Experiments in Measuring Sustainability - The Environmental Sustainability Index and its Critics

1. Experiments in Measuring Sustainability - The Environmental Sustainability Index and its Critics Marc Levy CIESIN marc.levy@ciesin.columbia.edu http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/es/esi/

2. CIESIN involvement with sustainability indicators • 1999-2005 • Environmental Sustainability Index • Collection of national-level indicators suitable for comparison and aggregation • 2005-2006 • Environmental Performance Index • Collection of national-level “report cards” measuring proximity to policy “targets” • Proposal to U.S. Millennium Challenge Account currently in public review (http://www.mca.gov/countries/selection/NRS_indicator.shtml) • 2002-2006 • Collection of integrated well-being / environment indicators to support research into systemic interactions • E.g. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

3. Sustainability Indicators in Context Understanding Evaluation and Learning Engagement and Deliberation Goal-Setting Implementation • Useful Indicators can improve ability to • - Describe problems accurately and saliently • - Diagnose the causes of these problems • - Design solutions commensurate with description and diagnosis • - Drive action with ongoing monitoring and evaluation

4. Criticism • Multi-dimensionality plus aggregation = confusion • Aggregates not grounded in theory; not subject to testing • Weights are ultimately arbitrary

5. Response • There is a demand for aggregated numbers • Although aggregation can be misused, it can be useful • Transparency can temper arbitrariness

6. The ESI gives strong weight to social and institutional capacity measures • Social and Institutional Capacity one of five core components of the ESI • 4 of the ESI’s 21 indicators are capacity measures • Governance • Eco-efficiency • Private Sector Responsiveness • Science and Technology • 24 variables used to quantify these indicators

7. The critique • “Rewards” wealthy countries • Capacity measures aren’t environmental, so they cloud the picture of environmental sustainability • Some of attributes of high capacity are linked to patterns of high environmental stress (e.g. resource consumption)– might send wrong signal

8. Response • Stick with it because it matters • Erect clear boundaries separating governance from drivers and impacts

9. The ESI combines things that are within governments near-term control and those that are not • Exposure to environmental natural hazards • Endangered species • Anthropogenic land conversion • Projected population growth

10. Things that happened long in the past aren’t relevant for current planning • Things that can’t be controlled aren’t relevant Criticism: This confuses whatever signal the ESI wants to send about performance

11. Response, I • Given what ESI was trying to quantify, it makes sense to include both kinds of metrics • ESI is meant to measure ability to maintain favorable environmental conditions long into the future • That is a function of the cumulative, interacting effects of exogenous conditions, behaviors undertaken in the past, and behaviors undertaken in the future

12. Response, II • A Pilot Environmental Performance Index • Focuses only on measures subject to policy intervention • Metrics are benchmarked in terms of proximity to target • Natural Resource Management Indicator • Proposed for use by Millennium Challenge Account • Unweighted average of • Access to water • Access to sanitation • Child mortality (age 1-4) • Achievement of 10% protection target, by biome

13. Clear Sustainability Targets Remain Elusive • Human-oriented indicators tend to be linked to clear targets • Child Mortality • Drinking Water • Sanitation • Urban Particulates • BIG EXCEPTION: Indoor Air Pollution

14. Ecosystem-oriented targets hard to find • Regional ozone • Nitrogen loading • Water consumption • Wilderness Protection • Overfishing These are problems that manifest themselves over complicated transnational, multi-scale, coupled-system dynamics

15. Measurement Infrastructure is not Adequate • Of the 16 indicators included in EPI, only 9 are updated on a regular basis • The indicators measured regularly are dominated by human-focused indicators • This reinforces the current policy stalemate • Hard to set goals when metrics aren’t available • Hard to mobilize support for measurement in the absence of policy goals • MDGs help reinvigorate many socioeconomic measurement efforts – did not have same effect on the environment