Key Message

Widespread efforts to bring about community-scale reporting are leading to direct and indirect impacts on how decisions are made about communities and their future.

Community Scale

Developing community indicator systems for sustainability

Creating and measuring progress towards positive futures is often the most directly available opportunity for a broad range of stakeholders to influence the direction of their own community at a strategic level. In terms of the sheer number of initiatives the most active arenas for assessment and reporting is at the community scale. Examples of coordinated efforts at international and national levels include:

International and National

Canada

Community indicators systems identify and track indicators that relate to the economic, environmental, cultural, social and other issues that matter most to a community. To do this, community indicators systems engage community members in identifying the things they most value and in selecting the indicators (bits of information) that will measure change over time.

The system then collects, analyzes and interprets data for each indicator and periodically reports back to the community about its findings. Individuals, community groups and organizations in all sectors use these reports to increase their knowledge, inform their decisions and guide collective action to achieve the short- and long-term economic, environmental, cultural and social progress that reflects their values and aspirations.

In this way, a community indicators system builds a community's governance capacity to address challenges and seize opportunities.

What is the value of a community indicators system?

A community indicators system provides balanced and objective measurements of the factors that sustain community vitality and a high quality of life.

A community indicators system's value is realized over time as data are collected, analyzed and interpreted to reveal trends; as cross-sectoral partners and community members participate in the system and use the information it generates to influence local policy- and decision-making; and as a community's collective action results in progress toward its vision. The indicators system's impact can be direct and indirect, short-term and long-term. Impact arises not simply from what the indicators and reports say, but from the direct involvement of community members in the reporting process.

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