Environmental Indicators
Professor Bedrich Moldan provided a deeper exploration of environmental indicators, in particular in the DPSIR (driving force, pressure, state, impact, response) framework developed from the work of the OECD. He provided examples from the issue of transport for each kind of indicator. However technical issues are only part of the story, since ethics underly any attempt to balance benefits and harm. Such value judgments are usually made at a political level in parliaments.
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Indicators
Professor Arjen Wals explored indicators more deeply in the context of Education for Sustainable Development, and specifically the UNESCO Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. He asked what inspires learning, dialogue and education? Country rankings can have an impact, but it is hard to have a universal framework meaningful to every country. Terms have different meanings. Monitoring and evaluation can be accountability- or outcome-based, or learning- or process-based. Post-normal science is value-laden, and contested since there is no agreement on values. Test-driven education has been marginalized because so much that is important is unmeasurable, hence the interest in values-based indicators.
Positioning of WE VALUE indicators in relation to conventional indicators of sustainable development
Dr Tomas Hák and Svatava Jarouskova reported on a content analysis of well-known indicators of well-being and sustainable development, together with their underlying methodologies, to compare them with the newly-developed WE VALUE indicators that constitute a major output of the EU-funded ESDinds Project. Looking at environmental, economic and social indicators at the international, national and local/project levels, there were no environmental values-based indicators. At the international level, there was only one explicit social values-based indicator; at the national level a few explicit values-based social and economic indicators; and at the local level a few implicit social and economic indicators. The values-based indicators developed and tested within ESDinds clearly differ from conventional sustainable development indicators, so they can supplement and enrich one another.
The Quadruple Bottom Line (4BL) and holistic perspectives on sustainability – lessons from the social enterprise sector regarding values, strategies & social impact measurement
Dr Jim McLoughlin presented a holistic impact measurement methodology suitable for all organizations interested in measuring sustainability and developing strategic management capabilities. He advocated a quadruple bottom line (4BL) impact framework including social, environmental, financial and economic dimensions, which is incorporated into the holistic SIMPLE (Social Impact for Local Economies) impact measurement model. The model, co-developed by the Brighton Business School’s CUBIST research group and Social Enterprise London, was initially designed to provide the conceptual and methodological underpinnings of a training programme for social enterprises, and has subsequently been used to embed impact systems in social enterprise organisations. The SIMPLE impact model offers a 5 step approach to impact measurement called Scope it; Map it; Track it; Tell it and Embed it. He also explored how micro-level organisational impact reporting should be linked to macro-level societal sustainable measures of performance - effectively a total systems approach - and, in addition, how the social enterprise sector can be an important component in transforming society to a more sustainable future. See powerpoint presentation (2.8mb).
The Sustainable Self: a personal approach to education for sustainability
Dr Paul Murray described the approach used in his forthcoming book "The Sustainable Self". Many professions see education for sustainability as equipping individuals with the technical knowledge and skills they need to deliver 'sustainable' solutions without engaging them at a personal level with the concept of sustainability and the issues that underlie it. Yet if we do not feel engaged with a problem, we are unlikely to act to resolve it. With this in mind, values-centred training techniques were developed at the University of Plymouth to help translate sustainability from an abstract and distant idea into something real, meaningful and personally important. The process seeks to pump-prime the cultivation of six key attributes, which are: awareness of the problems and our personal role in their resolution, a deep motivation to live and work more sustainably, a sense of personal empowerment to act, a baseline understanding of the core themes underlying sustainability, the cultivation of skillful means, and engaging in pro-sustainability practices, personally and professionally. Underlying the training programme is the conviction that what is needed is not so much a change in values, but a recognition and mobilization of our deepest core values and attitudes, which invariably align extremely closely with sustainability ideals. See powerpoint presentation (3.7mb).