7. Keeping track: measuring progress towards sustainability

Keeping the sustainability score is getting easier

You can't manage what you can't measure. And one of the obstacles on the road to sustainability has been a lack of meaningful indicators to tell us where we are now, which way we are moving, and how rapidly we are progressing.

Conventional ways of measuring a nation's progress, such as gross domestic product, can perversely attribute positive values to activities which, under any definition of sustainability, are undesirable. At the same time, tools like the GDP overlook ecological and social progress because they do not have a direct monetary impact.

We are still fixated on the growth of GDP even though its flaws were recognized decades ago. While this is problematic, a new breed of economists is making slow but steady progress on full cost accounting and adjusting the GDP measure to better reflect socio-economic and environmental realities.

There has also been a proliferation in non-monetary indicators. The multitude and creativity of these initiatives reflect the depth of concern that exists about the shortcomings of mainstream accounting methods. Though they appear under a wide range of headings, using terms like "community health," "well-being" and "sustainability," many of these initiatives have a similar underlying philosophy.

One example of this new breed of indicators is the "Dashboard of Sustainability" developed by the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Modelled on a vehicle's instrument panel, this online tool provides detailed, country-specific assessments in a format that is designed to be understood by experts, the media, policy-makers and the public.

Revamping our basic measures of progress is more than an academic exercise--it is a public policy process. As such, it requires a dialogue with wider society, and a consensus on "what matters."

Internationally, the dialogue is led, among others, by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. In collaboration with national governments and other international agencies, the CSD developed a menu of indicators covering all key chapters of Agenda 21 that serves as a starting point for developing national indicator systems.

Indicators need to be put to good use in order to make a difference. A good example is Canada's requirement that government departments monitor and report on the sustainability aspects of their performance using suitable indicators. Costa Rica and South Africa added extra weight to national environment and sustainability reporting through the systematic use of indicators.

Anyone who is disheartened by the persistence of old-fashioned indicators should bear in mind that GDP--a relatively simple metric--took decades to be fine-tuned into its current form. Frustration at the pace of change is understandable, but premature.