What is the
Sustainability
Reporting Program?
What gets measured gets managed.
What gets communicated gets understood.
Sustainability is about meeting human needs and wants while staying within nature’s limits. Sustainability reporting helps us to see if the ways we live and do business are making our environment and therefore our future more or less secure.
The Sustainability Reporting Program is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit organization. It draws on expertise from government, industry, the non-government sector and academe, but does not represent any sector or interest group. It produces the online
Sustainability Report to help Canadians see critical sustainability issues and trends that affect our health, wealth and happiness and that of future generations. The goal is to help people make more informed choices.
Among the questions the report seeks to answer:
- What are the most important changes taking place, and how will they affect us now and over the long term?
- How are we doing at maintaining both human and ecosystem well-being?
- What are sustainable levels of consumption and pollution?
- What kind of legacy are we creating for our children?
Key elements of the report include:
- Information about major sustainability issues, and the driving forces of change.
- Policies, business practices and personal actions affecting sustainability.
- Commitments made toward sustainability, and how we are doing at meeting them.
- Stories and statements illustrating the trends.
- Background analysis and commentary by experts.
- Progress in measuring sustainability.
- Further sources of information.
While this is primarily a Canadian report, it covers global issues that affect Canada, and regional or local issues of national significance.
The Sustainability Reporting Program is a follow-up to the 1997 book published as
Canada and the State of the Planet by Oxford University Press and as Le Canada et l'état de la plančte by Éditions MultiMondes. The Internet-based reporting program was created in collaboration with people from different sectors who agreed on the need for an independent report on the challenges, options and successes of moving to more sustainable forms of development. They included officials from government, industry, the non-government sector and academe, the major sectors that affect sustainability, and have expertise in sustainability information. Support has come from foundations, governments, business, academe and the non-government sector.
Operating Team
Executive Director: Michael Keating
Associate - Communications and Design: John Chenery
Advisors
Jane Barr, Environmental Consultant
David Bell, Senior Scholar, York University
Tammy Gibson, Section Head - Legislation and Intergovernmental Affairs, Sustainable Resource Management Branch, Manitoba Conservation
Trevor Hancock, Health Promotion Consultant
Tony Hodge, Consultant, Applied Sustainability
Anne Kerr, Officer-in-Charge, National Information, Monitoring and Outreach Branch, UN Division for Sustainable Development
Mary MacDonald, Director, Sustainable Development Systems, CH2M Hill Canada
Ron Nielsen, Manager, Sustainability and Strategic Partnerships, Alcan Inc.
Dennis O’Farrell, Head, Research and Development Reporting Branch, National Indicators and Reporting Office, Environment Canada
Ken Ogilvie, Executive Director, Pollution Probe
Carolyn O’Neill, Restoration Programs Officer, Ontario Division, Environment Canada
Katharine Partridge, President, Stakeholder Research Associates Canada Inc.
Mary Pattenden, Director, Climate Change, Pollution Probe
László Pintér, Director, Measurement and Assessment Program, International Institute for Sustainable Development
Risa Smith, Senior Science Advisor, Environment Canada
David Wheeler, Professor and Haub Chair in Business and Sustainability, Schulich School of Business, York University
A great many other experts in Canada and abroad have contributed to this program. These people are all working to gain a better understanding of what sustainability means and how to make it happen in government, business, schools and communities.
Home
Environment Canada
The Laidlaw Foundation
York Centre for Applied Sustainability
Pollution Probe
The Conference Board of Canada
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Health Canada
Statistics Canada
Dupont Canada
