Sustainable development goals and indicators Flashcards
Concise timeline of SD
idea
1950’s - early warnings about resource supply limitations to development
1970’s - new concern: pollution of environmental sinks
1980’s - Development and Environment come together as SD in UN report Our Common Future (= Brundtland report)
1990’s - through divergent emphases on nature vs culture and efficiency vs equity, it becomes apparent that the concept SD is still ambiguous and plural. A common denominator: People, Planet, Profit
SD?
SS by de Vries
1) Everything is connected and subject to change
2) Resource management is inherently a collective affair
Goods and Services
SS by de Vries
excludability (payment or access)
v.s.
rivalry/subtractability (“non-rivalrous” i.e. migratory species and polar regions, or “rivalrous”, i.e. Common Pool Resources (CPRs))
public goods
“exclusive” goods (toll goods)
common pool resources
private goods
Externalities
SS by de Vries
effects of economic activities that are not, or not adequately, taken into account in the market allocation externalities (from economics)
Requirement for a sustainable society
SS by de Vries
● avoidance of risks at the macroscale;
● use of renewable energy sources as much as possible;
● limitation of the use of non-renewable resources;
● consumption < (natural) production;
● “contract” with nature (World Churches);
● keeping options open for future generations;
● protection of natural base;
● flexible, adaptive and solution-oriented management, technology and policy
Increasing focus on anthropogenic factor as addition to environmental NGOs’ focus on carrying capacity of the earth + economy/ecology debate (People, Planet, Profits)
Sustainable Development Indicator (SDI)
SS by de Vries
Role: guide the decision-making process after a goal is agreed upon
→ based on statistics, measurements (can limit what can be done with it)
→ quantitative numbers do not value subjective/relative importance of indicators → easy to compare and track over time
→ different scales and different aggregation levels
Sustainable Development Indicator System (SDIS) requires interdisciplinary efforts, needs to be balanced across domains, includes transparent models for context, is ideally participatory
Examples of aggregate indicators: Human Development Index (HDI); Ecological
Footprint (EF); Gross Domestic Product (GDP); Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)
Poore & Nemecek: Five environmental impact indicators
- GHG emissions
- land use
- acidification
- eutrophication
- water use
Poore & Nemecek: Mitigation and practice change
High variation in impact among products and producers for five indicators, also in same geographic regions
Poore & Nemecek: Potential impacts of supply chain
- Processors, distributors, and retailers can substantially reduce their own impacts
- Food waste and food loss can be reduced by providing processors and retailers with information about the impacts of their providers
- Processing, more durable or reusable packaging, and greater usage of coproducts can reduce food waste
Poore & Nemecek: differences between animal and plant protein impacts:
- Emissions from feed production typically exceed emissions of vegetable protein farming
- Deforestation for agriculture is dominated (67%) by feed
-
Animals create additional emissions from enteric fermentation, manure, and
aquaculture ponds. - Emissions from processing, particularly emissions from slaughterhouse effluent, add a further 0.3 to 1.1 kg of CO2eq, which is greater than processing emissions for most other products.
- Wastage is high for fresh animal products, which are prone to spoilage.
Poore & Nemecek: Solutions!
- Dietary change can deliver environmental benefits on a scale not achievable by producers for all 5 indicators
- This can be done by diets excluding animal products, but also by a second scenario where consumption of each animal product is halved by replacing production with above-median GHG emissions with vegetable equivalents
- Widespread behavioral change will be hard to achieve in the narrow timeframe remaining to limit global warming and prevent further, irreversible biodiversity loss
- Communicating producer impacts allows access to the second scenario, which multiplies the effects of smaller consumer changes.
Generic properties of indicators
- are based on data and/or model output and linked to policy targets
- tailored to user base (different for single issue vs composite indicators)
- potential tradeoff between scientific accuracy and effective communication
- ideally, indicators should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) and broadly accepted
(see slide 12, lecture 10)
Misleading indicator example
Late trains:
- “late” if >6 minutes
- if train doesn’t run, doesn’t count as “late”
–> You can “fix” the indicator to make it look better, without actually changing the situation
SDG names & # of indicators
idea
- No poverty
- zero hunger
- good health and well-being
- quality educaiton
- gender equality
- clean water and sanitation
- affordable and clean energy
- decent work and economic growth
- industry, innovation and infrastructure
- reduced inequalities
- sustainable cities and communities
- responsible consumption and production
- climate action
- life below water
- life on land
- peace, justice and strong institutions
- partnerships for goals
& 232 indicators
SDG: definition
Defined in mid-2017
(PA 2015)
= sustainable development goals by 2030
- comination of aggregate and single issue indicators
- not all indicators are SMART and accepted
–> NEED FOR DATA for decision making and accountability
Data = information = knowledge
New tech increases data availabilty and access
= plan of action for people, planet and prosperity, and is determined to foster peace, strengthen global solidarity through partnerships, and eradicate poverty. All countries and all stakeholders
- based in part on human rights, un confs and summits, MDGs
- SDG framework crucially defines means of implementation of economic, social and environmental objectives, creating an overall integrated approach.
Obtaining data
Data revolution:
- new sources & types of data
- new ways of collecting data
- linking different sources of data
- sharing analytical results
- increasing access to data
Tier classification criteria
for indicators
Tier 1:
- Indicator is conceptually clear
- has internationally established methodology with available standards
- data are regularly produced by countries for at least 50 % of countries anf of population in every region where indicator is relevant
Tier 2:
- Indicator is conceptually clear
- has internationally established methodology with available standards
- data is not regularly produced
Tier 3:
- no internationally established methodology with available standards
- but methodology/standards are being developed/tested
Classes of data
- census data
- survey data
- administrative data
- geo-spatial data
- experimental data
- and so on….
Census data
- regularly occuring and official count of population
- all members are sampled (not a survey!)
- systematically acquiring and recording info from all members of a given population
- censuses happen generally every 10 years
Survey data
- designed to collect reliable data (eg. population of households)
- survey collects data from a (national) sample, eg. households
- may be confined to a particular region of a country, depeding on the sampling technique and sample size
- may provide sub-national estimates of a given characteristic of the population eg. poverty rate
Administrative data
- info collected primarily for admin puporses
- fundamental function of government
- collected by government departments and other orgs for the purpose of registration, transactions, record keeping
- civil registries record key event’s in a person’s life (birth etc)
- environmental data eg air, water, soil quality…
Geospatial data
- data linked with location data
- typically collected using GPS, remote sensing, cross-referenced survey data, cell-phone with internet connection
- generally analyzed in GIS
Experimental data
- generally needed to understand a specific process (social or natural)
- useful for model parameterization or validation
- ## controlled or natural experiment
Monitoring data…
- in richer countries they rely on administrative & geospatial data, whereas developing countries rely more on census and survey data
- the availability of admin data depends on the institutional capacity and transparency which is part of SDG 16 (just and peacful societies) … a catch 22…
Where to find data?
Lots of online data sets ex. WHO, OECD stat, wwf…
Open and FAIR data
- You often have to pay for data
- There are different types of licenses for open access data:
–> redistributive and change
–> need to give attribution
–> fully open
FAIR data:
- findable
- accessible (is variable, is about understanding what it does –> usable data)
- interoperable
- reusable
= not juste putting data online…
Indicators are tightly linked to?
data and system understanding
Economic indicators of SD
What do we want to measure
beyond gdp
economic well-being or welfare: prosperity and standard of living
focus on macro indicators (not individuals or companies)
Well-being vs sustainability
beyond gdp
Well-being
- economic resources (income)
- non-economic aspects of people’s lives (what they do and can do, how they feel, the natural environment they live in)
Sustainability
- extent to which well-being can be sustained over-time
- depends of whether stocks of capital that matter for our lives are passed on to future generations
Why to we want to measure economic well-being?
beyond gdp
- trigger policy debate and give people a feel for whether or not progress is on track
- explore consequences of possible future scenarios
- comparison between indicators and countries
What are SDGs related to?
beyond gdp - idea
Well-being: 5
Production and consumption: 7
not directly related to economic indicators: 3
Well-being indicators
beyond gdp - idea
- population below poverty line
- direct disaster economic loss in relation to global GDP
- population covered by health insurance
Economic indicators -
natural resource base
beyond gdp of sdgs - idea
- mobilized amount of US dollars
- sustainable fisheries as % of GDP
- proportion or research budget allocated to marine research
- expenditure on biodiversity conservation
- # of countries with policies related ensuring the sharing of benefits
Most SDG indicators are related to…
beyond gdp of sdgs
- funds allocated to achieve goals
- income, labor productivity, employment
GDP: definition
Gross domestic product
= indicator for material well-being
- production: value of total goods and services produced
- consumption: private consumption + investment + government consumption + (exports - imports)
- powerful tool
- best single measure of how the market economy is performing
- but not for social inclusion, climate change and resource efficiency
GDP/GNP/GNI
gross domestic product
gross national product
gross national income
- by citizens of a country whether living at home or abroad
GDP advantage & disadvantage
advantage
- data availability
- indication about material well-being
disadvantage
- not comprehensive measure of prosperity
- excludes social and environmental issues and distribution of income
PPP & MER
Purchasing power parity
Market exchange rate
To aggregate or compare economic output from various countries
–> conversion of GDP data into a common unit: MER or PPP
in PPP a correction is made for differences in price levels between countries.
-
Market Exchange Rates (MER)
balance the demand and supply for international currencies -
Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)
exchange rates capture the differences between the cost of a given bundle of goods and services in different countries.
Well-being: multi-dimensionality (8)
- material living standards (income, comsumption, wealth)
- health
- education
- personal activites including work
- political voice and governance
- social connections and relationships
- environment
- insecurity (economic and physical)
Enlarged GDP
GDP: material well-being
–> enlarged GDP adjusted for shortcomings
–> social and environmental considerations
–> well-being
Material aspect, from GDP to well-being
look @:
- income and consumption RATHER than production
- wealth and how it is spent
- at the distribution of these 3
- include non-market activities and leisure
- ≠HDI (household disposable income)
HDI
household disposable income
OR
human development index
Human development index
- most widely used human development indicator
- produced by UNDP (development programme)
- composite indicator
- = GNI + Health + Education
- not included: environmental issues or wealth
Calculation HDI
Long and healthy life
Life expenctancy at birth –> life expectancy index
Knowledge
means years of schooling –> expected years of schooling
education index
Decent standard of living
GNI (gross national income) per capita (ppp) –> GNI index
IHDI
Inequality adjusted HDI
adjusted for each factors
changes a lot for certain countries
GII
MPI
Gender inequality index
Multidimensional poverty index
OECD green growth indicators
idea
- CO2, energy, material, productivity
- freshwater, land, forest
- air pollution, access to drinking water, sewage treatment
- patents, environmental taxes
Gross national happiness of Bhutan, 4 pillars
idea
- sustainable and equitable socio-economic development
- environmental conservation
- good governance
- preservation and promotion of culture
SDG: commitments
recognizes that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, combating inequality within and among countries, preserving the planet, creating sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth and fostering social inclusion are linked to each other and are interdependent
SDG: targets
- each government setting its own national targets and deciding how global targets should be incorporated into national planning processes, policies & strategies
- data is still missing for this…
SDG: Implementation and global partnership
- facilitate global engagement
- national govts will be respected but an intl resources, money and governance needs to be supportive
- calls on private businesses
- Emphasize that international public finance plays an important role in complementing
- need to assist developing countries
- Technology Facilitation Mechanism established to support SDGs
○ multi-stakeholder collaboration between Member States, civil society, the private sector, the scientific community, United Nations entities and other stakeholders and will be composed of a United Nations inter-agency task team on science, technology and innovation
○ will promote coordination coherence and cooperation and knowledge sharing
SDG: follow up and review
- voluntary, national led
- Goals and targets will be followed up and reviewed using set of global indicators- which are also complimented with national & regional indicators
–> annual progress report
Impact of SDGS:
Biermann et al.
- The effectiveness of governing by such 17 broad global goals remains uncertain
- Lack of comprehensive meta-studies that assess the political impact of the goals across countries and globally.
- the goals have had some political impact on institutions and policies, from local to global governance. This impact has been largely discursive, affecting the way actors understand and communicate about sustainable development.
- More profound normative and institutional impact, from legislative action to changing resource allocation, remains rare.
- scientific evidence suggests only limited transformative political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals thus far.
- have led to some isolated normative and institutional reforms, eg mutual learning, some new instruments around which to organise, allowed NGOs to hold governments accountable.
Impacts can be: discursive, normative, institutional changes
presence of all 3 = transformative impact
5 dimensions:
(1) global governance
(2) domestic political systems
(3) the integration and coherence of institutions and policies
(4) the inclusiveness of governance from local to global levels
(5) the protection of ecological integrity
Boulanger et al: Sustainability indicators and information
We need to communicate genuinely shared interests in the consequences of interdependent activities may inform action.
- we need more data at all levels
- emphasis needed to be placed on making usable data for policy making & different user groups
- Indicators: are an observable variable used to report a non-observable reality
- Indexes: synthetic indicator constructed by aggregating other basic indicators; that is the production, using basic indicators, of a single synthetic value for the purpose of condensing the information contained in a management chart.
Construction of indexes:
- Phase 1: conceptual analysis i.e. the various dimensions constituting a concept
- Phase 2: Dimensions are broken down into variables with a theoretical level i.e. the reference line, ~= indicators
- Phase 3: Measures - precision, scale, unit; often implies simplification and loss of information for accurate aggregation of multiple elements
- Phase 4: Weighting - consists of attributing a weight to various dimensions
- Phase 5: Aggregation - aggregate the indicators to make the index. Standardise them if need be to get common units
The construction process of indicators is, in fact, a multi-criteria or multi-attribute decision problem. The decision consists in ordering the m alternatives on the basis of criterion/criteria.
- Standardisation: there are different methods of standardising units depending on the data eg. mathematical standardisation or empirical standardisation
- Aggregation: condensing the information contained in each criterion into one single item of information
- Weighting: cannot be justified purely via scientific knowledge, need for “empirical/social input”
Indicators for whom?:
- they can contribute to the construction of a common definition of the situation and to prior agreement on the facts; can also be a collective decisions of collective goals
SD domains, four approaches:
- socio-natural sectors (systems); eg. Equilibrium
- resources: eg. ecological footprint
- people/well-being
- standards/normative - This indicator is most complete as it both informative on development and sustainability whereas the other focus on one.
Hak et al: SDG, a need for relevant indicators
- uneven quality of indicators has been used for assessing SD
- it is argued by authors that selecting appropriate indicators from existing sets or formulating new ones should be done within a conceptual framework
Need for a framework, should be approached as such: approaches and methods potentially applied to developing indicator frameworks can be classified into two categories: policy-based approaches and conceptual approaches
Progress:
- In Zero Draft results showed that out of 169 targets, 49 (29%) were considered well developed, 91 targets (54%) could be strength-ened by being more specific, and 29 (17%) required significant work.
- –> main identified weakness was poor alignment of targets and goals with existing international agreements and political process
Appropriate indicators to address sust. ?
- there is still little agreement on a common set of scientific and management criteria for evaluating indicators from several different points of view (e.g. data quality, scientific definitions of indicators, correctness of underlying assumptions and concepts)
- difficult to measure relevance
- no criteria to evaluate them from different viewpoints (eg data quality vs correctness of assumptions etc)
Indicators specifically related to SD:
- other elements to be applied: understandability, timeliness, scope
- application of conceptual and methodological approaches for conceptualization of the targets will contribute to the selection and development of highly relevant indicators.
=> the indicator framework for SDGs needs more intense conceptual and methodological work rather than merely the production of new social, economic and environmental statistics.
Strezow et al. , assessment of the E S & E dimensions of the indicators for SDGs
- Measuring SD and setting indicators has been around for a while
- What about their ability to meausure economic, social and environmental dimensions?
- No single index accepted by everyone for measuring SD
- there is a clear requirement for an interdisciplinary approach to the planning phase for the development of sustainability indices including policymakers, but also scientists dealing with the 3 dimensions
- Need for wider scientific agreement and standardization on the assesment of the dimensions
- Each index is made up of multiple indicators
Aim of study: qualitatively investigate 9 chosen indices vs the 3 dimensions
–> then determine and overall sustainability index as a tool against which the deviation of each index can be determined and establishes a relationship between the index and the 3 dimensions
Assesment of the indices
1. relative ability to measure the 3 dimensions
2. how many peer reviewed publications they have and the relative contribution to each of the 3 fields
3. the relative differences between the selected indices
–> An average sustainability index was constructed by averaging all normalized sust. indices via a mathematical expression.
Results
- There is no consensus or standard between the indices on the indicators used to measure each of the three dimensions of sustainable development
- This research highlights the importance of standardizing the indicators
- There is an indication that public health may be the single most important overarching precondition of SD, which needs to be further evaluated against the economic, environmental and social dimensions for each country
Conclusions
- 2 / 9 of the indices contained indicators in all 3 dimensions
- A normalized average sustainability index (NASI) was constructed in this study taking into consideration all nine selected sustainability indices, in order to determine the deviations of the individual indices from the averaged result
- Switzerland, Norway & Sweden score highest, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Niger the lowest
- GWI (global well being) followed by HDI (human development index) were the indices with the lowest deviation from the NASI index
- the relationship between the indicators of human health and health of other species and ecosystems will need to be established and considered for a less human-centered approach
- The time variation of a nation’s sustainability performance, a variable considered only by CWI, should also be incorporated into the sustainability assessments.
