Indicators:
last revision -
Feb 25, 2008
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Source:
A European System of
Environmental
Pressure Indices
Jochen Jesinghaus
Pressure Indices programme coordinator
European Commission, Joint
Research Centre
European Statistical Library
Dashboard
of Sustainability
The Dashboard of Sustainability software available at the Joint
Research Center manages views of multiple sustainability indicies which
enables a political response (see Policy). The front page shows Social,
Environmental, Ecological and Institutional indicators and rates them
according to scales as shown below in Policy Valuation: Excellent, Very
Good, Good, Fair, Averge, Bad, Very Bad, Serious and Critical..
The following rates the African (Group) Social Index to other
groups (i.e. OECD, EU15) and charts the standing on a scatter
chart. Conveniently the many components of the Social Index are
portayed on the left and color coded according to their place on the
scale. As can be seen Africa is a continent under tremendous stress.
In this next panel Zambia and Sweden are compared for Social Index
status and Equity is shown in the scatter chart as
Gini coefficient of income.
This overall demonstates how Indicators of Sustainability are effective
in deriving and implementing new policy, generating the necessary
responses, and setting political goals.
See particularly Columbia/Yale Environmental Sustainability Index at
SEDAC
(Socioeconomics Data and Applications Center) (new
window, website)
"An Initiative of the Yale
Center for Environmental Law and Policy (YCELP) and the Center for
International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) of Columbia
University, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the
Joint Research Centre of the European Commission."
Summary for Policymakers Brochure
(new window, 716KB, pdf)
"At every level of
development some countries handle their pollution control and natural
resource management issues better than others. Countries above the
regression line show results that exceed income-based expectations;
those below the line are underperforming given their level of
development."
United Nations
United
Nations System-wide Earthwatch (new
window, website)
"The United Nations System-wide Earthwatch
mechanism is a broad UN initiative to coordinate, harmonize and
catalyze environmental observation activities among all UN agencies for
integrated assessment purposes."
::
Indicators (new
window, website)
"Earthwatch is actively involved in
encouraging the development of indicators of environment and
sustainable development, as a way to improve the delivery of
information for decision-making."
Economic and social development (new
window, website)
Division
for Sustainable Development (new
window, website)
"The Division for Sustainable Development provides leadership and is an
authoritative source of expertise within the United Nations system on
sustainable development. It promotes sustainable development as the
substantive secretariat to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development
(CSD) and through technical cooperation and capacity building at
international, regional and national levels. The context for the
Division’s work is the implementation of Agenda 21, the Johannesburg
Plan of Implementation and the Barbados Programme of Action for
Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States."
Indicators of Sustainable Development (new
window, webpage)
"Chapter 40 of Agenda 21 calls on countries and the international
community to develop indicators of sustainable development. Such
indicators are needed to increase focus on sustainable development and
to assist decision-makers at all levels to adopt sound national
sustainable development policies"
United Nations Development Program
Human
Development Reports - Statistics (new
window, webpage)
"The Human Development Report (HDR) usually presents
two types of statistics: the human development indicator tables,
which–led by the human development index (HDI)–provide a global
assessment of country achievements in different areas of human
development (see Index to indicators), and thematic statistical
analysis in the chapters of the HDR."
United Nations Environment Programme
Global Environment Outlook
GEO Data Portal (new
window, website)
"The GEO Data Portal provides report producers with easy access – via
the Internet – to a common and consistent set of datasets from primary
sources (UN and others), while covering a
broad range of environmental and socio-economic themes. The Portal
addresses one of the major concerns expressed ever
since the start of the GEO project – the need for reliable, harmonized
data for global and regional level
environmental assessment and reporting. As of March 2002, the Portal
gives access to some 300 statistical and geographical
datasets at national, sub-regional, regional and global levels.
State-of-the-art functionality for on-line data
visualization and exploration are available for creating graphs, tables
and maps."