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Indicators and InformationSystems for SustainableDevelopment

Published by The Sustainability Institute • PO Box 174 • Hartland Four Corners VT 05049

by Donella Meadows

A Report to the Balaton Group

The Sustainability Institute • PO Box 174 • Hartland Four Corners VT 05049Phone 603-646-1233 • FAX 603-643-1682 • Email: [email protected] additional copies of this report, send US$10 to The Sustainability Institute.

Published by

© The Sustainability Institute, 1998.

Indicators andInformationSystems forSustainable

Developmentby Donella Meadows

ultimate ends

A Report to the Balaton Group • September 1998

intermediate ends

intermediate means

ultimate means

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Contents

The origin of this workAcknowledgments

Notes on the format

Summary

1. The nature of indicators, the importance of indicators

2. Indicators, models, cultures, worldviews

3. Why indicators of sustainable development?

4. The challenge of coming up with good indicators

5. Suggestions for indicator process and linkageHierarchy: coherence up and down the information system

The selection process: experts and citizens together

Systems: making indicators dynamic

6. A suggested framework for sustainable development indicatorsThe hierarchy from ultimate means to ultimate ends

Natural capital (ultimate means)

Built capital (intermediate means)

Human capital (intermediate means/ends)

Social capital (intermediate ends)

Well-being (ultimate ends)

Integration (translating ultimate means into ultimate ends)

7. Sample indicators

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

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Indicators and Information Systems for Sustainable Development

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This paper grew out of a five-dayworkshop on sustainable develop-ment indicators attended by a smallsubset of the two hundred membersof the Balaton Group. The BalatonGroup, founded in 1981, is an inter-national network of scholars and ac-tivists who work on sustainable de-velopment in their own countries andregions. We come to our work froma cross-disciplinary, whole-systemsperspective. Individually and jointlywe have been thinking about and test-ing indicators of sustainable develop-ment in local, national, or interna-tional contexts for many years.

The workshop was held at theNational Institute for Public Healthand Environmental Protection(RIVM) in Bilthoven, the Nether-lands, April 13–17, 1996. The par-ticipants (identified here by theirplace of employment, though we par-ticipated as individuals) were:

• Alan AtKisson, RedefiningProgress, San Francisco, CA, USA;

• Alp Baysal, Programme for Sys-tems Management, University ofCape Town, South Africa;

The origin of this work

• Wouter Biesiot, Center for En-ergy and Environmental Studies,University of Groningen, theNetherlands;

• Valdis Bisters, Ecological Center,University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia;

• Hartmut Bossel, EnvironmentalSystems Research Center, Univer-sity of Kassel, Germany;

• Joan Davis, Federal Institute forEnvironmental Sciences and Tech-nology, Dubendorf, Switzerland;

• Bert de Vries, RIVM, Bilthoven,the Netherlands;

• Thomas Fiddaman, System Dy-namics Group, MIT, Cambridge,MA, USA;

• Genady Golubev, Faculty of Ge-ography, Moscow State University,Russia;

• Jane King, Centre for HumanEcology, University of Edin-burgh, Scotland;

• Donella Meadows, Environmen-tal Studies Program, Dartmouth



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College, Hanover, NH, USA;

• Lars Mortensen, Division for Sus-tainable Development, Depart-ment of Policy Coordination andSustainable Development, Uni-ted Nations, New York, NY, USA;

• Jørgen Nørgard, Department ofBuildings and Energy, TechnicalUniversity of Denmark, Lyngby,Denmark;

• Michael Ochieng Odhiambo,Centre for Environmental Policyand Law, Nakuru, Kenya;

• John Peet, Department ofChemical and Process Engineer-ing, University of Canterbury,Christchurch, New Zealand;

• Laszlo Pinter, International Insti-tute for Sustainable Develop-ment, Winnipeg, Canada;

• Rosendo Pujol, Department ofCivil Engineering, University ofCosta Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica;

• Aromar Revi, The Action Re-search Unit, New Delhi, India;

• Detlef von Vuuren, RIVM,Bilthoven, the Netherlands.

Whenever Balaton Group membersget together, new ideas fly and oldideas come together in sudden andstriking connections. This workshopwas no exception. We emerged with

a new vision of the kinds of infor-mation and indicators we wouldneed to guide ourselves toward a sus-tainable world — whether on thelevel of a community, a nation, orthe whole planet. We were all ex-cited.

I was given the task of trying towrite up the kaleidoscope of insightswe had produced. I did my best,though I didn’t and still don’t feeladequate to the task. I prepared adraft that circulated among BalatonGroup members for a year, collect-ing comments and amendments andstarting a few heated arguments.Outside reviewers sent us primarilypraise and requests for more copies.Whatever we had produced, it wasclearly unfinished, still a work inprogress, but equally clearly usefulenough to justify compiling all theresponses and putting out a finalprinted version. A subcommittee as-sembled to do that. That commit-tee consisted of Alan AtKisson,Hartmut Bossel, Joan Davis, Bert deVries, Donella Meadows, JørgenNørgard, John Peet, Laszlo Pinter,and Aromar Revi.

This is the result. It bears onlymy name as author, because theBalaton Group is made up of far toomany diverse and independentthinkers to suggest that they are allof one mind about anything, exceptthe basic desirability and urgency ofsustainable development and morepowerful indicators thereof. Some of

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the group strongly object to somethings written here, though I thinkall are in agreement with the basicthrust (and I try to signal the areas ofsignificant discord). The draftingcommittee decided it would be bet-ter to give me free rein to write in myown voice, choose my own empha-ses, and be responsible for my ownquirks, rather than to try to hammerout a document that might pleaseeveryone and therefore become col-orless.

So, while recognizing an enor-mous debt to those who were respon-sible for the ideas, funding, and prac-tical efforts that made this work pos-sible, I take personal responsibility foreverything written here.

Acknowledgments

The entire group is thankful toMariette Commadeur and Bert deVries of RIVM and Betty Miller andDiana Wright of the Balaton Groupfor their efficient and cheerful logis-tical support.

Financial support was providedby RIVM, the Jenifer Altman Foun-dation, the Wallace Global Fund, andthe Gellert Foundation. Specialthanks to the John D. and CatherineT. MacArthur Foundation for the fel-lowship that allows me to work forthe Balaton Group.

The workshop participants could

have made no headway if we had notbeen able to think about and buildupon years of intense discussionabout indicators of sustainable devel-opment on the part of thousands ofpeople throughout the world. In par-ticular we would like to acknowledge:

• The program on indicators of theUnited Nations Commission onSustainable Development (CSD);

• The formulation of indicators ofnatural, human, and social capi-tal by the World Bank;

• Compilations of environmentalindicators assembled by theUnited Nations Statistical Divi-sion, the OECD, the EuropeanEnvironment Agency, andEurostat;

• The Project on Indicators of theScientific Committee on Prob-lems of the Environment(SCOPE);

• The Human Development Re-port of the United Nations De-velopment Programme (UNDP);

• The initiatives of the World Re-sources Institute (WRI), in par-ticular in the areas of biodiversity,georeference indicators, and ma-terials flows;

• Studies by the Dutch NationalInstitute of Public Health andEnvironmental Protection



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(RIVM) in cooperation with theUnited Nations EnvironmentProgramme (UNEP), especiallyin the area of indicators sup-ported by dynamic modeling;

• Local indicators projects in manyparts of the world, most particu-larly Sustainable Seattle;

• The overview of sustainable de-velopment indicator initiativespublished by the InternationalInstitute on Sustainable Develop-ment (IISD);

• Initiatives at the national level bycountries such as Canada, CostaRica, Japan, the Netherlands, theUnited States, and others, and re-gional initiatives in LatinAmerica, Europe, Africa, andAsia;

• The Worldwatch Institute’s an-nual report Vital Signs.

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

Hartmut Bossel (orientor theory andScenarios A and B), E. F. Schumacher(definitions of human capital), andecologists and ecological economiststoo numerous to mention.

Finally I would personally like tothank Balaton Group members athome and on-line who sent ideas,comments, and reactions, and whohave helped build up over many yearsthe intellectual capital we all broughtto this exercise.

The format was designed by MegHouston of Fonta.

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Notes on the format

The summary is assembled from themain headings of the various parts ofthe text.

Examples of indicators are high-lighted throughout, using a differentfont. For example:

Suggested dynamic indicators:

Turnover time, which is stock sizerelative to stock change rate.Especially relevant for understandingthe time it takes for aquifers orsurface water bodies (or theatmosphere) to flush out pollution, orthe time it takes for industrial capitalstocks (such as the automobile fleet)to be replaced.

In some cases, the indicator examplesare long enough to warrant pullingthem from the columnar text, inwhich case you will find them in aseparate box with any accompanyinggraphic illustrations.

These examples are meant to beprovocative, to be suggestive, tostimulate your own creative juices, totrigger ideas for other indicators thatmight be more directly useful to youfor your own situation and purposes.They are not necessarily indicatorsrecommended by the author or theBalaton Group as the ultimate or bestindicators of sustainable develop-ment. We don’t even claim that theycan necessarily be measured easily,maybe not at all. The author’s rec-ommended indicators, which are


backed by the partial but not unani-mous enthusiasm of members of theworking group, are summarized inthe last section.


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Summary

Chapter 1: The nature ofindicators, the importance ofindicators

Indicators are natural, everywhere,part of everyone’s life.

Indicators arise from values (wemeasure what we care about), andthey create values (we care about whatwe measure).

When indicators are poorly cho-sen, they can cause serious malfunc-tions.

Indicators are often poorly cho-sen. The choice and use of indicatorsare processes full of pitfalls.

The choice of indicators is a criti-cal determinant of the behavior of asystem.

Chapter 2: Indicators, models,cultures, worldviews

Indicators are partial reflections ofreality, based on uncertain and im-perfect models.

We need many indicators becausewe have many different purposes —but there may be over-arching pur-poses that transcend nations and cul-tures, and therefore there may beoverarching indicators.

We need many indicators becausewe have many worldviews — but in-dicators may help narrow the differ-ences between worldviews.

Indicators need not be purelyobjective, and in fact few of them are.

Despite their difficulties and un-certainties, we can’t manage withoutindicators.

The search for indicators is evo-lutionary. The necessary process isone of learning.

Chapter 3: Why indicators ofsustainable development?

Development and sustainability areold problems; now they come to-gether on a global scale and in an ur-gent time frame.

Sustainability indicators must bemore than environmental indicators;they must be about time and/orthresholds.

Development indicators shouldbe more than growth indicators; theyshould be about efficiency, suffi-ciency, equity, and quality of life.

Chapter 4: The challenge ofcoming up with good indicators

It’s easy enough to list the character-istics of ideal indicators.

It’s not so easy to find indicatorsthat actually meet these ideal charac-teristics.

Most of us already have indica-tors in the backs of our minds, “be-loved indicators” that reflect issues ofgreat concern to us. It’s important to

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get them out on the table.Indicators can take many forms.

They don’t have to be numbers. Theycan be signs, symbols, pictures, col-ors.

What is needed to inform sustain-able development is not just indica-tors, but a coherent information sys-tem from which indicators can bederived.

Chapter 5: Suggestions forindicator process and linkage

Hierarchy: coherence up and downthe information system

The information system shouldbe organized into hierarchies of in-creasing scale and decreasing speci-ficity.

Information from the hierarchyat all levels should be available topeople at all levels.

Information should also comefrom all levels. The public can beimportant contributors to, as well asusers of information and indicators.

The selection process: experts andcitizens together

The process of indicator develop-ment is as important as the indica-tors selected.

The indicator selection processworks best with a combination ofexpert and grassroots participation.

But integrating expert and non-expert opinion has its costs and must

be done with care.

Systems: making indicators dynamicSystems insights can help in the

design of indicators that identify criti-cal linkages, dynamic tendencies, andleverage points for action.

Distinguish between stocks andflows. Stocks are indicators of thestate of a system and its response time.Flows may be leading indicators ofchange.

Exponential growth rates (thestrengths of vicious or virtuous cycles)are sensitive points to monitor in sys-tems.

The ratio of change rate to re-sponse rate is a critical — and usu-ally critically missing — indicator ofthe degree to which a system can becontrolled.

Watch for unbalanced or missingcontrol loops.

An important indicator of theresilience of a system is the redun-dancy of its controlling negative feed-back loops.

Nonlinearities in systems (turn-ing points, thresholds) are key pointsfor the placement of indicators.

A primary indicator of the long-term viability of a system is its evolu-tionary potential.

Wherever possible, indicatorsshould be reported as time graphsrather than static numbers.

Indicators should be combinedwith formal dynamic modeling.



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Chapter 6: A suggestedframework for sustainabledevelopment indicators

The hierarchy from ultimate means toultimate ends

The “Daly Triangle,” which re-lates natural wealth to ultimate hu-man purpose through technology,economy, politics, and ethics, pro-vides a simple integrating framework.

Sustainable development is a callto expand the economic calculus toinclude the top (development) andthe bottom (sustainability) of the tri-angle.

The three most basic aggregatemeasures of sustainable developmentare the sufficiency with which ultimateends are realized for all people, theefficiency with which ultimate meansare translated into ultimate ends, andthe sustainability of use of ultimatemeans.

Extending the definition of capi-tal to natural, human, and social capi-tal could provide an easily understoodbase for calculating and integratingthe Daly triangle.

Natural capital (ultimate means)Natural capital consists of the

stocks and flows in nature from whichthe human economy takes its mate-rials and energy (sources) and to whichwe throw those materials and energywhen we are done with them (sinks).

The human economy uses manykinds of throughput streams, each as-

sociated with natural capital on boththe source and sink end of the flow.

Natural capital is being usedunsustainably if sources are decliningor sinks are increasing.

Indicators should highlight lim-iting natural capital stocks.

Natural capital should be moni-tored at whatever geographic levelmakes sense.

We need to allow estimates in ourindicators for life support systemsthat we do not yet understand.

Built capital (intermediate means)Built capital is human-built,

long-lasting physical capacity — fac-tories, tools, machines — that pro-duces economic output.

The nature and amount of builtcapital determines the standing de-mand for human capital (labor andskills) and for throughput from natu-ral capital (materials and energy).That fraction of built capital that pro-duces more built capital (investment)determines the rate of economicgrowth.

Sustainability on the level of builtcapital means investing at least as fastas capital depreciates. Across levels itmeans keeping the throughput needsof built capital appropriate to the sus-tainable yields and absorptive capaci-ties of natural capital and keeping la-bor and management needs appro-priate to the sustainable use of hu-man capital.

There are many categories of built

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capital. A useful indicator would re-flect the proper balance among cat-egories to permit the most produc-tive use of all forms of capital.

Human capital(intermediate means/ends)

The base of human capital is thepopulation, including its age and gen-der structure.

Along with numbers, ages, andgenders, human capital can be mea-sured by attributes such as health andeducation.

Human capital is in one sense anintermediate means, in another sensean intermediate end.

Population with its attributes, likebuilt capital, is an indicator of thenecessary throughputs and potentialoutputs of a society.

The universal resource availableto all human beings, and the currencyof most value to them, is time. Timeaccounting may be key to humancapital accounting.

Social capital (intermediate ends)Social capital is a stock of at-

tributes (knowledge, trust, efficiency,honesty) that inheres not to a singleindividual, but to the human collec-tivity.

Just as time is a key currency forhuman capital, information may bea key currency for social capital.

Another possible measure of socialcapital would be density or frequencyor intensity of human relationships.

The “forbidden numeraire,”whose stocks, flows, and distributioncould lend itself to indicators, ispower.

Social capital can be a high-lever-age transformative factor in the pro-cess of channeling ultimate meansinto ultimate ends.

Rough indicators of social capi-tal are better than nothing.

Well-being (ultimate ends)The most important indicator,

without which the others make nosense, is an indicator of ultimate ends.

Indicators of ultimate ends maynot be numerical or precise, but theyare findable and usable.

Integration (translating ultimatemeans into ultimate ends)

The central indicators of sustain-able development will integrate thewhole Daly triangle.

The information system fromwhich these central indicators can bederived will measure capital stocks atevery level and the flows that increase,decrease, and connect those stocks.

There are systematic schemes forassessing the total viability of a sys-tem. These schemes can serve aschecklists for sustainable develop-ment indicators.

Chapter 7: Sample indicators



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

Indicators don’t guarantee results.But results are impossible withoutproper indicators. And proper indi-cators, in themselves, can produceresults.

Indicator measurement can be acostly, bureaucratic process. But itcan also be relatively simple. Theremay be clever ways to measure indi-cators that don’t even require num-bers or disturbing the system in anyway.

The process of finding, imple-menting, and improving sustainabledevelopment indicators will not bedone right at first. Nevertheless it isurgent to begin.

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1. The nature of indicators,the importance of indicators

Indicators are natural,everywhere, part of everyone’s life.

Intuitively we all use indicators tomonitor complex systems we careabout or need to control.

Mothers are alert to the activity levelof their children, the brightness of theireyes, the way they breathe in sleep.

The learning of every school child isexpressed as test scores and grades.

Farmers scan the sky for weatherfronts, squeeze the soil to measureits moisture, watch how many earth-worms are turned over in a shovelfulof earth.

Doctors take your temperature, lookat your tongue, do blood tests andCAT scans.

Mechanics use calipers and pressuregauges and listen to the sound of themotor.

Pilots and power plant operatorshave whole panels of instruments infront of them.

Economists use leading indicators,lagging indicators, cost-of-living indi-cators, employment indicators, theNikkei or Dow-Jones index, and themost famous and criticized of all in-dicators, the GDP.

Some indicators are legends — thecanary in the coal mine, the sea birdthat hints of the yet-invisible land, thepuff of smoke from the Vatican chim-ney.

We have many words for indicator— sign, symptom, omen, signal, tip,clue, grade, rank, data, pointer, dial,warning light, instrument, measure-ment. Indicators are a necessary partof the stream of information we useto understand the world, make deci-sions, and plan our actions.

If we could first know where we are, andwhither we are tending, we could betterjudge what to do, and how to do it...

The nature of indicators, the importance of indicators

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


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Indicators arise from values(we measure what we care about),and they create values(we care about what we measure).

What do you keep an eye on, to besure your home or workplace or com-munity is in good shape? What wouldyou ask about a place you might moveto, to find out if you would like to livethere? What would you want to knowabout your society fifty years fromnow, to be sure your grandchildren areliving good lives? The answers peoplegive to questions like these reflect theirvalues.

Various U.S. communities, asked todefine indicators of their own long-term welfare, have responded with:

• whether we have to lock ourhouses and cars;

• whether the children will go on liv-ing here or move away;

• whether wild salmon still run in therivers (Seattle);

• whether, when we open the win-dows, we can smell the sage (Den-ver).

A group of Portuguese young peopleonce listed as the top three ques-tions they would ask about a strangecountry:

• how many days in a year does thesun shine?

• how many kilometers are there ofclean beach?

• when you walk down the streets,are the people warm and friendly?

Clearly some values (and hence indi-cators) are place- or culture-specific,others are common to all humanity.Some are quantitatively measurable,while others, which may be equallyimportant, can only be felt qualita-tively.

Not only do we measure what wevalue, we also come to value whatwe measure. The Dow-Jones indexarose from the information needs ofstockholders, but now the generalpublic sees it as an indicator of na-tional economic health. No onecared about a blood cholesterol levelover 200 until doctors started in-cluding it in our annual checkups.Opponents of the Vietnam Warmade converts by creating an indi-cator: the nightly body count.

Indicators can be tools ofchange, learning, and propaganda.Their presence, absence, or promi-nence affect behavior. The worldwould be a very different place if na-tions prided themselves not on theirhigh GDPs but on their low infantmortality rates. Or if the WorldBank ranked countries not by aver-age GDP per capita but by the ratioof the incomes of the richest 10 per-cent to the poorest 10 percent.

We try to measure what we value.We come to value what we measure.This feedback process is common, in-evitable, useful, and full of pitfalls.

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When indicators are poorlychosen, they can cause seriousmalfunctions.

If you manage a national economyto maximize GDP, you get GDP. Youdo not necessarily get justice or free-dom or environmental quality oreven, sometimes, real wealth.

If you run a company to increaseits stock market value, you may verywell produce a rise in the stock mar-ket value — perhaps at the cost of un-derpaid workers or poor quality prod-ucts, and therefore, over the long term,a downturn in the stock market value.

When the success of the familyplanning program in India was mea-sured by the number of intra-uterinedevices (IUDs) inserted per month,some family planning workers, it issaid, inserted IUDs in unknowingwomen, in infertile women, and evenin women who already had IUDs.The indicator looked fine, but thebirth rate, the actual target, washardly affected.

Indicators are both importantand dangerous because they sit at thecenter of the decision-making pro-cess. Nearly every human decisionis intended to bring some importantsystem condition or state (literacy ofthe population; pollution in the lake;national debt) to some desired state.Action is taken depending on thediscrepancy between the desiredstate or goal and the perceived stateof the system.

The perceived state is an indi-cator. It may not be measured ac-curately. It may measure not the ac-tual system state, but some proxyor associated state. (It’s impossible,for instance, to measure the exactpopulation of fish in the ocean, sowe measure the catch and assumethe population.) The indicator maybe delayed. It may be “noisy,” so itscentral tendency is hard to deduce.It may be deliberately or acciden-tally biased.

If an indicator of the state of thesystem is poorly chosen, inaccuratelymeasured, delayed, noisy, or biased,decisions based on it cannot be effec-tive. Misleading indicators will causeover- or under-reactions, changes thatare too weak or too strong to bringthe system exactly to the desired state.We can’t steer accurately, if we don’tknow where we are.


state ofthe system

discrepancy

inflows

perceivedstate

goal

outflows


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Indicators are often poorly chosen.The choice and use of indicatorsare processes full of pitfalls.

Pitfalls in the process of choosing andusing indicators include:

Overaggregation. If too manythings are lumped together, theircombined message may be indeci-pherable. The GDP is the classic ex-ample, adding together money flowscaused by “good” economic changes(more education, say, or better food)and “bad” changes (more hospitaliza-tions from automobile accidents).Another example: measuring thestrength of a fishery by total tons offish caught may disguise the fact thatmore valuable species are diminish-ing, but smaller, less desirable fish arebeing substituted.

Measuring what is measurable,rather than what is important. Thearea covered by forest rather thanthe size, diversity, or health of thetrees; tons of hazardous chemicalsrather than toxicities; the amountof money people have rather thanthe quality of their l ives; theamount spent per school childrather than actual learning.

Dependence on a false model.We may think that the birth rate re-flects the availability of family plan-ning programs, when it may actuallyreflect the freedom of women to usethose programs. We may think theprice of oil tells us about the under-

ground abundance of oil, when itprimarily tells us about the built ca-pacity of oil wells relative to the builtcapacity of oil-consuming devices.

Deliberate falsification. If anindex carries bad news, someone maybe tempted to alter it, delay it, changeterms or definitions, unfund it, loseit, or otherwise suppress it. For ex-ample, the U.S. counts as unem-ployed only those people who are ac-tively looking for jobs, not those whohave given up looking. Some govern-ments have been known to report ag-ricultural yields based on five-yearplans, rather than actual harvests.

Diverting attention from directexperience. Indicators may mesmer-ize people with numbers and blindthem to their own perceptions. Thestock market is going up, so theeconomy must be in great shape, de-spite the fact that many of us are de-cidedly poorer.

Overconfidence. Indicators maylead people to think they know whatthey’re doing, or to think what they’redoing is working, when in fact theindicators may be faulty.

Incompleteness. Indicators arenot the real system. They may missmany of the subtleties, beauties, won-ders, warnings, diversities, possibili-ties, or perversities of the real system.

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The choice of indicators is acritical determinant of thebehavior of a system.

Indicators are leverage points. Theirpresence or absence, accuracy or inac-curacy, use or non-use, can change thebehavior of a system, for better orworse. In fact, changing indicators canbe one of the most powerful and atthe same time one of the easiest waysof making system changes — it doesnot require firing people, ripping upphysical structures, inventing newtechnologies, or enforcing new regu-lations. It only requires delivering newinformation to new places.

For example, when a new U.S. lawrequired every plant emitting toxic airpollutants to list those pollutants pub-licly, an indicator was created. Localnewspapers began reporting the“top ten polluters.” Companiesacted quickly to get off that list, andtoxic emissions decreased by over40 percent in three years, thoughthere was no law against them. Thepresence of the indicator was suffi-cient in itself to change behavior.1

Similarly, when new Dutch houseswere built with the electric meter inthe front hall where it was easily vis-ible (instead of out of sight in thecellar), electricity use in those houseswent down by one-third though therewas no change in the price of elec-tricity. There was simply a clear indi-cator of electricity use situatedwhere no one could avoid seeing it.2

1 Environment Today, 6, no.1(Jan/Feb 1995): 16. The 40percent reduction was achievednot so much by reducing thegeneration of toxics as bydiverting them from disposal intothe air to disposal by injectioninto the ground (and hence intogroundwater). This exampleillustrates another hazard ofindicators — bizarre behaviordesigned not to solve a problembut to evade revelation by anindicator.

2 This story was told in 1973 ata system dynamics workshop inKollekolle, Denmark, and itssource is lost — but systemspeople tell it over and over until ithas become legend.

People can’t respond to informationthey don’t have. They can’t react ef-fectively to information that is inad-equate. They can’t achieve goals ortargets of which they are not aware.They cannot work toward sustainabledevelopment if they have no clear,timely, accurate, visible indicators ofsustainable development.

Conversely, if there are good in-dicators of sustainable development,it will be almost impossible not tomake decisions and take actions thatmake the indicators improve.



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Indicators are partial reflectionsof reality, based on uncertain andimperfect models.

The grade is not the knowledge inthe head of the student. The stockmarket price is not the value of thecompany. No indicator is the real sys-tem. Indicators are abstractions fromsystems. Furthermore, they are ab-stractions from abstractions, frommodels, or sets of assumptions abouthow the world works, what is impor-tant, what should be measured.

We experience the worldthrough models, most of them fil-tered through our senses and hiddenin our minds. We don’t carry realityin our heads, we carry mental mod-els, assumptions about the world,based on our personality, culture,language, training, and experience.

2. Indicators, models, cultures,worldviews

Our mental models are enormouslyvaried, which is one reason why wehave trouble agreeing upon commonindicators with which to inform ourdecisions.

Some of our models are formal,written down or otherwise expressedoutwardly so others can see them. Forinstance spreadsheets, maps, writtenpapers, or mathematical equations areformal models.

All our models, mental and for-mal, are only models. They are nec-essarily incomplete. None of us hasperfect information. We don’t under-stand everything that is happening.We’re unclear about what causeswhat. Even with the help of comput-ers, there is a limit to the degree ofcomplexity we can comprehend orprocess. If we somehow could as-semble all relevant information, we

The real act of discoveryconsists not in finding new landsbut in seeing with new eyes.

— Marcel Proust

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wouldn’t be able to absorb its fullbuzzing complexity. We would haveto abstract and simplify. The aston-ishing success of our species testifiesto our ability to do so accuratelyenough to serve many purposes. Therecord of our failures, accidents, sur-prises, and disasters testifies to thelimits of our modeling ability.

It helps to maintain humilityabout our models as we search forindicators of sustainable develop-ment. Sustainable development is asocial construct, referring to the long-term evolution of a hugely complexsystem — the human population andeconomy embedded within the eco-systems and biogeochemical flows ofthe planet. Our models of this sys-tem are and will always be incom-plete. Our indicators will be imper-fect. We will be making decisionsunder uncertainty. Our task is to re-duce that uncertainty. We will not beable to eliminate it completely, at leastnot any time soon.

We need many indicators,because we have many purposes— but there may be over-archingpurposes that transcend nationsand cultures, and therefore theremay be overarching indicators.

Football scores are meaningful indi-cators to football fans and gibberishto everyone else. A farmer can readsignals from a field of growing grain

that the rest of us don’t even perceive.Every jiggle in stock prices carries vi-tal information only to those whowatch the market every day. An indi-cator is useful only if it carries its in-formation to a mind prepared to re-ceive it, educated to its terms andunits of measurement, and activelyengaged with the system illuminatedby that indicator.

Therefore we will probably neversettle on a single global index of sus-tainable development — too manydifferent people work on differentproblems and need different kindsof information. Some people aremore interested in “development,”others in “sustainability.” Some arelooking for “warning lights” tellingwhen a key resource will becomescarce or an ecosystem is likely to bedriven into irreversible collapse.Others are interested in the welfareof a particular city or nation, or inbringing to public attention a par-ticular pocket of poverty or pollu-tion or under-capitalization.

So, rather than a single index, weneed an information system — oneat least as sophisticated as the systemthat presently tracks flows of moneyaround the world — to inform vari-ous decision makers at various levelswith various purposes related to sus-tainability and development.

Having said that, I must also saysomething that sounds contradictory.The comprehensive task — bringingabout a socioeconomic system that

Indicators, models, cultures, worldviews


8

enhances quality of human life whilepreserving natural support systems —is particular to cultures and ecosys-tems, but is also, in essence, the sameeverywhere. Planet Earth operates byjust one set of physical and biologi-cal laws, though they manifest as di-verse climates and ecosystems. Hu-man beings have the same fundamen-tal needs for sustenance and belong-ing and meaning, though their waysof meeting those needs are culturallyvaried. Global resources such as theoceans and atmosphere are importantto everyone. Therefore it may be pos-sible to derive from a multiplicity ofspecific local indicators an overarchingset of global indicators that informcommon problems and purposes.These indicators can report to all ofus about the increasingly integratedglobal socioeconomic system con-tained within the undeniably inte-grated global biogeochemical system.

I suggest a few overarching indi-cators later in this document.

We need many indicatorsbecause we have manyworldviews — but indicators mayhelp narrow the differencesbetween worldviews.

The deepest reason why people needdifferent indicators is that they havedifferent fundamental worldviews orparadigms. Worldviews are mentalmodels about the very nature of real-

ity. They tell us what the environmentis (limited and fragile or infinite androbust, outside ourselves or continu-ous with ourselves, a luxury or themost basic of necessities), what humanbeings are (honest, devious, generous,greedy, fallen angels, unrecognizedbuddhas, competitive rationalists,myopic egotists), and how people andnature should interact (through do-minion, stewardship, harmony, part-nership, competition, exploitation,love). Our worldviews define what isimportant, what questions can beasked, what goals are possible, whatcan and should be measured.

Worldviews not only give mean-ing to information, they activelyscreen information, only admittingwhat fits our preconceived models.Someone who is convinced that tech-nology can solve any problem, for ex-ample, can read the newspaper andfind articles about wonderful newtechnologies. Someone with a skep-tical view can read the same paper andsee nothing but articles about tech-nical foul-ups. Each is screening forthe information that fits his or herparadigm. If contrary evidence doespenetrate our paradigmatic screens,we have ways of dismissing it or dis-counting the people who present itto us. We see information thatdisconfirms our worldview as the ex-ception and information that con-firms our worldview as the rule.

Therefore people of differentworldviews live literally in different

9

worlds. They see different things andtake their information from differentindicators. Scientists who see theworld as flows of energy will wantdifferent indicators than will econo-mists who see the world as flows ofmoney — who will want differentindicators than will people who seethe world as flows of time or socialrelationships or moral obligation orpolitical power. Our worldviews don’teven use the same currency! No won-der we argue about indicators!

Given the multiplicity of perspec-tives, one option is to disagree end-lessly. We can promote our own in-dicators and ridicule others’. Anotheroption is to acknowledge the inher-ent ambiguity in the choice of mod-els and the design of indicators. If thatis done, if worldviews and models areexposed to view, if their plurality isnot only recognized but appreciated,indicators can play an emancipatoryrole. Different indicators giving con-flicting reports about the state of theglobal system can provide an oppor-tunity to inquire into the underlyingmodels that produced the discrep-ancy. Indicators can be a tool for ex-panding, correcting, and integratingworldviews.

(Note: everything written hereabout worldviews is a worldview.)

Indicators need not be purelyobjective, and in fact few ofthem are.

It is conventional within a scientificworldview to distinguish between “ob-jective” and “subjective” indicators.Objective indicators are sensed by in-struments outside the individual —thermometers, voltmeters, counters,dials, rulers. They can be verified byothers. They can be expressed in num-bers. Subjective indicators are sensedonly within the individual by meansthat may not be easily explained andin units that are probably not numeri-cal. Objective indicators primarilymeasure quantity. Subjective indica-tors primarily measure quality.

Objective indicators are usuallyconsidered more reliable and valu-able. They are certainly more easilycommunicated and validated by oth-ers. But there are vital purposes thatdepend on subjective, qualitative in-formation. The scientific worldviewis just one way to see the world, a veryuseful one, but not comprehensiveenough to be used exclusively. Achoice to pay attention only to whatis measurable is itself a subjectivechoice, and not a wise one. Every hu-man being knows that some of themost important things in life — free-dom, love, hope, harmony, even thebeauty of scientific precision — arequalities, not quantities.

All indicators are at least partiallysubjective. The very choice of an in-

Indicators, models, cultures, worldviews


10

dicator is based upon some value,some inner human purpose that tellsus what is important to measure. Thechoice of what is important is inher-ently subjective.

Indicators of quality, “subjectiveindicators,” are worthy of respect,however hard they may be to define.The fact that people consider some-thing ugly or beautiful, harmoniousor dissonant, noble or ignoble, is notto be swept away as “mere opinion.”If we guide our decisions only byquantitative indicators and not quali-tative ones, we will produce a worldof quantity without quality. Many ofour social and personal problems arisefrom the fact that we are well on ourway to doing exactly that.

Despite their difficulties anduncertainties, we can’t managewithout indicators.

Indicators are hard to define. They arebased on uncertain models. Their se-lection and use are full of pitfalls. Theycarry different messages to differentminds. These difficulties don’t mean,however, that we shouldn’t use indica-tors. We have no choice. Without themwe fly blind. The world is too complexto deal with all available information.We have to choose a set of indicatorssmall and meaningful enough to com-prehend. Rather than discourage us, thepitfalls and difficulties should give usideas about how to design better indi-cators, and motivation to do so.

The search for indicators isevolutionary. The necessaryprocess is one of learning.

A lot of planes crashed before peoplelearned what instruments to put inthe cockpit. Many patients died be-fore doctors figured out how to taketemperatures and blood tests. Whena system is extremely complex, it takestrial, error, and learning to produce aserviceable set of indicators.

The human economy and theplanet Earth together make up a sys-tem we can’t afford to crash. We haveto learn from the experience of localeconomies and ecosystems (some ofwhich have crashed or are crashing)and improve our indicators as best wecan, using many types of human ex-perience and knowledge and models.

That is an enormous job. Whilewe’re learning, we should view our in-dicators and models with utmost hu-mility. We should open ourselves todisproof, which is a faster way of learn-ing than looking only for proof. (Sci-entists are trained not to prove atheory but to try to disprove it.) Weshould subject every model, especiallyour favorite ones, to as much scru-tiny and as tough testing as possible.There’s no shame in having a wrongmodel or a misleading indicator, onlyin clinging to it in the face of contra-dictory evidence. The more flexiblewe can be, the faster we will find goodsustainable development indicators.

11

Development and sustainabilityare old problems; now they cometogether on a global scale and inan urgent time frame.

The world economy is doublingroughly every twenty years. Theworld population is doubling everyfourty to fifty years. The planet thatsupplies the materials and energy nec-essary for the functioning of thepopulation and economy is not grow-ing at all. That means whatever plan-etary resource was one-fourth-used ageneration ago is half-used today.Whatever waste sink was half-full ageneration ago is full today. What-ever was full a generation ago isoverfull today.

Each successive doubling of thehuman system causes new stresses andraises new questions, or rather bringstwo old questions together with new

3. Why indicators ofsustainable development?

urgency. Question one is how can weprovide sufficiency, security, good livesto all people? (The development ques-tion.) The second is how can we livewithin the rules and boundaries of thebiophysical environment? (The sus-tainability question.) With theeconomy globally linked, the oceanfisheries depleting, the atmospherechanging in composition, openspaces filling in, and much of the hu-man population still living in poverty,these two questions now come to-gether with urgency. How can we andour children live good lives withouteroding the health and productivity ofthe physical planet — and therefore thepossibility for future generations to leadgood lives?

The indicators we need to answerthat question are not immediately ob-vious, because the question is so new.It is new because most human his-

Indicators of sustainable development need to be developedto provide solid bases for decision making at all levels and tocontribute to the self-regulating sustainability of integratedenvironment and development systems.

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

Why indicators of sustainable development?


12

tory thus far has occurred in a worldwith few apparent limits. Withtwenty-year doublings, however, thehuman endeavor is rapidly approach-ing and in some cases exceedingphysical limits. The unsustainabilityof many of our activities is becomingapparent. Suddenly we need indica-tors that we never needed before.

“Sustainability” and “develop-ment” are value words. Like all valuewords — freedom, fairness, beauty,justice, security, sufficiency, democ-racy — they are subjective, nearly im-possible to define, nevertheless pos-sible to sense (or to sense their ab-sence), and vitally important. Takentogether — “sustainable develop-ment” — the two words may seemcontradictory but nevertheless mustbe achieved together.

Good lives for all people in harmonywith nature. The urgency and scaleof achieving that goal challenge oldmodels and worldviews. Hence thedemand for new ways of thinking andthe need for new indicators.

Sustainability indicators must bemore than environmentalindicators; they must be abouttime and/or thresholds.

Governments already maintain manyenvironmental and resource indica-tors, such as the emission rate of sul-fur dioxide, concentration of carbondioxide in the atmosphere, concen-tration of lead in drinking water, es-timated reserves of fossil fuels.

An environmental indicator be-comes a sustainability indicator (orunsustainability indicator) with theaddition of time, limit, or target.The central questions of sustainabil-ity are: How long can this activitylast? How long do we have to respondbefore we run into trouble? Where arewe with respect to our limits? There-fore sustainability indicators are ide-ally expressed in time units. If we keepon mining or fishing or logging at thisrate, how many years will the resourcelast? If we keep emitting this pollut-ant at this rate, how long before weaccumulate a dangerous concentra-tion in nature or in ourselves?

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

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

13

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

4 Ibid.

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

If we compare the estimated supply of 1500 billion barrels to recent rates of oilconsumption, about 25 billion barrels per year,4 we can put that reserve in terms ofa 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 thanpopulation growth — let’s say 2%/year on average — we get a strikingly differentnumber:

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 aboutwhat the future growth rate might be. Different estimates will produce differentindicated lifetimes for the oil resource. For example:

Suppose four times as much new oil is discovered as is currentlyestimated, 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 esti-mated 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 consumptiongrowth, a few calculations of such an indicator of time remaining gets across thecentral message: the time is bounded and limited to decades, not centuries, if oilconsumption keeps increasing.

A useful indicator in such an inherently uncertain arena ought to cover the range ofpossibilities. Perhaps something like this: Known and estimated and speculative oilreserves will last roughly approximately 60 to 120 years if there is no increase inconsumption, and 30 to 60 years if there is steady exponential growth in consump-tion.



14

5 Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change, ClimateChange: The IPCC ScientificAssessment, edited by J. T.Houghton, G. J. Jenkins, and J.J. Ephraums. Cambridge/NewYork: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1990.

6 That is roughly what the Foodand Agriculture Organization(FAO) has estimated for excessfishing capacity on averageworldwide, though such anindicator makes most sense onlywhen it is calculated fishery byfishery. See, for example: J. A.Gulland, ed., The Fish Resourcesof the Ocean. Surrey, U.K.:Fishing News Ltd., 1971; M. A.Robinson, Trends and Prospects inWorld Fisheries, Fisheries CircularNo. 772. Rome: FAO, 1984;FAO, Marine Fisheries and theLaw of the Sea: A Decade ofChange, Fisheries Circular No.853. Rome: FAO, 1993; FAO,The State of World Fisheries andAquaculture 1996. Rome: FAO,1997.

7 Dr. A. Adriaanse,Environmental Policy PerformanceIndicators. Sdu UitgeverijKoninginnegracht, May 1993,pp. 33.

If they are not expressed in units oftime, sustainability indicators shouldbe related to carrying capacity or tothreshold of danger or to targets.Tons of nutrient per year released intowaterways means nothing to people.Amount released relative to theamount the waterways can absorbwithout becoming toxic or cloggedbegins to carry a message.

Deposition of acidic pollution on Dutch soil

acid

ifica

tion

equi

vale

nts

deposition

target

sustainability level

6,000

0

3,000

1980 1995 2010

target

target

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that the worldeconomy would need to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 60% in order tostabilize the chemical composition of the atmosphere.5 If we define the sus-tainable 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 currentrate of fish harvesting is about 20 percent above the rate that would allow fishpopulations to regenerate.6 Sustainability index = 1.2 — over the limit.

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

Development indicators shouldbe more than growth indicators;they should be about efficiency,sufficiency, equity, and qualityof life.

In an empty world, development caneasily be confused with growth.Growth simply means getting larger— not necessarily getting better.Most of our economic indicators, es-

15

Ecological Available Surplus orFootprint Capacity Deficit

Nation (ha/cap) (ha/cap) (ha/cap)Australia 8.1 9.7 +1.6

Bangladesh 0.7 0.6 -0.1

Brazil 2.6 2.4 -0.2

China 1.2 1.3 +0.1

Germany 4.6 2.1 -2.5

Indonesia 1.6 0.9 -0.7

Japan 6.3 1.7 -4.6

New Zealand 9.8 14.3 +4.5

Russia 6.0 3.9 -2.0

United States 8.4 6.2 -2.1

8 M. Wackernagel and W. Rees,Our Ecological Footprint.Philadelphia: New SocietyPublishing, 1996.

9 M. Wackernagel et al.,“Ecological Footprints ofNations,” Center for Sustainabil-ity Studies, Xalapa, Mexico,March 10, 1997.

10 R. Goodland, H. Daly, and S.El Serafy, introduction toEnvironmentally SustainableEconomic Development: Buildingon Brundtland, The World BankEnvironment Working Paper no.46, July 1991, pp. 2-3.

tablished several doublings ago, aredefined around growth, with theGDP per capita as the most obviousexample.

In a full world, development andphysical growth must be decoupled.As economist Herman Daly haspointed out, growth is about gettingbigger, development is about gettingbetter.10 Development indicators mustbegin to reflect quality, equity, effi-

ciency, and sufficiency. They must shiftemphasis from money to physicalunits and from quantity of materialthroughput to quality of life. Thesedistinctions begin to point to the realpurpose of economic development,which is not to have money but tohave better lives. This sort of rethink-ing can also create openings for con-cepts not only of under-developmentbut of over-development, and there-fore for concepts of “enough.”


To take a more ambitious example,Wackernagel and Rees have definedthe “ecological footprint” — a roughestimate of the average amount ofland required by a given nation tosupply all that nation’s physical con-sumption (food, energy, water, ma-terials, waste purification).8 If theecological footprint is larger than theactual area of the nation, then thatnation must be either importing re-sources from outside its borders(which is fine, as long as the export-ing countries’ footprints are smallerthan their actual area) or drawingdown its own or other countries’ re-sources (which is clearly unsustain-able).

Here are some Wackernagel andRees estimates of ecological foot-prints related to land capacity for se-lected nations of the world:9


16

One of the first attempts to indi-cate actual human developmentrather than money flows is theHuman Development Index, pio-neered by the UN DevelopmentProgramme. The HDI is a (fairlycomplex) mathematical averageof three indicators: average lifeexpectancy, average educa-tional attainment, and GDP percapita. Here are some sampleHDI values for selected coun-tries (1993 data).11

11 United Nations DevelopmentProgramme, Human DevelopmentReport 1996. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1996, pp. 136-137.

12 The “Prevention Index” isavailable from Preventionmagazine, 33 East Minor Street,Emmaus, Pennsylvania.

HumanDevelopment

IndexNation (HDI)

Canada 0.951

USA 0.940

Japan 0.938

Russia 0.804

Brazil 0.796

Indonesia 0.641

China 0.609

Kenya 0.473

Nigeria 0.400

Afghanistan 0.229

Somalia 0.221

In a similar vein, the health-based magazine Prevention hasinvented an index to measurethe healthfulness of a nation’slifestyle. It is an aggregation oftwenty-one indicators, deter-mined largely by polling data.They include:12

What percent of the adult popu-lation:

• do not smoke?

• engage in frequent strenuousexercise?

• maintain proper weight?

• get 7-8 hours of sleep a night?

• fasten seat belts while ridingin a car?

• refrain from excess alcoholconsumption?

17

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

— Wouter Biesiot

4. The challenge of comingup with good indicators

It’s easy enough to list thecharacteristics of idealindicators.

Most study groups on indicators startby making a list of the qualities of agood indicator. Just about every in-dicator report contains a list similarto the following.13

Indicators should be:Clear in value: no uncertainty

about which direction is good andwhich is bad.

Clear in content: easily under-standable, with units that make sense,expressed in imaginable, not eye-glazing, numbers.

Compelling: interesting, excit-ing, suggestive of effective action.

Policy relevant: for all stakehold-ers in the system, including the leastpowerful.

Feasible: measurable at reason-able cost.

Sufficient: not too much infor-mation to comprehend, not too littleto give an adequate picture of the situ-ation.

Timely: compilable without longdelays.

Appropriate in scale: not over-or under-aggregated.

Democratic: people should haveinput to indicator choice and have ac-cess to results.

Supplementary: should includewhat people can’t measure for them-selves (such as radioactive emissions,or satellite imagery).

Participatory: should make use ofwhat people can measure for them-selves (such as river water quality orlocal biodiversity) and compile it toprovide geographic or time overviews.

13 For a definitive list agreedupon by a large internationalbody of experts, see “TheBellagio Principles,” in B.Moldan, S. Billharz, and R.Matravers, SustainabilityIndicators: A Report on the Projecton Indicators of SustainableDevelopment (SCOPE).Chichester and New York: JohnWiley, 1997.

The challenge of coming up with good indicators


18

14 H. Bossel, “Finding Indicatorsof Sustainable Development,”Center for EnvironmentalSystems Research, University ofKassel, draft, September 1997.

Oh please! Not again new indicators! I onlywant to see simple indicators that can be usedby politicians and let the scientists stop withever more complicated stuff!

— A very high UNEP official

Hierarchical: so a user can delvedown to details if desired but can alsoget the general message quickly.

Physical: money and prices arenoisy, inflatable, slippery, and unsta-bly exchangeable. Since sustainabledevelopment is to a large extent con-cerned with physical things — food,water, pollutants, forests, houses,health — it’s best wherever possibleto measure it in physical units. (Tonsof oil, not dollars’ worth of oil; yearsof healthy life, not expenditures onhealth care.)

Leading: so they can provide in-formation in time to act on it.

Tentative: up for discussion,learning, and change. (We shouldhave replaced the GNP index decadesago, for example, but it became tooinstitutionalized to do so.)

It’s not so easy to find indicatorsthat actually meet these idealcharacteristics.

Having made a list like the one above,the typical indicator study group dis-bands, encouraging someone else tocome up with actual indicators thatmeet all these wonderful criteria. Oralternatively, the study group pro-ceeds to recommend a long list of in-dicators that don’t meet the criteria.As one of our Balaton colleagues haswritten: “International organizations,dependent on consensus of theirmembers, assemble indicator sets thatmeasure the noncontroversial issuesin overwhelming detail, while leav-ing out information on controversialissues. It’s like cramming an airliner’scockpit with ship chronometers,cuckoo clocks, swatches, hour glasses,and thermometers, without makingsure that vital instruments like air-speed indicators and compass are onboard.”14

Having tried the exercise our-selves, however, the Balaton work-shop members found ourselves insympathy with others who have failedto come up with perfect indicators.It was easier to complain about otherindicators, to spew out theoreticallists of hundreds of (mostly unmea-surable) indicators, or to philosophizeabout the Ideal Indicator, than it wasto produce a limited, comprehensiblenumber of compelling, effective in-dicators. Our understanding is im-

19

perfect, our worldviews get stuck, sys-tems are complex, people disagree, wefall back on our narrow specialties,we fail to summon the enormous cre-ativity we need. One wants to throwup one’s hands and go do somethingeasy.

To keep ourselves from duckingthe difficulties, some of us created,at irregular intervals throughout theworkshop, an imaginary challenge tocome up with ten, just ten, crucialindicators we would recommend tothe nations of the world, “or else beshot at dawn.” Under that pretendedpressure, most of us did produce in-dicators.15 We were unhappy withour forced lists and pleaded for moretime. We repeated the exercise andour lists changed as the workshopproceeded and we thought moredeeply. We didn’t like to be forced toproduce (who does?) but in fact evenour imperfect suggestions were prob-ably improvements on existing indi-cators. And the forcing exercisebrought out questions, consider-ations, doubts, and ideas that led usto more creative indicators.

If you aren’t too dignified, Iwould recommend the “ten indica-tors or be shot at dawn” exercise whenyou find yourself bogging down.Otherwise it’s too easy to indulge intheorizing or politicizing or someother evasive activity.

Most of us already haveindicators in the backs of ourminds, “beloved indicators” thatreflect issues of great concern tous. It’s important to get them outon the table.

We noticed each time we did the forc-ing exercise that we each had “belovedindicators,” which we kept puttingback on our lists because we just plainwanted them there. (See the list onthe next page.) These indicators weredifferent for different people; theymay not be the best ones to put intothe cockpit of the sustainability jet-liner, but they are worth paying at-tention to. When we try to explainwhy we want them, we find ourselvesbringing out our deepest worldviewsand values. They may suggest practi-cal indicators of great importance —or at least once they’ve been acknowl-edged and talked through, our mindscan be at rest and ready to think aboutother indicators.

15 Some of us considered thewhole exercise undignified andrefused to participate. Othersdeclared that the process ofchoosing indicators was moreimportant to them than theproduct — and that the properbroad base of constituents wasnot present at the workshop.



20

Here are some of the beloved indicators that participants in the Balaton work-shop kept insisting upon (which may tell you more about us than about sustain-ability indicators):

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

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

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

• Population trends of migrating songbirds. To us life would be unbearably sadwithout songbirds, and migrating birds are sensitive measures of environ-mental 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 tosupply 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. Foraffection, 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 ishappy if significant numbers of people, however rich, constantly want “more.”

21

Indicators can take many forms.They don’t have to be numbers.They can be signs, symbols,pictures, colors.

We thought of many different typesof indicators — digital and analog,monetary and physical, aggregatedand disaggregated, static and dy-namic, additive and multiplicative,normalized and absolute.

We particularly distinguished be-tween three types of indicators thatwould be necessary in any airplanecockpit, for which there are obviousanalogies in sustainable development:

• gauges and warning lights to sig-nal obstacles or dangers ahead;

• indicators of the comfort andsafety of the passengers;

• measures of the heading and dis-tance to go toward the destination.

We got into long, hot discussionsabout the meaning of symbols (moreabout this later). We began to imag-ine different ways of presenting indi-cators — illuminated control panels,hypertexted Web pages, pictures, dy-namic models, maps, compasses. Wetalked about the power of the famousBulletin of Atomic Scientists “Minutesto Midnight” clock that powerfully,if qualitatively, measures the politi-cal tension of the nuclear arms race.We thought of the creative ways thatTV weather reporters deliver complexinformation.

Surely as much effort and inge-nuity ought to go into reporting to


the people of the world about theirwelfare and the sustainability of theirplanet as goes into reporting to themabout tomorrow’s weather!

What is needed to informsustainable development is notjust indicators, but a coherentinformation system from whichindicators can be derived.

As we went back and forth, suggestingspecific indicators, then backing off totalk about the philosophy of what wewere doing, we realized that we weresearching not just for indicators butalso for an information system aboutsustainable development, of which in-dicators are just one part. That is to say,we were talking about the design notonly of the instrument panel (indica-tors) that governments and citizensneed to see to steer the ship and avoidobstacles, but also the design of thebackground wiring (information sys-tem) that collects and sorts informa-tion and delivers it to the panel.

We saw that we were working onthree levels. First, we were evolving ideasfor process, linkage, and worldviewexplication that could aid the searchfor indicators. Second, we were devel-oping a framework (a model) to orga-nize and link together an entire sustain-able development information system.Third, we were coming up with indi-cators. Our discussions on these threelevels constitute the next three sectionsof this report.


22

Hierarchy: coherence upand down the informationsystem

The information system should beorganized into hierarchies ofincreasing scale and decreasingspecificity.

Whether or not the world is actuallyarranged in hierarchies, our mentalmodels perceive the world that way.We see a hierarchy from the indi-vidual to the family, the neighbor-hood, the community, the region, thenation, the world. Or from the or-ganism to the population to the eco-system to the biome to the planet. Orfrom the employee to the division tothe firm to the sector to the nationaleconomy to the global economy. Ateach of these levels, actions are taken

and information is needed. So we pic-ture a nested set of indicators, eachinforming the “system in focus” at itsown level (say, actual water qualityin this lake) and aggregating to in-form the system at the next higherlevel (average water quality in theregion’s lakes).

Aggregation is necessary to keepfrom overwhelming the system at thehigher levels of the hierarchy. Thebrain cannot and need not process ev-erything happening to every cell inthe body. The leaders of nations can’tkeep track of every family, species,business, or lake. But actors down theline, in the family, near the lake, needdetailed information to keep theirpart of the system functioning well.

Aggregation must be done withcare, because information is lost ateach stage. Ideally only important in-

5. Suggestions for indicatorprocess and linkage

Everything should be as simple aspossible, but not simpler.

— Albert Einstein

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formation should be passed up tohigher levels, but what informationis important will change over timeand with different purposes. There-fore it should always be possible togo down as many levels as necessaryto see the numbers that have been puttogether to make the aggregate indi-cator and to create new indicators.(For example, it should be possiblefor anyone to find out not only thatthe GDP went up, but what went up— home construction or weaponsconstruction, cleaning up after natu-ral disasters or cleaning up the envi-ronment.)

“Clicking a hypertext page” is thephrase we used to indicate our visionof the way a user could navigate a hi-erarchical information system.

The main “cockpit” would show themost critical and aggregated indica-tors (say, for example, the qualityand adequacy of human capital). A“click” on that indicator would opena more detailed set of information(say, size of population and primaryattributes — age, sex, health status,education, income, employment).Another “click” on health statuscould open boxes of informationabout age-specific mortality andmorbidity rates and causes. Further“clicks” could give the same infor-mation about specific geographicsub-areas. And so forth.

Information from the hierarchy atall levels should be available topeople at all levels.

Like a library, an information systemrich at every hierarchical level yetclearly organized so that one can findone’s way among the levels, would bemaximally useful for matching di-verse kinds of information to the di-verse purposes for which people needinformation.

One of the pitfalls of such a flex-ible information system, however, isthat it can be manipulated. It allowsthe user to choose only those indica-tors that serve a pre-conceived out-come. Selecting information to jus-tify only one point of view is a trapthat even well-meaning users can fallinto. The only way to get around it isto be sure the information system isaccessible to users with many pointsof view. Then multiple interpreta-tions can emerge and can be discussednot at the futile level of throwing con-tradictory statistics at each other, butat the level of examining the modelsand purposes that cause those statis-tics to be selected from the full setavailable.

Making sure that “cockpit indi-cators,” the aggregated ones at the topof the hierarchy, are comprehensivecan also help overcome the all-too-human tendency to pay attentiononly to the news you want to hear.If, for example, economic productiv-ity indicators are improving nicely,

Suggestions for indicator process and linkage


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It comes back to localknowledge. People havesaid that the beaches aremore polluted than whatthey’ve been. I couldhave told you that.Because I’ve seen fromupstairs for thirty yearsand looked out thewindow every day andseen the color of the sandchange color. Whereas itused to be like everyoneimagines sand, it’s now abrowny color.

— focus group participant, LancashireCounty, UK16

For example, a nongovernmentalorganization called River Watch inthe United States organizes highschool science teachers to involvestudents in regular chemical andbiological monitoring of a streamnear each school. The schools linktheir findings through computernetworks, thereby creating moni-toring networks for entire streamsand rivers. They have been able todetect changes in water qualityquickly, and even, by comparingdata on successive reaches, to pin-point the source of a problememission. If enough sections ofriver could be covered this way,the information could be aggre-gated upward into, for example, anindex of what percent of thenation’s surface water is of swim-mable and drinkable quality, andhow that index is changing overtime.17

Costa Rica has organized throughits Instituto Nacional de Bio-diversidad (INBio) thousands of itscitizens as local naturalists, trainedto collect and preserve insects,plants, birds, and to send them totaxonomists for classification.Working in their spare time, the la-borers, students, housewives, andretired people in this program arecataloguing the vast biological di-versity of their nation. They havediscovered hundreds of new spe-cies. The species catalog is com-puterized and made available atlibraries and schools throughoutthe country. When the catalog isdone, the citizen naturalists can be-come monitors of population size,breeding success, and other at-tributes of biological diversity.18

Similarly the Christmas Bird

Counts conducted by Audubon So-ciety volunteers, originally in NorthAmerica, now throughout theWestern Hemisphere, are provingone of the most reliable long-termbird population data bases in ex-istence.19

but indicators of the security ofhouseholds, say, or the integrity ofcommunities are falling apart, and ifthe cockpit indicator blends thosetwo sources of information, then atleast the question will rise, “why isn’tthis indicator rising, when theeconomy is doing so well?” Presum-ably a scan of the indicators at thenext level down in the hierarchy willanswer that question.

Information should also comefrom all levels. The public can beimportant contributors to, as wellas users of information andindicators.

Governments have the scientific andfinancial resources to gather informa-tion that is inaccessible to citizens,such as satellite imagery or radiationleaks. Citizens can provide detailedground-truth that is inaccessible togovernments.

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Citizens could survey many things atthe local level: soil erosion, child nu-trition, adequacy of housing, use oflocal energy sources, quality of roads,water, jobs, schools, or forests. Citi-zen monitoring not only can provideexcellent information at low cost, itcan also contribute to the educationof the people and to widespread ap-preciation for natural and societalwealth.

The Selection Process:experts and citizenstogether

The process of indicatordevelopment for social systems isas important as the indicatorsselected.

As indicators are selected and defined,values are expressed, purposes areagreed upon, worldviews are at play,and models are developed and shared(implicitly or explicitly). Thereforethe selection process is the placewhere legitimacy and comprehensionare built, as people see their valuesand worldviews incorporated into theindicators. The process of indicatorselection is also one of the key placeswhere social learning about indica-tors and models takes place.

For all these reasons — to be in-clusive, to gather a full compilationof viewpoints, to legitimize the prod-uct, and to enhance learning — the

16 Quoted in P. Hardi and T.Zdan, eds., Assessing SustainableDevelopment: Principles inPractice. Winnipeg, Manitoba:International Institute forSustainable Development, 1997,p. 107.

17 River Watch Network, 153State Street, Montpelier, VT05602. Another such organiza-tion is the Global RiversEnvironmental Network(GREEN, 206 South Fifth Ave.,Suite 150, Ann Arbor, Michigan48104, U.S.A.)

18 INBio, Sto. Domingo 3100,Heredia Costa Rica, Tel.: (506)36-7690, Fax: (506) 36-2816.

19 The data are complied andmaintained by the PatuxentWildlife Research Center, Laurel,Maryland. The CBC started onChristmas Day, 1900. Today,over 45,000 people from all 50states, every Canadian province,the Caribbean, Central andSouth America, and the PacificIslands (all areas where thebreeding birds of North Americaspend their winter) participate inabout 1700 counts held during atwo and one-half week period.The Christmas Bird Count hasevolved into the largest andlongest-running wildlife surveyever undertaken.

more people involved in indicator se-lection the better. Indicators for anentire social system should not be de-termined by a small group of expertsor politicians or civil servants sittingtogether in rooms out of contact withthe people who are expected to un-derstand and use the indicators.

The indicator selection processworks best with a combination ofexpert and grassrootsparticipation.

Many indicator-defining groups havefound that they made greatest head-way in finding useful indicators ifthey put together experts on the sub-ject in question with interested non-experts.

Experts are necessary to supplycomprehensive understanding, per-spective on the development of thesystem over time, knowledge of whatdata are available, realism about whatcan be measured, and credibility tothe process. But experts, left to theirown devices, can get lost in details,can want to measure everything thatis intellectually interesting rather thanwhat is policy-relevant, can inventtechnical indicators that carry nomeaning outside the expert commu-nity, and can be blindered by the nar-row specificity of one area of study.

Non-experts tend to push tomake the indicator relevant and un-derstandable. The non-expert may bemore open than the expert to creative



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linkages and syntheses, more likely tocapture the “big picture,” more likelyto be sure a diversity of interests arerepresented. Just as the expert bringsscientific credibility to the indicatorselection process, the non-expertbrings political credibility.

But integrating expert and non-expert opinion has its costs andmust be done with care.

Involving “everyone” can produce dis-proportionate representation of somestakeholders, too little technicalknowledge, too much focus on imme-diate interests, risk of incomplete map-ping of the area of interest, and no ho-listic understanding. Furthermore, itcan be inordinately time-consuming,may be difficult to enroll sufficientparticipation, requires skilled facilita-tion, tends to get stuck in process dis-cussions, and tends to produce low-level “concrete” indicators.

Some practitioners who haveweathered these challenges suggestthe following ten-step process for de-veloping an indicator set.20 They rec-ommend that the process be managedby impartial facilitators whose role isto coordinate meetings, guide the dis-cussion, prepare background docu-ments, and synthesize results.

1. Select a small working group,responsible for the success of theentire venture. The working groupneeds to be multi-disciplinary, with

strong ties to the community or au-dience for whom the indicators areintended. The working group is mosteffective when it combines expertsand non-experts from the outset, butthe critical element is long-term com-mitment to the process.

2. Clarify the purpose of the in-dicator set — whether it is meant toeducate the public, provide back-ground for key policy decisions, orevaluate the success of an initiativeor plan. Different purposes give riseto different indicators and publica-tion strategies.

3. Identify the community’sshared values and vision. The indi-cator set must be able to speak to thehopes and aspirations of the peopleit is meant to serve.

4. Review existing models, in-dicators, and data. The workinggroup takes a look at other indicatorprojects as examples to learn from. Italso reviews what indicators are al-ready published locally and what dataare generally available.

5. Draft a set of proposed in-dicators. The working group drawson its own knowledge, the examplesit has collected, and the advice ofoutside experts if needed to preparea first draft. The draft may gothrough several revisions before it isready for the next step. In particu-lar, initial indicator sets tend to bevery long. In later drafts, they needto be pruned down and made morefocused and practicable.

20 “The Community IndicatorsHandbook,” available for US$20from Redefining Progress, 1Kearny Street, 4th Floor, SanFrancisco CA 94108. Tel.: (415)781-1191, Fax: (415) 781-1198,Email [email protected]

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6. Convene a participatory se-lection process. The draft indicatorsneed to be presented to a broad cross-section of the community for theirinput. This process serves several im-portant goals. It educates the partici-pants, gathers their collective creativ-ity and expertise, and makes themstakeholders in the success of theproject. Often it also gives rise to newrelationships and alliances among theparticipants and can even generatenew action initiatives to address prob-lems identified by the indicators.

7. Perform a technical review.An interdisciplinary team of knowl-edgeable people sorts through theproposed final draft indicators and se-lects for measurability, statistical andsystemic relevance, etc., trying to staytrue to the intentions and preferencesexpressed by the citizen review pro-cess. The technical review helps to fillin gaps, weed out technical problems,and produce a final indicator set thatis ready to be fleshed out with data.

8. Research the data. At thisstage, the indicators are usually sub-ject to additional revision, driven bydata concerns and new learning.

9. Publish and promote the in-dicators. This requires translatingthem into striking graphics, clear lan-guage, and an effective outreach cam-paign. It helps to link the indicatorsto the policies and driving forces thataffect them, to illustrate their link-ages, and to point to the actions thatcan be taken to improve them.

10. Update the report regularly.Indicators make little difference, orindeed little sense, if they are not pub-lished periodically to show changeover time. This requires an institu-tional base that can be relied upon toreproduce steps 8. and 9. on a regu-lar basis, and to go back and revisitthe other steps as needed. Each newversion of an indicator report be-comes an opportunity to revise theindicators, develop new researchmethods, and add linkages. If perfor-mance targets have been set, they canbe assessed and, if necessary, adjusted.And when targets are met, celebra-tions can occur!

These steps may sound daunt-ing, but they are being put into prac-tice by hundreds of community- andregional-level indicator movementsaround the world.21

Systems: makingindicators dynamic

Systems insights can help in thedesign of indicators that identifycritical linkages, dynamictendencies, and leverage pointsfor action.

Systems change over time, and it is of-ten exactly their dynamic behavior thatwe want indicators of sustainable de-velopment to tell us about. Is the popu-lation or the economy growing moreor less rapidly than it used to be? Are

21 Ibid.; and also P. Hardi and T.Zdan eds., op. cit.


We should not tacklevast problems withhalf-vast concepts.

— Preston Cloud


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weather patterns becoming more or lessvariable? For how long can the fishpopulation support this rate of harvest,and what happens if it can’t?

System dynamics is a field of ex-pertise that specializes in understand-ing the unfolding behavior over timeof whole systems. Therefore it can beuseful in finding linkage indicators,leading indicators, and leverage pointswhere systems are especially likely tosignal change or respond to action.

This section contains a brief sum-mary of some insights from systemdynamics about how to design dy-namic indicators.

Distinguish between stocks andflows. Stocks are indicators of thestate of a system and its responsetime. Flows may be leadingindicators of change.

Stocks describe the state of the sys-tem at any particular time — theamount of biomass in a forest, peoplein a nation, factories in an economy,money in the bank, water in an aqui-fer, greenhouse gases in the atmo-sphere. Stocks are accumulations ofthe past history of the system. Thesources in nature from which rawmaterials are drawn are primarilystocks. So are the sinks in the envi-ronment into which pollutants arepoured, or the factories and tools thatmake up the productive capital of anation. Stocks are generally the mostcountable elements of systems, andhence they make obvious indicators.

Stocks are usually slow to change.Even if CFC emissions cease today,the accumulation of chlorine in thestratosphere will take decades to de-cline. If a new energy source is in-vented tomorrow, there would be along delay before existing stocks ofcars and furnaces and industrial boil-ers that burn the old types of energycan be replaced. Therefore the sizeand lifetimes of stocks can give ususeful indicators of response rates —how long it will take a system to cor-rect a problem, adjust to a change, ortake advantage of a new opportunity.

stockinflows outflows

populationbirths deaths

fishing harvest

fishpopulationregen

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