9th Annual Conference, Gent, Belgium, 15-18 November 2001
of the European Environmental Advisory Councils EEAC

Indicators for sustainability
- environmental indicators and sustainable development trends

Hosted by the Environment and Nature Council of Flanders (MiNa-Raad)

MiNa-Raad ABOUT THE THEME OF THE CONFERENCE

The purpose of the conference day is to share knowledge and expertise on the applications, functions and possibilities of environmental indicators. We will concentrate on indicators of performance - measuring success and failure of sectors and of States. In what way performance indicators are already being used, what could be their functions, and what are the prospects?

Environmental indicators are initially used to show the development of one or more variables in the environment. These are what we call descriptive indicators. Virtually all countries have some kind of system of descriptive indicators, and these systems provide a certain monitoring of the environmental situation in the country.

However, when adequately defined, indicators can also measure environmental progress in specific economic sectors (and related governmental policies). Then we are speaking of performance indicators - linked with targets. They can show the progress that is being made within a sector, and they can be used for benchmarking and comparison. What are the characteristics in the size and shape of the sector regarding the environment? Has the way the sector affects the environment changed? How eco-efficiency in the sector has developed? What has been the progress in market-integration, or in management and institutional integration?

Moreover, environmental performance of governmental policies themselves can be the object of indicators as well. Indicators then can show the discrepancies between forerunners and slow performers, and thus serve in a new kind of compliance strategy - the "name, shame & fame" strategy. Moreover, for some environmental problems, targets will have to be apportioned between States - there too, the application of indicators will be necessary. Used in this way, environmental indicators become a substantial part of a sustainability strategy.

In February 2001, the EEAC in Stockholm stated that a sustainable development strategy should address the most important long-term environmental problems. The strategy should establish clear objectives for resolving them, applying quantified indicators and targets. It would have to incorporate well-designed mechanisms that will ensure implementation. Environmental performance of sectors and states should therefore be reviewed regularly at the highest political level. In practice, environmental indicators are to be integral part of the so-called Lisbon Process - in spring each year they are to be reviewed at a European Summit, in conjunction with the economic and social guidelines. The questions then are: which indicators do exist and appear to be useful? Which indicators are to be chosen? And what are the consequences of this kind of implementation policy? These questions are the topic of the conference.

CALL FOR PREPARATION & PAPERS

Friday the 16th of November will be the thematic day of the Conference. The working programme will consist of plenary sessions and workshops.

The workshops in the morning and the first afternoon session will be dedicated to the use of environmental indicators in national policies, i.e. environmental policies and sustainability policies. The first workshop is on indicators of the state of the environment and the second on indicators of the performance of economic or other sectors. These workshops will take approximately 2 hours, during which there will be presentations (5/6 minutes each) and a 10 minute maximum intervention by an expert, followed by a debate. Conclusions of these two workshops are to be presented in the first plenary session of the afternoon. We would like all (representatives of) councils to prepare on the topic. We therefore present some questions that could serve as inspiration.

  1. Which environmental indicators do exist in your country and what are they used for? Has your council ever advised on these indicators, or published other documents on them? What was the tenet?

  2. Which environmental indicators do you think are relevant for sustainable development policies? What about the selection of (aggregate) headline indicators?

  3. Do you think indicators could be useful for the implementation of environmental and/or sustainability policies? How? Are they used that way in your country?

  4. Do you think it would be useful if indicators on the environmental performance of your country were published regularly?

Conference participants are invited to submit contributions with personal opinions and/or points of view of the environmental advisory councils on the theme "environmental indicators and sustainable development". It would be useful if you would discuss these or related topics in your council and with your colleagues and bring the results of that discussion along to the conference.

Your council might have done extensive work on indicators. If so, it would be nice if you could present a more thorough paper on the subject, either in one of the workshops or in a plenary session. Please let us know and we will try and fit a (longer) presentation in the programme.

DEADLINES:

7th September 2001: submission of abstracts (or just themes) of max. 300-500 words
26th October 2001: final submission of papers of 2.000 to 3.000 words

The MiNa-Raad would like to prepare all documentation in time for all other participants in order to use it as support documents for the Conference. After the conference, the MiNa-Raad will prepare a final document with the proceedings for distribution to the Councils.

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