Toward Reporting Progress on
Sustainable Development in Canada:

Introduction

Good decisions require good information....Canadians do not have adequate information on which to base sound decisions concerning sustainable development, to set realistic sustainable development goals, or to measure progress toward those goals....

As a first step...the federal government [should] entrench a commitment to sustainable development and to sustainable development reporting in the mandates of its departments, agencies, and crown corporations. Such a policy should make individual departments clearly responsible and accountable for ensuring that their policies, programs, and budgets support only those activities that contribute to sustainable development.

Secondly, [the federal government should establish] a capability for annually assessing and reporting on progress toward sustainable development.... Careful consideration will have to be given to choosing the exact mechanism. What is most important is that the responsibility centre be independent, be able to link effectively to all elements of the federal system, and be able to work harmoniously with all those elements. It should not, therefore, be embedded within any existing department.

Thirdly...discussions should be initiated with provincial and territorial governments, and other stakeholders, with the aim of establishing a mechanism for assessing and reporting, at five-year intervals, on progress toward sustainable development for the nation as a whole.

The Need

After five years of discussing the ideas of the [1987 report of the World Commission on the Environment and Development] Brundtland Commission, we still cannot answer basic questions. Is Canada progressing toward sustainable development? If so, how fast—and is it fast enough? If not, why not?

Without the means of measurement, without relevant information, progress cannot be charted, goals cannot be set, existing situations cannot be assessed, plans cannot be laid—cannot, that is, with any degree of composure or assurance.

To take an example that underlines the importance of reporting: If Statistics Canada did not provide extensive data on the performance of the Canadian economy, could we adequately chart progress, set goals, assess situations and lay plans for businesses, governments, institutions, communities, and households with any degree of composure or assurance?

Of course not. Yet sustainable development is based on the concept of integrating the economy and the environment. That means changing the way we make decisions on everything— and there' s no way that can be done without a tracking system for sustainable development that links and is integrated with what Statistics Canada currently supplies for the economy alone.

In short, Canada needs to develop a system of measuring and reporting sustainable development performance in a meaningful and credible way.

The Benefits

More than in anything else, the power of sustainable development lies in its bridging capability—its ability to facilitate integration, synthesis, and collaborative approaches to problem solving. It ensures that decisions and strategic directions are based on:

• encouraging activities that enhance social, cultural, economic, and environmental conditions in both the short and the long term;

• minimizing environmental stress, and related problems that impose severe costs on society, by engaging in anticipatory management and preventive action; and

• saving financial resources by eliminating unwise subsidies to unsustainable activities.

A serious national commitment to reporting on sustainable development will force clarification by linking cause and effect more clearly. It will translate the concept of sustainable development into practical terms for use by decision makers and make it much more probable that strategic directions will be chosen that conform with sustainable development.

Most importantly, the very act of making a commitment to monitor, assess, and report progress will entrench the concept of sustainable development in practice and thereby accelerate changes to the framework within which decisions are made.

The result will be an enriched quality of life, a safeguarding of ecosystem integrity, and an enhanced competitive position internationally that, at the same time, reduces the gap that currently exists between developed and developing regions within Canada and around the world.

Goals and Objectives

The overarching goal of reporting on sustainable development is to improve the way we make decisions. That is, support informed and responsible decision-making by:

• communicating key signals to targeted decision makers, especially by delivering early-warning signals that indicate the need for policy changes, shifts in behaviour, or institutional adjustments;

• ensuring accountability;

• encouraging initiative by giving credit where credit is due; and

• identifying knowledge gaps and providing rationales for giving priority to filling the gaps.

The Decision Makers

• individuals and households;

• corporations and corporate groupings;

• communities and settlements; and

• regional, provincial, and national governments.

The Reporting Focus

Reporting on sustainable development must measure performance in economic, environmental, social, and cultural terms. And it must do so within every sphere of activity that it addresses. Since there will be a host of activities upon which attention could be directed, a blueprint that shows how a reporting system would work will be needed in order to determine what should be reported.

[F]our main areas of diagnosis...should be considered in assessing progress toward sustainable development—we call them indicator domains and they are the touchstones on which progress toward sustainable development is best measured. They should be the focus of reporting. They are:

1. Ecosystem

   An assessment of the integrity, health, or well-being of the ecosystem;

2. Interaction

   An assessment of the interaction between people and the ecosystem: how and to what extent human activities contribute to the provision of basic needs and the quality of life; how these actions stress, or contribute to restoring, the ecosystem; and how successful we have been at meeting the goals and objectives of policies, regulations, and legislation;

3. People

   An assessment of the well-being of people in the broadest sense (individuals, communities, corporations, regions, provinces, nations, and other decisionmaking groups); the assessment should range across physical, social, cultural, and economic attributes; and

4. Synthesis

   An assessment of the whole: looking at key linkages across the above three components.

The Indicators

Each indicator domain spans a wide range of disciplines, and associated with each domain are a number of indicators that already are being reported. Most of these indicators gained prominence simply because they existed and not because they were picked as part of a coherent reporting system. They fill a need and have emerged, rightfully so, because of their specific usefulness. However, they developed in isolation from insights in other disciplines and in the absence of coordinating links.

These indicators inevitably will provide some of the building blocks for a "family" of sustainable development indicators. On their own, however, they are inadequate. To appreciate this inadequacy, it is necessary only to return to the example of the economic reporting system in Canada. Statistics Canada lists close to 1,000 industry classes and each class has a number of indicators to report. Obviously, nothing remotely approaching that scale can be expected immediately for reporting on sustainable development.

Nevertheless, given the integrative perspective of sustainable development, new insights will lead to new and more powerful indicators. It may be possible eventually, to identify a short list of key indicators of sustainability. However, that process will take time....

We recommend that the Government of Canada.

1. Develop a policy statement that entrenches a government-wide commitment to sustainable development in the mandates and reporting responsibilities of federal departments, agencies, and crown corporations....

2. Establish a capability for:

   1. assessing and reporting annually on progress toward sustainable development within the federal government as a corporate entity; and

   2. reviewing the environmental implications of actions taken as a result of existing statutes, policies, programs, and regulations—as promised in Canada's Green Plan....

3. Initiate discussions with provincial and territorial governments, and other stakeholders aimed at:

   1. designing and establishing a capability for assessing and reporting every five years on progress toward sustainable development for Canada as a whole; and

   2. providing an assessment every five years of domestic legislation and regulations (provincial, interprovincial, and federal), as well as international treaties and conventions, relevant to sustainable development, that impact on Canada's trade position, economic prosperity. and ecosystem integrity....

4. Restructure the Environmental Choice Program to be a joint responsibility of Environment Canada and Industry Canadn

5. Identify a responsibility centre and provide it with the mandate to initiate discussions with provincial and municipal partners (including the national and provincial associations of municipalities) aimed at:

   1. identifying and prioritizing specific data and information needs of community decision makers related to sustainable development; and

   2. exploring the feasibility of establishing a national clearinghouse and other ways by which these needs might best be met.

6. Make a commitment to having corporate and consumer standards set, in particular for reporting, that will compare favourably to the highest in the world....

7. Make Statistics Canada jointly responsible with Environment Canada for development and implementation of the National Pollutant Release Inventory....

8. Take the necessary steps to encourage all corporate entities (including for-profit businesses, not-for-profit voluntary organizations, professional associations, co-operatives, hospitals, unions, universities, colleges, and community colleges) to:

   1. develop sustainable development codes of practice; and

   2. implement practical reporting systems to facilitate monitoring and assessment of progress over time.

9. We recommend that Statistics Canada:

   1. systematically gather and periodically report data and information concerning individuals and households that is related to the state and progress of sustainable development; and, to that end

   2. join with the National Round Table and ParticipACTION in their social marketing initiative to jointly:

      • design, develop and launch a national sustainable development home survey and report-back program; and

      • motivate people to participate....

10. We recommend that the Treasury Board:

    re-assign priority to efforts that will lead to the development and implementation of a government-wide procurement strategy and related tracking system that:

    1. reflects the principles of sustainable development;

    2. provides the Cabinet, Parliament, and the public with a three to five year perspective of government procurement plans; and

    3. includes a reporting system that effectively compares actions with intentions.

Condensed from "Executive Summary," Toward Reporting Progress on Sustainable Development in Canada: Report to the Prime Minister. Ottawa: National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, December 1993.