • Births to single mothers • Materials consumption per capita and per $ of GDP • Greenhouse gas emissions • School enrollment by level

• Inflation • Ratio of renewable water supply • Participation in arts and recreation to withdrawals • Investment in R&D as a percent • People in census tracts with 40 of GDP • Fisheries utilization (percent percent or more poverty overfished) • GDP per capita • Crime rate • Invasive exotic species • Income distribution • Life expectancy • Conversion of cropland to other • Consumption expenditures per • Educational achievement rates uses capita • Homeownership rate • Soil erosion rates • Unemployment • Timber growth/removal • Percentage of households in problem housing • Identification and management of toxic waste sites

• Outdoor recreational activities

• Extreme weather events

48U.S. Interagency Working Group on Sustainable Develop- ment Indicators, op. cit.

74 Sample indicators

If I played the “ten indicators or you’ll • Ecological footprint and rate of be shot at dawn” game with myself, change (ultimate means) I’d come up with a list like the fol- • Aggregate measures of natural, lowing (assuming that I am working built, human, and social capitals and rates of change (ultimate and on national-level indicators). I am intermediate means, intermediate aware that many items on this list are ends) hard to define and measure. I’d use • Real well-being — measured by any quick and dirty surrogate mea- survey data if necessary — and rate sure I could find to start with and of change (ultimate ends) then work to make them better. I as- • Physical throughput/well-being sume that these would be aggregate (throughput efficiency from ultimate indicators, with a “click” revealing the means to ultimate ends) disaggregated source data. • Four kinds of capital/well-being (intermediate means and ends to ultimate ends)

• Built capital balances (intermediate means)

• Most limiting sources and sinks and rates of change (ultimate means)

• Most critical respite/response areas (throughout the triangle)

• Untouched natural areas and rates of change (ultimate means)

• Something wacky and human — smiles on faces on the street, hugs per day, clowns per capita (ultimate ends)

I present all these lists not as final, considered opinions, but as challenges. What would you choose?

75 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

8. Implementing, monitoring, testing, evaluating, and improving indicators

Where there is no reliable accounting and therefore no competent knowledge of the economic and ecological effects of our lives, we cannot live lives that are economically and ecologically responsible.

— Wendell Berry

Indicators don’t guarantee results. shop did not get into them; and we But results are impossible need not apologize for that. It is suf- without proper indicators. And ficient to take one step at a time. The proper indicators, in themselves, design of the instrument panel is ob- can produce results. viously a critical step, without which the whole system can never fly. There Designing the instrument panel is just is a good reason why so many policy one small step in the journey of sus- bodies, international agencies, tainable development. Getting indica- funders, and systems thinkers are fo- tors actually measured, reported, in- cusing upon the design of indicators stitutionalized, evaluated, and im- of sustainable development. They all proved are further steps that require sense that if the indicators aren’t right, enormous creativity, tact, and energy. then no amount of measuring, re- Whole books can be (and have been) porting, funding, action, political written about these steps.49 will, or evaluation will lead toward Then, beyond the indicators, is the sustainable development. A system challenge of action, the connection of without an accurate information sys- indicators to actual instruments of tem, without information clearly re- change, the creation of political will, lated to its real goals, cannot reach the compilation of resources, the those goals. 49 See, for example, P. Hardi and evaluation of results, etc., etc. Of course, conversely, having the T. Zdan eds., and “The Community Indicators I can’t presume to launch into indicators right does not guarantee Handbook”, both op. cit. those topics here; the Balaton work- implementation, action, resources, or

76 Implementing, monitoring, testing, evaluating, and improving indicators

results. But I think the right indica- Indicator measurement can be a tors actively help. The presence of costly, bureaucratic process. But clear, powerful information almost it can also be relatively simple. automatically stimulates problem- There may be clever ways to solving and action. measure indicators that don’t even require numbers or If you need one last example of that dictum, I just heard one on public disturbing the system in any way. radio. An animal shelter in Maryland was distraught at the fact that it had to kill 13,000 lost or abandoned ani- Chicago’s Museum of Science and mals per month. Pleas for people to Industry knows which are its most adopt animals, stronger pleas to neu- popular exhibits by the wear and tear ter pets, produced no visible results. on its floor tiles. The tiles around the So the shelter took to televising, once hatching chicks have to be replaced a week, on a local cable TV channel, every six weeks. In other parts of the in unblinking detail, the euthanization museum the tiles last for years. of a dog. The adoption rate immedi- A car repair shop, wanting to know ately tripled. (It was too soon to tell how to spend its advertising money, what happened to the rate of neu- learned what the popular radio sta- tering pets.) tions were by asking its mechanics to jot down the dial setting on the Informing people clearly, honestly, radio of every car that came in for repairs. and compellingly of the full consequences of their actions can change You can tell which journal articles are most read in a library by the dirt those actions. It is the absence of such smudges on the edge of the pages. information, especially about conse- Turn a bound journal sideways, and quences over the long term and over you can find the important articles im- 50 long distances, that has led to our mediately by the dark-edged pages. present state of unsustainable, ineq- uitable development. These examples are included simply AND there are a few useful last to open the discussion beyond the things to say about the steps beyond usual vision of computerized data indicator design — about the actual bases. Computerized data bases are measurement, reporting, institution- fine things, without which my own alizing, evaluating, and improving of work could not be done, but they are indicators. expensive to maintain and more useful for research and study than for

informing a society and leading to 50 These examples and many action. Long lists of numbers may more are contained in E. J. Webb, D. T Campbell, R. D. Schwarz, underlie an effective instrument and L. Sechrest, Unobtrusive panel, but the most immediate indi- Measures: Nonreactive Research in the Social Sciences. Chicago: Rand cators need to be graphic, sensual, McNally, 1966.

77 Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

real, compelling. Perhaps they need will clarify their information needs, not require a corps of bureaucrats to and come to new understandings of obtain or maintain. People with train- how to implement change. Maybe ing in advertising, public relations, (almost certainly) we will learn as we focus groups, graphic art may be go that the whole notion of sustain- more helpful than people with exper- able development opens up a larger tise in database management. and more challenging set of oppor- tunities than we had realized. So it is tempting, given all the ca- The process of finding, veats and challenges in this report and, implementing, and improving indeed, in every report on sustainable sustainable development indicators development indicators, to be daunted, will not be done right at first. to postpone the task, to wait for more Nevertheless, it is urgent to begin. thinking, more modeling, more agreement — to wait for perfection. It’s important to remind ourselves of While we are waiting for perfec- the magnitude of our task. We don’t tion, fisheries are collapsing, greenhouse know what an advanced, sustainable, gases are accumulating, species are dis- equitable society looks like. We have appearing, soils are eroding, forests are never seen one. We are required to overcut, people are suffering. envision a cultural, technical, social So it is important to get some revolution, or evolution, as thorough- preliminary indicators out there and going as the Agricultural Revolution into use, the best we can do at the or the Industrial Revolution, and moment. That way, as long as we are then to invent the instruments and willing to evaluate and make correc- information feedbacks that will guide tions, we can start to learn, which is us through this tremendous transfor- the only way we can ever achieve sus- mation. tainable development. We will not get it right the first It should not be so difficult to time. come up with indicators that are al- Even if there were consensus to- ready better than the ones we now morrow on a selection of indicators use. As long as we regard them with and shared understanding of their humility, as tentative, subject to cor- application, still there is a high prob- rection and improvement, tools for ability that some or all indicators may learning rather than final, expert pro- turn out to be misleading. Or maybe nouncements, we will be on our way. the monitoring system will not be adequate, or the interpretation of indicators will be faulty, or the actors We need to learn, but we need to waste and decision-makers in the system no time with our learning.