1. Integrating social, environmental and economic dimensions into a monitoring framework
Maria Martinho

2. Summary
Context
What do data tell us about the integration of the three dimensions of sustainable development?
Indicators/measures to monitor sustainable development
Inequality measures
Conclusion

3. Rio+20, HLPGS, post-2015 discussions
Context
Rio+20, HLPGS, post-2015 discussions
Increasing interest in having sustainable development at the core of development
Need to integrate the social, economic and environmental dimensions of development
HLPGS: High Level Panel on Global Sustainability

4. What do data tell us about the integration of the social, economic and environmental dimensions of development?

5. Illustrative example: HDI versus Ecological footprint
HDI is reflecting socio-economic development; ecological footprint is reflecting environmental impact.

6. HDI versus Ecological footprint
So far, in most countries, there has been a trade-off between socio-economic development and environmental protection

7. Is it possible for countries to reach higher levels of social development while keeping a sustainable environmental impact?

8. HDI versus Ecological footprint
Some countries have succeeded in moving higher up in the HDI while keeping within a sustainable ecological footprint
Peru is all the way within the Earth’s biocapacity (2.1 hectares per person).

9. HDI versus Ecological footprint
And others have succeeded to move to a lower ecological footprint while keeping high levels of HDI
Decrease of ecological footprint in Germany has been mainly achieved by moving out of coal (information provided by Global Footprint Network, 2012).

10. What measures can make the inter-linkages between the socio-economic and environmental dimensions visible?

11. Indicators/measures to monitor sustainable development should:
Permit to visualize the environmental implications of socio-economic activities and the welfare implications of imbalances and changes of ecosystems
to promote synergies and avoid trade-offs favouring one dimension over the others
Reflect the complexity of sustainable development in its multiple dimensions
but be simple and user-friendly for policy makers

12. Integrating the 3 dimensions
Indicators on the three dimensions of sustainable development
Social indicators
Health
Education
Hunger
Shelter
etc
Economic indicators
Income
GDP
Debt
Productivity
etc
Environmental indicators
GHG emissions
Land degradation
Water
Forests
etc

13. Integrating the 3 dimensions
Indicators that reflect impacts on all 3 dimensions
eradicating hunger
Social: food security
MDG 1.8, prevalence of underweight children
MDG 1.9, population below a minimum level of dietary energy consumption
Economic: efficient use of water and land
Agricultural output per unit water consumed (CSD indicator), but data are scarce
Environmental: decreased environmental degradation and waste, in food production and consumption
Amount of food waste (FAO)
Use of agricultural pesticides (FDES indicators)
‘Agricultural output per unit water consumed’ was proposed in Indicators of sustainable development: guidelines and methodologies, UNDESA (2001).

14. Integrating the 3 dimensions
Another example:
sustainable energy for all
Social: energy access
Energy use per capita (IEA)
Share of households without electricity or other modern energy services (CSD indicator; collected in household surveys), but data are scarce
Economic: energy efficiency
Energy use per $1000 GDP (IEA)
Environmental: use of renewable and clean sources
Renewable as % of total (IEA)
% of population using solid fuels (WHO)

15. Integrating and balancing the 3 dimensions
Social indicators
Health
Education
etc
Economic indicators
Income
Employment
etc
Environmental indicators
GHG emissions
Land degradation
etc
Social summary measure
Economic summary measure
Environmental summary measure

16. Integrating the 3 dimensions
Summary measures to provide an overall picture of what happens in social, economic and/or environmental dimensions
GDP
Human development index
Ecological footprint, environmental performance index, living planet index
etc
Better life index: 11 topics reflect what the OECD has identified as essential to well-being in terms of material living conditions (housing, income, jobs) and quality of life (community, education, environment, governance, health, life satisfaction, safety and work-life balance).
The Living Planet Index (LPI) is an indicator of the state of global biological diversity, based on trends in vertebrate populations of species from around the world. The Living Planet Index was originally developed by WWF in collaboration with UNEP-WCMC.

17. Integrating and balancing the 3 dimensions
Social indicators
Health
Education
etc
Economic indicators
Income
Employment
etc
Environmental indicators
GHG emissions
Land degradation
etc
Social summary measure
Economic summary measure
Environmental summary measure
How to integrate them?

18. Integrating the 3 dimensions
Measures that favour synergies and penalize trade- offs
Many summary measures do not penalize trade offs
methodology for aggregation: simple average of different indicators
Country
Env
Soc
Eco X
0.1
0.5
0.9 Y
0.4
0.6
Simple average
Both countries, X and Y, have the same average
(Env + Soc + Eco)/3 = 0.5
S = social measure
Eco = economic measure
Env = Environmental measure

19. Integrating the 3 dimensions
Measures that favour synergies and penalize trade- offs
Many summary measures do not penalize trade offs
methodology for aggregation: simple average of different indicators
Country
Env
Soc
Eco X
0.1
0.5
0.9 Y
0.4
0.6
But country X performs much better in the economic dimension at the price of a low environmental performance
S = social measure
Eco = economic measure
Env = Environmental measure
Values closer to one indicate better performance

20. Integrating the three dimensions
Country
Env
Soc
Eco X
0.1
0.5
0.9 Y
0.4
0.6
Simple average
Both countries, X and Y, have the same mean
(Env + Soc + Eco)/3 = 0.5
Geometric mean
Country X: 0.36
Country Y: 0.49 3
Soc × Eco × Env
SD =
Penalized for the economic-environmental trade-off

21. Integrating the 3 dimensions
Measures that favour synergies and penalize trade- offs
Geometric mean
Has been used in the calculation of the human development index since 2011
Better than simple average at penalizing trade-offs

22. Integrating and balancing the 3 dimensions
Social indicators
Health
Education
etc
Economic indicators
Income
Employment
etc
Environmental indicators
GHG emissions
Land degradation
etc
Social summary measure
Economic summary measure
Environmental summary measure
Overall SD measure

23. Inequality measures
Measure disparities across a population of the resources received by that population
Resources: income, land, education, health services, energy, water, etc.
Measures across all population versus disaggregating for specific groups
Across all population: Gini coefficient, Hoover coefficient, % population with access to a service, etc.
For specific groups: disaggregating indicators for women/men, by wealth quintiles, for minorities, for persons with disabilities, etc.

24. Income inequality measures
Increased interest in the SDG discussions
Associated to social negative outcomes, like increased violence, increased adolescent pregnancy rates
Popular/discussed measures
Gini coefficient
Palma index
Poorest quintile's share in national income/consumption

25. Income inequality measures
Popular/discussed measures
Gini coefficient
Intuitive
More sensitive to changes in the middle class
Not immediate to see the situation of the poorest
Palma index
Ratio of the income of top 10% to the bottom 40%
Most equal countries have Palma index close to one
The bottom 40% may improve without improvement of the bottom 10%
Poorest quintile's share in national income/consumption
Cumulative income
Cumulative population

26. Palma index for Brazil

27. Income inequality measures
Popular/discussed measures
Gini coefficient
Intuitive
More sensitive to changes in the middle class
Not immediate to see the situation of the poorest
Palma index
Ratio of the income of top 10% to the bottom 40%
Most equal countries have Palma index close to one
The bottom 40% may improve without improvement of the bottom 10%
Poorest quintile's share in national income/consumption
Can supplement other inequality measures
Cumulative income
Cumulative population

28. Concluding points
Sets of indicators should address the three dimensions of sustainable development
Combining measures can help promote synergies in the three dimensions
geometric means
Many inequality measures around, selection depends on purpose