Applications
From retrospective to prospective:
- Monitoring, accounting (tracing the story) - learning
- Reporting (telling the story) - communication
- Decision-making, management by objective (shaping the new story) - change
The function of indicators
Indicators can be tools of change, learning and propaganda. The perceived state is an indicator. It is an aggregated and simplified, but still an accurate description of a complex reality. All measures are potential indicators, but not all indicators are quantitative.
Pitfalls in choosing indicators
- Over aggregation – If too many things are lumped together, their combined message may be indecipherable.
- Measuring what is measurable rather than what is important – Everything that is measurable is not a good indicator, e.g. measuring the amount of money that people have rather than the quality of their lives.
- Dependence on a false model – We may think that a measure indicates something, when it actually indicates something else. E.g. we think that the oil price reflects the
abundance of oil, when it actually tells us about the capacity of oil wells relative to
the capacity of oil-consuming devices. - Deliberate falsification – If an index carries bad news, someone may be tempted to
alter it, delay it, change terms or definitions or otherwise suppress it. - Diverting attention from direct experience – Indicators may mesmerize people with
numbers and blind them to their own perception. - Overconfidence – Indicators may lead people to think they know what they are doing
is working, when in fact the indicators may be faulty. - Incompleteness – Indicators are not the real system and may miss many of the
subtleties, beauties, wonders, warnings, diversities, possibilities or perversities of the real system. We lose some information.
Characteristics of ideal SDI
- Clear in value – no uncertainty about which direction is good and bad. o
- Clear in content – easily understandable, with units that make sense.
- Compelling – Interesting, suggestive of effective action.
- Policy relevant
- Feasible – measurable at reasonable cost
- Sufficient – not too much information to comprehend, not too little to give an
adequate picture of the situation. - Appropriate in scale – Not over- or under-aggregated.
- Hierarchical – A user should be able to go into details if desired.
- Leading – So that they can provide information in time to act on it.
Human development index
Several indicators such as life expectancy (years of life), educational level and relative income. All these per capita energy consumptions. An index consists of several indicators.
Ecological footprint
The area of productive land and water ecosystems required to produce the resources that the population consumes and assimilate the wastes that the population produces, wherever on earth the land and water is located.
Gross domestic product
The total market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given year, equal to total consumer, investment and government spending, plus the value of exports, minus the value of imports.
Net national product
The market value of a nation’s goods and services minus depreciation (capital consumption)
Genuine progress indicator
GDP adjusted for factors such as income distribution, adds factors such as the value of household and volunteer work, and subtracts factors such as the costs of crime, pollution and resource depletion.
DPSIR
A causal framework for describing the interactions between society and the environment.
The components are;
▪ Driving forces (industry, tourism…)
▪ Pressures (pollution, population growth…)
▪ States (water quality, air quality…)
▪ Impacts (public health, environmental damage…)
▪ Responses (taxes, environmental laws…)
