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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

MEASUREMENT OF LOCAL SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE AND THE ROLES OF PIONEERING MUNICIPALITIES. DR. THOMAS HOPPE DR. FRANS H.J.M. COENEN. TWENTE CENTRE FOR STUDIES IN TECHNOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. CSTM – INSTITUTE FOR INNOVATION AND GOVERNANCE STUDIES. IGS - UNIVERSITY OF TWENTE.

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

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  1. MEASUREMENT OF LOCAL SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE AND THE ROLES OF PIONEERING MUNICIPALITIES.DR. THOMAS HOPPEDR. FRANS H.J.M. COENEN TWENTE CENTRE FOR STUDIES IN TECHNOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. CSTM – INSTITUTE FOR INNOVATION AND GOVERNANCE STUDIES. IGS - UNIVERSITY OF TWENTE. Conference Europe Matters, Nijmegen, 20 September 2012 Workshop European Pioneers in EnvironmentalPolicy andSustainability. CSTM.

  2. PRESENTATION OUTLINE • Relevance • Enabling factors forlocalsustainability • Performance measurement • Case study: The Netherlands (LSM) • Lessonsfrom LSM 1999-2009 • Pioneeringmunicipalities • More information CSTM.

  3. RELEVANCE • Environmental impacts manifest themselves at local level. • Sustainable development requires all government levels. • Local authorities easy accessible government for citizens. • Focus on adoption and implementation of sustainable development policies by local authorities. • Local authorities: units of observation. • Lack of research on local sustainability policy goal achievement (only on specialized fields). • Few coordinated attempts to monitor local sustainability program performance. • Few attempts to analyse these data. CSTM.

  4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1. What does local sustainability performance measurement mean in practice and what can we learn from a decade of experiences in the Netherlands? 2. What is the role of pioneerstherein? CSTM.

  5. FACTORS ENABLING SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE BY MUNICIPALITIES CSTM.

  6. PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT OF PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS • Whymeasure performance? • What is measured? • How is measured? • Whomeasures? • Whathappenswith the data collected? CSTM.

  7. PERFORMANCE MEASURENT OF PUBLIC BODIES • Show how well public policy program(s) benefit the populace. • Public officials need (togain) legitimacy. • Transparency of policy program(s). • Accountability of public officials. • Publication of performance measurement of public bodies is considered a democratic right. • A means to control budget spendingby public officials. • Performance measurement as a key element of New Public Management (NPM): “Running government as a business firm”. • Modernization trend of governmentsduring 1990’s in OECD countries. • Benchmarking and monitoring. Means toevaluateandmodify programs. CSTM.

  8. CASE: THE LOCAL SUSTAINABILITY METRE (LSM) • Trend diffused from business sector (CSR) and New Public Management (NPM). • Developed in late 1990s following National LA21 agenda. • Implemented by NGO COS. • Data collection since 1999. • 8 editions so far; results reported and publicly accessible (www.duurzaamheidsmeter.nl). • PPP-approach to measure sustainability. • Sample: all Dutch municipalities are contacted. Some respond. • Data collection: online survey. • Objective: toencouragemunicipalitiestoadoptprogressivesustainabilitypolicies. CSTM.

  9. WHAT IS MEASURED? • Local Sustainability: a pluriform construct (PPP) • People • Gender • International Treaties / regional networks • Social • Planet • Climate • Water • Nature • Profit • Corporate Social Responsibility • Sustainable purchasing • Example: items climate policy (planet) CSTM.

  10. LESSONS FROM LSM 1999-2009 (1) Variation in response accrossyears Variation in performance accrossyears CSTM.

  11. LESSONS FROM LSM 1999-2009 (2) • Multi-year top-10 rankings • A few usual suspects. • Bot also newcomers and pioneers that disappear. CSTM.

  12. LESSONS FROM LSM 1999 – 2009 (3) • Pioneers remain ahead! • Size matters. CSTM.

  13. LESSONS FROM LSM 1999 – 2009 (4) • Laggards catch up! Furtherlessons: • Signs of competitivenessamong top performers. • Somepioneers do notrespondany more to LSM, anddeveloptheirown ‘safe’ performance measures. Strategic behavior. Politicalreasoning. • Adoption of LSM tool byotherdecentralgovernments (provinces, water boards). CSTM.

  14. ON THE ROLE OF PIONEERING MUNICIPALITIES Pioneers differ due to: • early involvement; • above average performance; • long term commitment; • geographical location within a particular region with favorable conditions; • adoption of corporate social responsibility principles; • more international and regional network memberships; • (large) organizational size (and hence capacity). However: many important items from our framework are not easy to incorporate in survey-based data collection. More in-depth (comparative) research is needed, as well as research on methodological caveats in current surveying. CSTM.

  15. Methodological and conceptual remarks • Sample is biased (municipalitysize, progressive Boards). • Respondents suffer from ‘fatigue’. • Indinctness on meaning of questionnaire items and ‘sustainability’ in particular. • Many items cannotsimplybeansweredwith ‘yes’ of ‘no’. • What is measured is ‘output’, not ‘ outcome’. • Politicaldimensionnotmeasured. • Online publication of results leads tostrategicbehaviour. • Data set difficulttouseforscientificpurposes. CSTM.

  16. RESEARCH AGENDA 5 propositions: • Voluntary disclosure of a municipality’s own performance leads to more action, and hence better performance. • Benchmarking leads to the use of other participants’ ideas and practices (a motivation to share information). • Early participants have a competitive edge to newcomers and tend to remain ahead for years. • The performances (in terms of policy output) of municipalities are unevenly distributed in the self-reporting model as compared to the regulation model which sets mandatory performance standards. • Voluntary withdrawal by municipalities creates biased results. Stratification sampling leads to less biased results. CSTM.

  17. MORE INFORMATION Please, look at the followingpublications: • Hoppe, T., and M. Klein. (2012). Meting van duurzame ontwikkeling op lokaal niveau. Milieu Dossier, 18 (4), 50-54. • Hoppe, Thomas, and FransCoenen. (2011). Creating an analytical framework for local sustainability performance: a Dutch Case Study. Local Environment, 16 (3), 229-250. • Hoppe, T. and F.H.J.M. Coenen. (2011). What Does Pioneering Mean in Local Sustainability Governance? A Case Study of the Netherlands. Paper presented at the 6th ECPR General Conference, held at the University of Iceland from 24-2, Reykjavik. 7 August 2011 in the panel: Pioneers in Environmental Policy Revisited. • Coenen, F.H.J.M. and T. Hoppe. (2010). Globale uitdagingen op lokaal niveau, Bestuurswetenschappen,(3), pp. 77-92. • For Local Sustainability Metre see: www.duurzaamheidsmeter.nl • Contact me at: t.hoppe@utwente.nl. CSTM.

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