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Environmental
Enforcement Indicators
During
its November 2001 meeting in Paris, the INECE Executive Planning
Committee (EPC) adopted the Secretariat's proposal to launch a project
to develop indicators for enforcement and compliance, as part of
the INECE effort to participate in the World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg, South Africa in August-September 2002.
An initial draft proposal for the INECE Indicator Project is being
developed by a Subcommittee of the EPC, and will be presented for
discussion during the Sixth INECE Conference in San Jose, Costa
Rica April 15-19, 2002. The following section describes what is
an “indicator.” Below the indicators definition is a list of thirteen
varied research projects and programs with short descriptions.
For example, below are links to Internet sites that feature environmental
indicators work from the European Commission, Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, and the United States Environmental
Protection Agency.
What
is an indicator?
The
term indicator is rooted in the Latin verb indicare, which
means to disclose or point out, to announce or make publicly known,
or to estimate or put a price on.
[i] In the environmental field, indicators are selected
key statistics or parameters that represent the state of a natural
resource or other aspect of environmental works. Environmental
indicators are important tools for translating and delivering concise,
scientifically credible information in a manner that can be readily
understood and communicated to decision-makers and other intended
audiences. [ii]
If
multiple indicators within the same system are tracked over time
and analyzed in aggregate, we may learn the trends of a larger system. [iii] For example, indicators
of air quality may include NOx and SOx emissions, coal consumption
per capita, vehicles per populated land area. [iv] When analyzed together this information
may be used to assess the effects of air pollution on human health
and ecosystems. To date, environmental indicators have generally
been limited to measuring the health and status of environmental
media like air and water quality, waste management and land use.
Links
to Indicator Projects Worldwide
The
following links are an initial selection of background resources
that represent current work by international and national institutions
on environmental indicators. Some of these organizations are
working toward integrating environmental, social, and economic indicators
in a comprehensive strategy for assessing progress of sustainable
development initiatives, while others are using indicators to measure
the status of environmental media alone. These individual
projects vary in their definitions of indicators, purpose for measuring
indicators, and their intended audiences, however, a brief examination
will inform you of the current happening in the field of environmental
indicators. If you are aware of another source for information
on environmental indicators and would like to share such information
with us, please forward the Internet address and any comments to
ken@inece.org.
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Administrative
Capacity for Implementation and Enforcement of EU Environmental
Policy in the 13 Candidate Countries
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/enlarg/administrativecapacity_en.htm
The implementation of the EU environmental acquis is a necessary
condition for each Candidate Country that is seeking membership
of the Union. While much emphasis has been placed upon the
transposition of EU legislation into the national law of these
countries, the European Commission has made it clear that
such laws must be clearly implemented. In order to ensure
that implementation is effective, it is necessary to have
administrative structures with an adequate capacity to ensure
compliance. This report provides an overview of the current
status of these administrations in order to assist in future
capacity enhancement.
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The
Benefits of Compliance with the Environmental Acquis for the
Candidate Countries
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/enlarg/administrativecapacity_en.htm
The purpose of the study is to assess the range and scale
of benefits accruing to the candidate countries from their
implementation of the EU environmental acquis.
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Canada’s
National Environmental Indicators Programs
http://www.ec.gc.ca/soer-ree/English/Indicators/default.cfm
For a complete view of Canada’s Environmental Indicators Programs,
including reports, updates, and definitions visit this site.
The process of identifying and developing indicators began
when State of the Environment Directorate began focusing work
in this area in 1988-89. In Canada's Green Plan (1990), the
government made a commitment to develop a preliminary national
set of environmental indicators and initiate stakeholder consultations
by mid-1991. A comprehensive set was to be developed with
regular reporting beginning in 1993. More progress has
been made.
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Compliance
Consortium
http://www.complianceconsortium.org
The Compliance Consortium is a collaborative effort among
US state environmental agencies to develop better ways to
measure the environmental and compliance performance of regulated
entities; apply those measures to evaluate the most effective
government strategies for improving compliance and performance
levels; develop improved analytic methods for identifying
compliance problems; share new developments in compliance
measurement and analysis with practitioners throughout the
country so that environmental program effectiveness will continually
improve; and build an institutional capacity among the states
to learn, collectively, from their experiences.
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Environmental
Indicators: A Systematic Approach to Measuring and Reporting
on Environmental Policy Performance in the Context of Sustainable
Development, Allen Hammond, Albert Adriaanse, Eric
Rodenburg, Dick Bryant, Richard Woodward (World Resources
Institute, May 1995)
http://www.wristore.com/wristore/enin.html
This report is an attempt to bridge the knowledge gap between
economic, social and environmental indicators for the benefit
of decision-makers. Empirical indicators of environmentally
sustainable development are increasingly important. They focus
policy-making and provide concrete measures of effectiveness
and, hence, accountability. Unlike economic and social indicators,
which are well developed and widely used, indicators for the
environment are just beginning to be formulated. This report
offers much needed guidance toward that end. Drawing on illustrative
examples and case studies, it provides a conceptual model
for designing environmental indicators and proposes specific,
highly aggregated indicators at a national level.
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Environmental
Indicators for Latin America and the Caribbean Toward Land-Use
Sustainability
http://www.wristore.com/wristore/eninforlatam.html
This report presents the first comprehensive overview of environmental
indicators for Latin America. Using the "pressure-state-response"
approach now widely recognized by industrialized countries,
the authors compiles indicators on population, energy, food,
and agriculture, and economic production. He shows how these
human activities are linked to rapid changes in key components
of the region's natural resource base - forests and rangelands,
biodiversity, freshwater, climate and coastal resources. Indicator
data is provided for individual countries as well as for Central
America, the Caribbean, South America, and the entire Latin
American Region.
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European
Environment Agency: Environment Signals 2001
http://reports.eea.eu.int/signals-2001/en
Environmental signals 2001 is the second issue in the series
of regular indicator-based reports produced by the European
Environment Agency for high-level policy-makers in EEA member
countries and the European Union. The main aim is to present
key environmental indicators in order to report, on a regular
and consistent basis, on progress in a number of policy areas
at the European level. The report also presents a benchmark
of countries' performance ('name and shame, name and fame').
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Interagency
Working Group on Sustainable Development Indicators
http://www.sustainablemeasures.com/Database/IWGSD.html
"Sustainable Development in the United States, An Experimental
Set of Indicators" is a report of sustainable development
indicators for the United States. Sustainable development
is often defined as “development that meets the needs of the
current generation without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their needs.”
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International
Institute for Sustainable Development
http://iisd1.iisd.ca/measure/default.htm
The International Institute for Sustainable Development strategic
objective on measurement and indicators is to develop robust
sets of indicators for public and private sector decision-makers
to measure progress toward sustainable development and to
build an international consensus to promote their use.
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Measures
of Success of Compliance and Enforcement
Two
documents from the proceedings of the Fourth International
Conference on Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (1)
Measuring
the Success of Compliance and Enforcement Programs, 
and
(2) Summary
of Workshop: Measures of Success.
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OECD:
Home Environmental Performance, Indicators and Outlooks
http://www.oecd.org/oecd/pages/home/displaygeneral/0,3380,EN-home-567-nodirectorate-no-no-no-21,FF.html
Understanding past and future environmental trends is
essential for setting priorities. OECD undertakes outlooks
of environmental trends, and works with its countries to develop
principles, guidelines and strategies for effective management
of the main environmental problems they face. This web
site has links to two indicators documents (1) OECD Environmental
Indicators: Toward Sustainable Development 2001, and (2) Key
Environmental Indicators 2001.
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United
Nations Statistics Division: List of environmental and related
socioeconomic indicators
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/ENVIRONMENT/indicators.htm
UNSD developed a list of environmental indicators in collaboration
with the Inter-governmental Working Group on the Advancement
of Environment Statistics. The fourth meeting of the Working
Group (Stockholm, 6 - 10 February 1995) agreed on the List
of environmental and related socioeconomic indicators. The
Statistical Commission, at its twenty-eighth session (New
York, 27 February - 3 March 1995), approved this list for
international compilation by UNSD.
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US
EPA FY 2001 Enforcement and Compliance Results
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/planning/results/press/2001eoy/2001graphs.html
EPA released data on its enforcement and compliance
assurance results for FY 2001 on January 31, 2002, which included
record-setting amounts of money violators have committed to
environmental cleanups and restoration, and for projects to
protect the environment and human health beyond injunctive
relief, and to record penalty assessments.
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[i] Hammond, Adriaanse, Rodenburg, Bryant, Woodward, Environmental
Indicators: A Systematic Approach to Measuring and Reporting on
Environmental Policy Performance in the Context of Sustainable Development,
1 World Resources Institute, May 1995
[ii] Canada’s National Environmental Indicators Series, http://www.ec.gc.ca/Ind/English/History/histor_e.htm
[iv] World Economic Forum's Global Leaders for Tomorrow Environment
Task Force, The Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, and
the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information
Network, Environmental Sustainability Index, Table A6.1, 2002
Background
research notes of the INECE Secretariat on document reviews
Background
research of environmental compliance and enforcement began with
the identification of states and institutions that engage in environmental
efforts. Specifically, we looked at states and institutions that
formulate or require environmental provisions or evaluate the status
of jurisdictions’ natural resources. Next, we read documents and
reports that discussed compliance and enforcement issues. For example,
we reviewed state handbooks on environmental compliance and enforcement
techniques, ministry annual reports to secretariats of multilateral
environmental agreements, reports on environmental media, and reports
of capacity building measures for compliance and enforcement. Below
are links to one-page reviews of the documents that we reviewed
for background research on environmental compliance and enforcement
efforts.
Pilot
Environmental Sustainability Index
The
Pilot Environmental Sustainability Index is a first to attempt
to measure the ability of economies to achieve environmental sustainability.
Toward
Data Driven Environmentalism: The Environmental Sustainability
Index
In
this article Daniel Esty reviews the Pilot Environmental Sustainability
Index. Esty says to forward the environmental sustainability
decisions need to be based on data and analysis.
Handbook
for the Implementation of EU Environmental Legislation
Produced
by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Environmental
Protection, the Handbook is designed to provide a planning framework,
and step-by-step guidance, on the approaches and specific activities
required to implement EC environmental legislation.
Sustainability
Reporting Guidelines on Economic, Environmental, and Social Performance
The
Global Reporting Initiative (“GRI”) is an effort to establish
uniform reporting guidelines for varying organizations (primarily
businesses) to report on environmental, social, and economic dimensions
of their activities.
OECD
Environmental Performance Reviews - A Practical Introduction
The
Practical Introduction to OECD Environmental Performance Reviews
outlines the process for conducting OECD country performance reviews.
Progress
Monitoring Manual - Progress Monitoring on Approximation in the
Candidate Countries of Central and Eastern Europe A manual
for member states of the EU to report via the Reporting Directive
system.
Elements
of Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Programs Worldwide
This is an internal document that presents information gathered
about the major elements of environmental compliance and enforcement
Elements of Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Programs
Worldwide.
Environmental
Indicators A Systematic Approach to Measuring and Reporting on
Environmental Policy Performance in the Context of Sustainable
Development
Unlike
economic and social indicators, which are well-developed and widely
used, indicators for the environment are just beginning to be
formulated. This report offers much needed guidance toward that
end. Drawing on illustrative examples and case studies, it provides
a conceptual model for designing environmental indicators and
proposes specific, highly aggregated indicators at a national
level.
Environmental
Indicators for Latin America and the Caribbean Toward Land-Use
Sustainability
WRI
(Spanish and English available)
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