Sustainability Reporting Program

URL: http://www.sustreport.org

Measuring Sustainability 

Measuring Sustainability is a new and important section on how to tell if we are achieving sustainable development. To see the new section, please go to our main page, http://www.sustreport.org, and click on the new Measuring Sustainability icon on the upper left corner. 

On the main Measuring Sustainability page you will find two main links. The first leads to details on the first attempt to develop sustainability indicators for Canada. The Environment and Sustainable Development Indicators Initiative [ESDI] of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy is creating a measuring stick for our country’s sustainability performance. The indicators are to show trends in a key set of stocks or capitals — human, environmental and economic. The goal is to encourage people to integrate environmental considerations into economic decision-making. 

The ESDI is one of a small number of projects around the world to measure the sustainability of a country’s economy, not just in financial but in human and ecological terms. Canada’s process began with the February 2000 budget, and is to be completed in the spring of 2003 with the release of the final recommendations. The plan is that the federal government will produce and maintain the sustainability indicators for Canada.

The other section of our new page, A Survey of Measuring Systems, links to a number of other measuring projects now in operation. These include national, provincial and local reports in Canada, including those by governments and non-government organizations. It also provides links to some reports in other countries and to interesting measuring systems, such as the Ecological Footprint and the Genuine Progress Indicator. As well, it provides links to a number of important works on Corporate Environmental and Sustainability Reporting, one of the most active sectors in the reporting field. 

The Measuring Sustainability project was done with the generous support of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy as part of its work in helping people better understand how to measure sustainability performance.

Support from Friends 

The Sustainability Reporting Program wants to acknowledge the generous support of the TD Canada Trust Friends of the Environment Foundation. This organization, which was created by Canada Trust and has been maintained by the Toronto-Dominion Bank since the merger of the two financial institutions, provides funding for environmental projects. You can find a link to Friends of the Environment Foundation on the About the Sustainability Report section of our web site. You can connect to their web site at www.fef.ca.

Other Developments

New section to our site coming 

We are developing an environmental and sustainability timeline, which will track major events in our relationship with the environment. It will provide some quick reference points to the broad sweep of environmental history. 

We are also developing a Great Lakes timeline, which will become part of our Great Lakes section. This is being done in partnership with Pollution Probe, which is hosting a major coastal zones conference in Hamilton, June 23-28, 2002.

[For more information about MANAGING SHARED WATERS Towards Sustainable Transboundary Coastal Ecosystems, see the Pollution Probe web site.

Changes in positions 

Two our strong supporters have recently changed jobs. Anne Kerr, who was manager of Environment Canada’s National Indicators and Assessment Office, is now Chief, National Information for the Commission on Sustainable Development in New York. Anne’s position at Environment Canada is being filled by Risa Smith, who moved from her job as head of State of the Environment reporting for British Columbia. [Watch for a new SOE report from B.C. later this year. You can see their current report on our Measuring Sustainability site.]