Better tools needed for measuring sustainable development
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Ulla Rosenström
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In Finland and elsewhere in the world, the sustainable development has been estimated by using various indicators. Indicators make it possible to present the seemingly abstract sustainable development as clear trends, especially for the needs of decision-makers. However, indicators should be enhanced and made more user-friendly, in order to increase their efficiency. Ulla Rosenström from Finnish Environment Institute will present her doctoral thesis on indicators on Friday at the University of Helsinki.
The last twenty years have seen many indicators for sustainable development. There are indicators for various levels – international, national, and regional indicators. Considerable efforts have been devoted to choosing the indicators and acquiring statistical data, whereas less attention has been paid to the users and their needs.
The doctoral thesis compares two indicator projects: The Finnish national indicators for sustainable development and the sociocultural indicators for eco-efficiency in the Kymenlaakso region. The most significant problems turned out to be that users were unaware of the existence of indicators and that the indicators were not suitable for their needs. Irrelevance of indicators, poor presentation techniques, poor quality of statistical figures, absence of users at the indicator development work, lack of communication plans, and problems in maintenance and updating of the indicators have been the main causes of these problems.
Limited use of indicators in decision-making
In addition to an analysis of the indicator processes, the thesis contains 38 interviews of decision-makers - members of the parliament, their assistants, and high officials. Based on the interviews it seems that the most important role of indicators in decision-making is to help the users to deepen their understanding of sustainable development issues. There is very little evidence of direct use of indicators as support for decision-making. Other users as well, such as media, researchers, students and teachers, have mainly utilized the sustainable development indicators for the purpose of learning. Decision-makers regarded their own speeches and presentations as the most important use of the indicators.
The usability of indicators could be enhanced if the needs of decision-makers were taken into account when indicators are planned. Moreover, the timing of various themes should be considered so that they would connect with the political discussion. Decision-makers, particularly politicians, have very strong preconceptions about what kinds of information they want to use. The best way to increase the use of indicators is to make sure that their information content is available to everyone who is interested in sustainable development issues. The political discussion will force even the politicians to pay attention to information they would usually ignore.
More information
Ms Ulla Rosenström, senior research scientist, Finnish Environment Institute, phone 040 826 1437, firstname.lastname@ymparisto.fi
Photo for use of the media
Rosenström Ulla (jpg, 1163 kb)
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