16.02, Segalas — Lecture on indicators

Course SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTNTUU “KPI”, 12-23 February 2007

Erasmus Mundus Action 4 project“Promoting European Education in Sustainable Development”

TEMPUS Joint European Project_ 25163_ 2004 “Bridging the gap between University and businesses”


Professor Jordi SegalasTechnology and Sustainable DevelopmentPolytechnic University of CataloniaBarcelona, SPAIN

Indicators for sustainability Assessment


Contents

1. Use of indicators

2. Many many indicators

3. GPI - GDP

4. Ecological Footprint


Uses of indicators:

• to measure progress - eg. GDP/capita

• to measure efficiency - eg. ‘productivity’

• to communicate, to stimulate urgency and commitment - eg. ‘Environmental footprint’

• to stimulate action - eg. by quantifying impact


Using the right Indicators is vital to moving to sustainability..

• “If I can’t measure it, I can’t manage it”• But be careful not to go down this road:• “Step 1. Measure what can be easily measured - This is OK

as far as it goes• Step 2. Disregard that which can’t be easily measured, or

give it an arbitrary quantitative value - This is artificial and misleading

• Step 3. Presume that which can’t be measured easily really isn’t important - This is blindness

• Step 4. Say that what can’t be easily measured really doesn’t exist - This is suicide”

• Adapted from C.Handy-The Empty Raincoat: Making sense of the Future (1994)


Many many indicators….


http://mdgs.un.org/unsd


The GPI starts with the same personal consumption data the GDP is based on, but then makes some crucial distinctions.

• adjusts for certain factors (such as income distribution)

• adds certain others (such as the value of household work and volunteer work)

• subtracts yet others (such as the costs of crime and pollution)

Because the GDP and the GPI are both measured in monetary terms, they can be compared on the same scale.


Since its introduction during World War II as a measure of wartime production capacity, the GDP has become the nation's foremost indicator of economicprogress. It is now widely used by policymakers, economists, international agencies and the media as the primary scorecard of a nation's economic health and well-being.

What's Wrong with the GDP as a Measure of Progress

It is merely a gross tally of products and services bought and sold, with no distinctions between transactions that add to well-being, and those that diminish it.

Instead of separating costs from benefits, and productive activities from destructive ones, the GDP assumes that every monetary transaction adds to well-being by definition.

It is as if a business tried to assess its financial condition by simply adding up all "business activity," thereby lumping together income and expenses, assets and liabilities


What's Wrong with the GDP as a Measure of Progress

I. GDP Treats Crime & Natural Disasters as Economic GainII. GDP Ignores the Nonmarket Economy of Household & CommunityIII. GDP Treats the Depletion of Natural Capital as IncomeIV. GDP Increases with Polluting Activities & Again with Clean-UpsV. GDP Takes No Account of Income DistributionVI. GDP Ignores the Drawbacks of Living on Foreign Assets


Monetary benefits (ignored by GDP) included in GPI:

1. Value of time spent on household work, parenting, and volunteer work.

2. Value of services of consumer durables (such as cars and refrigerators)

3. Services of highways and streets


GPI subtracts of expenses that’s do not improve well-being:

1. Defensive expenditures, defined as money spent to maintain the household's level of comfort, security or satisfaction, in the face of declines in quality of life due to such factors as crime, auto accidents or pollution. (water filters, locks or security systems, cost of repainting houses damaged by air pollution,…)

2. Social cost, such as the cost of divorce, crime or loss of leisure time.

3. Depreciation of environmental assets and natural resources, including loos of land, reduction of stocks of natural resources and damaging effects of wastes and pollution.


GPI versus GDP as a Measure of Progress


ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT.

WHAT?&

WHY?


Introduction• In Rio-92 Conference it was showed the need of reducing

the impacts of human beings to the environment.

If we can not measure, we can not manage.If we can measure it does not implies that we can

manage…. But it’s the firs step… by me

• New indicators of sustainability:– Ecological Footprint: Land surface needed to support a

community.– Ecological Rucksack: Total weight of the material flow needed

for the production of a specific good in all its life cycle.


What is Ecological Footprint?

• It’s defined as the surface of productive land and water necessaries to support an specific economy or population within an specific standard of living.

Origin: Concept ideate by William Rees from the British Columbia University.


What does the EF measure?• Consumption of food and materials: in relation to the surface of earth and seas

biologically productive needed to produce that natural resources.• Consumption of energy: on the basis of the surface necessary to absorb the

correlatives emissions of CO2.

• The measuring is done in “units of surface”. A surface’s unit is equivalent to an hectare of world productivity average.


How is the EF evaluated?

1. Housing.2. Transport.3. Consumption

goods.4. Alimentation.5. Services.

Land patterns & its useLand patterns & its use

Desserts and polar lands

No productive lands

Natural ecosystemsVirgin woodsUnusable

Modified ecosystemsPastures

Forestry running

Growing ecosystemsCereals

Reversible surfaceAgricultural growing

Use

Degraded SurfaceConstructionConsumption

Surface to absorb the CO2 emissionsFossil energyEnergy

PatternsUse

Consumption patternsConsumption patterns


Evaluation Matrix Evaluation Matrix F

Forestry running

TOTAL

5 SERVICES51 Government + Army52 Education53 Health54 Social Services55 Tourism56 Culture57 Banking/Financing58 Others

4 CONSUMPTIN GOODS41 Packing42 Clothing43 Furniture44 Books/Journals45 Tobacco/Alcohol46 Personal care47 Recreational equipment48 Others

3 TRANSPORT31 Private32 Public33 Of products

2 HOUSING21 Construction22 Operation

1 ALIMENTATION11 Vegetables12 Animal

TOTALE

PasturesD

Cereals

C Agricultural

growing

BDegradation

AFossil energy

Ecological Footprint [ha/capita]


Example: CanadaExample: Canada

0.59

0.170.04

0.030.10

0.400.350.05

0.020.010.01

FForestry running

4.270.460.660.020.202.34TOTAL

0.300.010.290.060.080.080.000.010.010.000.05

5 SERVICES51 Government + Army52 Education53 Health54 Social Services55 Tourism56 Culture57 Banking/Financing58 Others

0.890.13

0.13

0.06

0.02

0.04

0.010.520.100.110.060.060.060.030.100.00

4 CONSUMPTIN GOODS41 Packing42 Clothing43 Furniture44 Books/Journals45 Tobacco/Alcohol46 Personal care47 Recreational equipment48 Others

0.890.100.790.600.070.12

3 TRANSPORT31 Private32 Public33 Of products

0.890.0020.080.410.060.35

2 HOUSING21 Construction22 Operation

1.300.33

0.33

0.600.180.42

0.020.02

0.330.140.19

1 ALIMENTATION11 Vegetables12 Animal

TOTALEPastures

D Cereals

C Agricultural

growing

BDegradation

AFossil energy

Ecological Footprint [ha/capita]


Global values Informe Living planet 2004

• World availability per capita: 1.8 units• Word consumption 2,2 units =>

22% higher than availability

Local values Informe Living planet 2004

• There are distinguished high and low biological capacity areas in order to show the regions with an “ecological lack”.


Local Ecological Footprint,

Available

Available 2

Available 3

Available 4

Available 5


SE SPNLLA

Ukraine


Global values Informe Living planet 2000

• World availability per capita: 1.8 units• Word consumption 2,2 units =>

22% higher than availability

Local values Informe Living planet 2000

• There are distinguished high and low biological capacity areas in order to show the regions with an “ecological lack”.


30%-0.672.182.85World

Maximum in Txequia & Estonia.-1.753.144.89Central & Oriental Europe

Second world deficitHigher in UK, Switzerland and Denmark-3.352.936.28Occidental

Europe

Huge amount of population-0.671.111.78Asia & Pacific

Maximum deficit although having the second biological availability

-5.64(-6.6)

6.311.94(12.9)

North America (USA)

Low biological availability.Higher shortage in the richer petrol

economies.-1.820.912.73

Middle East + Central Asia

High biological availability

Surplus due to the generalized poverty

remarks

3.936.932.46LatinamericaLatin + Carib

0.41.731.33Africa

0.11,821,81No OCDE

-3.83.427.22OCDE

ExcessUt/persona

AvailableUt/persona

HEUt/persona

Area

Regional Ecological Footprint, 1996 Living planet

Inform 2000

Ecological Debt!!!Ecological Debt!!!


Ecological Footprint evolution


Evolution of the Global Ecological Footprint


Four factors make up the ecological debt;therefore, debtreduction requires policies and actions that lead to:

1. Increasing biocapacity by protecting, conserving, and restoring ecosystems and biodiversity, to maintainbiological productivity and ecological services.

2. Lowering world population.

3. Reducing per person consumption of goods and services.

4. Improving the resource efficiency with which goodsand services are produced.


The following actions will help create a society where all people live well, within the capacity of one planet.

1. Improving information for decision making by

• Providing better quality and quantity of information in the media. Governments and companies will not receive appropriate signals from citizens and consumers unless the public is well informed.

• Presenting responsible and accurate product information so that consumers are not misled by advertising.

• Encouraging wide use of corporate environmental reporting to show which companies are making efforts to become sustainable, and how.

• Supporting public information and education campaigns on sustainabilitychallenges and opportunities covering issues such as climate change, forests, and fisheries.

• Asking governments to measure and report on more comprehensive indicators of social, economic, and ecological performance to complement existing economic measures like GDP, trade balance, and rate of inflation.

• Encouraging full cost pricing for all goods and services from energy to water.


2. Advancing product design and urban infrastructure by

• Making transport pricing reflect the full social and environmental costs of road and air travel, and encouraging public transport.

• Implementing comprehensive waste reduction systems which include municipal resource reuse and recycling, and give priority to preventing the release of hazardous substances.

• Introducing building design requirements that lead to reductions in waste generation and energy use.


3. Using markets and regulation by

• Providing incentives for financial markets to favour long-term sustainability over short-term gains. Pension funds and insurance companies in particular have opportunities to invest in ecologically responsible ways and divest their interests in unsustainable activities.

• Allowing governments to adjust market frameworks and provide regulatory and fiscal incentives to become less resource intensive and minimize waste.

• Creating incentives for promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.


4. Enhancing international cooperation by

• Pressuring governments to move from short-term national self-interests to long-term global common interests. In a global economy, governments rarely engage in unilateral action on international issues such as climate change, biodiversity conservation, or management of the oceans. International conventions and treaties encourage equitable solutions to sustainability challenges.


As Meadows et al. (2004) suggest in Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update:

“We don’t think a sustainable society need be stagnant, boring, uniform, or rigid. It need not be, and probably could not be, centrally controlled or authoritarian. It could be a world that has the time, the resources, and the will to correct its mistakes, to innovate, to preserve the fertility of its planetary ecosystems. It could focus on mindfully increasing the quality of life rather than on mindlessly expanding material consumption…”.


Which is my Ecological Footprint?

• http://www.myfootprint.org/• http://www.lead.org/leadnet/footprint/intro.htm• http://www.bestfootforward.com/footprintlife.htm• http://www.educ.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/438/environment/

webstuff/footprint.html• http://www.environment.govt.nz/footprint/personal.html• http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/Eco-footprint/Calculator.asp


Conclusions

• The EF is a tool to measure:• The unsustainability of our society.• The unfair sharing out of resources.

• The unit of measure makes it ease to understand by citizenship.

Course SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTNTUU “KPI”, 12-23 February 2007d’après Aurélien Boutaud, ENSMSE, RAE

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: chemin du développement "classique"

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: chemins du développement durable

les « chemins »souhaitables diffèrent mais tentent de susciter une convergence à long terme écologiquement viable et politiquement acceptable.

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C. Brodhag, http://www.brodhag.org


Erasmus Mundus Action 4 project“Promoting European Education in Sustainable Development”

TEMPUS Joint European Project_ 25163_ 2004 “Bridging the gap between University and businesses”


Professor Jordi SegalasTechnology and Sustainable DevelopmentPolytechnic University of CataloniaBarcelona, SPAIN

Indicators for sustainability Assessment


http://sustainabilityindicators.org

16.02, Segalas — Lecture on indicators

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