1. Quality criteria for official statistics
Relevance: the degree to which statistics meet current and potential needs of the users
Accuracy: the closeness of estimates to the unknown true values
Timeliness: the period between the availability of the information and the event or phenomenon it describes
Punctuality: the delay between the date of the release of the data and the target date (the date by which the data should have been delivered
Accessibility and clarity: the conditions and modalities by which users can obtain, use and interpret data
Comparability: the measurement of the impact of differences in applied statistical concepts, measurement tools and procedures where statistics are compared between geographical areas, sectoral domains or over time
Coherence: the adequacy of the data to be reliably combined in different ways and for various uses

2. Headline indicators : SDI theme Headline indicator
EU-27 evaluation of change
Socioeconomic development
Real GDP per capita
Sustainable consumption and production
Resource productivity
Social inclusion
Risk of poverty or social exclusion (*)
Demographic changes
Employment rate of older workers
Public health
Life expectancy and healthy life years (**)
Climate change and energy
Greenhouse gas emissions
Consumption of renewables (***)
Sustainable transport
Energy consumption of transport relative to GDP
Natural resources
Abundance of common birds (****)
Conservation of fish stocks
Global partnership
Official Development Assistance
Good governance
[No headline indicator] :

3. Evaluation of the changes for indicators without quantitative target (case of desired direction: growth)
Average annual growth rate > 1% (in absolute terms)  clearly favourable/unfavourable
0% < average annual growth rate (in absolute terms) < 1%  moderately favourable/unfavourable
¾ of the SDIs evaluated with this method

4. Evaluation of the changes for indicators with quantitative target
Theoretical target 'path'  the average annual growth rate (in %) between 2000 and the latest year for which data are available is calculated, as a proportion of the theoretical average annual growth rate that would be required to meet the target (in the target year)
Average annual growth rate > =100%  on the target path  clearly favourable/unfavourable
80% < average annual growth rate < 100%  close to target path  moderately favourable
Average annual growth rate < 80%  far from the target path  moderately unfavourable
Clearly unfavourable  when changes are moving in the wrong direction, away from the target path
20% of the SDIs evaluated with this method

5. Evaluation of decoupling Example of Resource productivity - Changes since 2000
Indicator/year
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Resource productivity
100
102.5
105.0
107.4
105.8
106.6
GDP
102.0
103.3
104.6
107.3
109.4
112.9
116.3
Domestic material consumption (DMC)
99.0
97.8
97.5
102.2
107.9
No decoupling would have occurred if DMC would have increased as much or more than the GDP
Relative decoupling took place because DMC increased less than GDP
Indicators intended to measure decoupling  evaluated according to the extent to which decoupling occurred
 how far the connection between a particular variable and economic growth has been broken
Decoupling occurs when the growth rate of the driving force (GDP) exceeds the growth rate of the environmental pressure over a certain timeframe
Absolute decoupling:
The pressure on environment is stable or decreasing while the economic driving force is growing
Clearly favourable
Relative decoupling:
The pressure on environment increases but at a lower rate than the growth of the economic variable
Moderately unfavourable
No decoupling:
The pressure on environment increases at the same or a higher rate than the growth of the economic variable
Clearly unfavourable
Indicators evaluated with this method:
Energy intensity (Socioeconomic development)
Resource productivity (Sustainable consumption and production)
Greenhouse gas emissions intensity of energy consumption (Climate change and energy)
Energy consumption of the transport relative to GDP (Sustainable transport)
Volumes of freight and passenger transport relative to GDP (Sustainable transport)
Absolute decoupling would have occurred if DMC would have been stable or would have decreased 5