The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide - Democrats Against UN ...

The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide
Many communities are attempting to develop indicators to measure their progress towards sustainability. As described below,
measuring sustainability through the use of simple indicators may be fraught with difficulties. Although no method is fully adequate
to evaluate whether a community is truly becoming more or less sustainable, probably the best method is the performance of a
detailed audit of actual conditions in the community, such as a State of the Environment Report. Further discussion on this matter
can be found in section 6.4.
While indicators are an effective tool to measure performance in implementing an Action Plan, they are an unreliable way
to evaluate sustainability itself.
6.2 Performance Measurement
In addition to reporting, performance evaluation requires specific tools to measure the impacts of actions. Indicators are a
measurement tool that can be used cost-effectively to permit any interested stakeholder to evaluate, on an ongoing basis, the
performance of a community relative to its established performance targets and commitments.
Indicators are measures of conditions that are accepted by a community as valid criteria for evaluating change. The most common
challenge in developing a set of indicators is getting and maintaining agreement about which measures are accurate, relevant, and
valid to diverse local stakeholders. This challenge is greatly reduced if a performance-oriented Action Plan, as described in chapter
4, has been prepared. Such an Action Plan establishes the agreed-upon performance targets that will be used to both guide action and
evaluate performance. These targets effectively define the indicators that can be used to measure future performance. The
performance evaluation approach developed by the city of Santa Monica in California illustrates this point. Santa Monica’s
Sustainable City Program established a series of targets to be achieved in fulfilling each goal in their action plan. Then, in order to
evaluate the attainment of targets, the program established a performance indicator for each target. The relationship between goals,
targets, and performance indicators in Santa Monica’s program can be readily understood in Figure 17 (chapter 4).
Develop indicators for each of the targets and triggers specified in the Action Plan, and use these indicators to evaluate
and report on performance.
The following example (from 4.2.4) illustrates how goals, targets, triggers, and indicators can be integrated together to evaluate
performance in the implementation of an Action Plan.
ACTION PLAN GOAL:
To promote technologies, products, and practices that reduce the use of non-renewable resources and the creation and disposal of
wastes.
ACTION PLAN TARGET:
By 2010, reduce the generation of household solid waste by 50 percent from 1995 levels.
ACTION PLAN TRIGGER:
If household solid waste is not reduced by 25 percent of 1995 levels by 2000, then volume-based waste collection charges will be
instituted.
PERFORMANCE INDICATOR:
Average annual volume of solid waste generated per household.
In this example, the target itself defines what indicators are used to evaluate performance. The primary issue that needs to be
addressed in creating the indicator is exactly how “solid waste” will be measured and who will do the measuring. Worksheet 7
(chapter 5) provides a table for listing the targets, triggers, and possible performance indicators in your local Action Plan. Box E
discusses the effective use of indicators by comparing three different programs.
BOX E:
The Effective Use of Indicators
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