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Examensarbete i Hållbar Utveckling 159
Measuring Sustainable Cities: An approach for assessing
municipal-level sustainability indicator systems in Sweden
Measuring Sustainable Cities:An approach for assessing municipal-level sustainability indicator systems in Sweden
Lakin Anderson
Lakin Anderson
Uppsala University, Department of Earth SciencesMaster Thesis E, in Sustainable Development, 30 creditsPrinted at Department of Earth Sciences,Geotryckeriet, Uppsala University, Uppsala, 2013.
Master’s ThesisE, 30 credits
Supervisor: Lars RydénEvaluator: Madeleine Granvik
Examensarbete i Hållbar Utveckling 159
Measuring Sustainable Cities: An approach for assessing
municipal-level sustainability indicator systems in Sweden
Lakin Anderson
Contents 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Aim of the Study and Research Questions ........................................................................ 2
2. Theoretical Approach to Sustainable Development ............................................................. 3
2.1. Chapter Overview ............................................................................................................. 3
2.2. Sustainable Development .................................................................................................. 3
2.3. Systems Theory and Systems Thinking ............................................................................ 5
2.4. Strong vs. Weak Sustainability ......................................................................................... 6
2.5. The Fourth Sphere ............................................................................................................. 7
3. Sustainable Development Indicators .................................................................................... 8
3.1. Chapter Overview ............................................................................................................. 8
3.2. What are Indicators?.......................................................................................................... 8
3.3. Why Sustainable Development Indicators? ....................................................................... 8
3.4. Criteria for Selecting Sustainability Indicators ................................................................. 9
3.5. The Ambiguous Relationship Between Indicators and Policy ........................................ 10
3.6. Sustainable Development Indicators for the Local Level................................................ 12
3.7. An Ocean of Literature and Methods .............................................................................. 13
4. Methodology ...................................................................................................................... 14
4.1. Context ............................................................................................................................ 14
4.2. Research Design .............................................................................................................. 14
4.3. Interviewing .................................................................................................................... 14
4.4. Other Data Gathering ...................................................................................................... 15
4.5. Case Study Method ......................................................................................................... 16
4.6. Delimitations of the Study ............................................................................................... 16
4.7. Geographical Scale .......................................................................................................... 17
5. An Approach for Assessing SDI as Tools for Municipality Governments ........................ 17
5.1. Chapter Overview ........................................................................................................... 17
5.2. Developing the Focus Areas............................................................................................ 17
5.3. Focus Area 1: Vision ....................................................................................................... 19
5.4. Focus Area 2: Indicator Framework ................................................................................ 20
5.5. Focus Area 3: Indicator Selection ................................................................................... 23
5.6. Focus Area 4: Stakeholder Participation ......................................................................... 25
5.7. Focus Area 5: Communication Strategy and Visual Design ........................................... 27
6. Case Study: Falun Municipality, Sweden .......................................................................... 30
6.1. Chapter Overview ........................................................................................................... 30
6.2. The Swedish Context ...................................................................................................... 30
6.3. Falun Municipality .......................................................................................................... 34
6.4. The Role of Indicators ..................................................................................................... 36
6.5. Falun‘s Sustainable Development Indicators .................................................................. 37
6.6. Vision .............................................................................................................................. 37
6.7. Framework ...................................................................................................................... 41
6.8. Indicator Selection .......................................................................................................... 42
6.9. Stakeholder Participation ................................................................................................ 44
6.10. Communication Strategy and Visual Design ................................................................ 46
7. Discussion .......................................................................................................................... 47
8. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 55
9. Towards a Methodology for Assessing Established SDI Systems ..................................... 56
10. References ........................................................................................................................ 57
11. Appendices ....................................................................................................................... 64
11.1. List of Interviews .......................................................................................................... 64
11.2. Interview Brief sent to Interviewees and used in Interviews ......................................... 65
i
Measuring Sustainable Cities:
An approach for assessing municipal-level
sustainability indicator systems in Sweden
LAKIN ANDERSON | [email protected]
Anderson, L. (2013). ‗Measuring Sustainable Cities: An approach for assessing municipal-
level sustainability indicator systems in Sweden‘, Master of Science Thesis in Sustainable
Development at Uppsala University, No. 159, 65pp, 30 ECTS/hp.
Abstract: It is now common for managers, strategists, planners and citizens at municipality
level to use sustainable development indicators (SDI) to help them work towards sustainable
development. SDI constitute an information system for monitoring, reporting and decision-
making which in theory should help us decide how to intervene in the natural, economic, social
and political systems we interact with every day for a better, more sustainable future. But not
all indicator systems are created equal. Some are better tools than others when it comes to
helping cities and municipalities in their work, and thousands of municipalities use SDI
worldwide. How then should we assess the effectiveness of existing indicators for
municipalities?
To answer this question I develop an approach for assessing the design, creation and
communication of SDI, and then apply it in a case study in Falun Municipality in Dalarna
County, Sweden. The approach assesses five aspects of SDI: ‗Vision‘, ‗Framework‘, ‗Indicator
Selection‘, ‗Stakeholder Participation‘ and ‗Communication‘. The findings in Falun suggest
that SDI have been essential to the implementation of sustainable development in policy and
action in general municipal operations, but the municipality has not moved beyond a
‗conventional‘ sustainable development vision and monitoring strategy. The benefits and
constraints of the current indicator system are then discussed using the above approach, and the
thesis finishes by offering suggestions for the municipality going forward. I also point to the
need to develop a standardised assessment method for thousands of municipalities using
indicator systems used today, to help in ongoing review and improvement of SDI in practice.
Keywords: Green Cities, Sustainable Cities, Sustainability Indicators, Environmental
Accounting, Monitoring and Evaluation, Urban And Regional Planning, Sustainable
Development, Sweden
Lakin Anderson, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Villavägen 16, SE- 752 36
Uppsala, Sweden.
ii
Measuring Sustainable Cities:
An approach for assessing municipal-level
sustainability indicator systems in Sweden
LAKIN ANDERSON | [email protected]
Anderson, L. (2013). ‗Measuring Sustainable Cities: An approach for assessing municipal-
level sustainability indicator systems in Sweden‘, Master of Science Thesis in Sustainable
Development at Uppsala University, No. 159, 65pp, 30 ECTS/hp.
Popular Summary: It is now common for managers, strategists, planners and citizens at
municipality level to use sustainable development indicators (SDI) to help them work towards
sustainable development. SDI are trends or signals that can tell us objectively if we are moving
towards or away from our sustainability goals. They are an information system for monitoring,
reporting and decision-making, which in theory should help us decide how to intervene in the
natural, economic, social and political systems we interact with every day, so that we may
realise a better, more sustainable future. For example, we may monitor the number of people
using public transport to see if we are reaching emissions targets, or monitor the bee population
to make sure we keep these essential pollinators in our urban and rural areas. Thousands of
municipalities use indicators worldwide. But not all indicator systems are created equal. Some
SDI are better ‗tools‘ than others when it comes to helping cities and municipalities in their
work. How then should we assess their effectiveness?
To answer this question I develop an approach for assessing the design, creation and
communication of existing SDI, and then apply it in a case study in Falun Municipality in
Dalarna, Sweden. Sweden has long been considered a world leader in sustainable development
at municipality/city level. The thesis finishes with a discussion of benefits and constraints of
Falun‘s current indicator system and its use. It also gives suggestions about how the
municipality may be able to make improvements, such as establishing a more decisive vision,
and strategically reducing the number of SDI. Finally, I suggest that there is a need to develop
a standard way to assess the indicator systems used by municipalities today, to help in ongoing
review and improvement of SDI in practice.
Keywords: Green Cities, Sustainable Cities, Sustainability Indicators, Environmental
Accounting, Monitoring and Evaluation, Urban And Regional Planning, Sustainable
Development, Sweden
-
Lakin Anderson, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Villavägen 16, SE- 752 36
Uppsala, Sweden.
iii
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Thomas Sundin, my contact at Falun Municipality, for allowing me access to the
internal workings of a Swedish municipality, and for his advice and insight. Thanks to my
supervisor, Prof. Lars Rydén, for providing advice, guidance and the wisdom of experience.
Thanks to Madeline Granvik for her critical eye. Thanks to Alan AtKisson, Hans Liljenström,
Lars Hallgren and Malin Östman for their inspiring and insightful teaching. Thanks to Chris
and Sonja Anderson. Thanks also to Felix Peniche, Lina Blazeveciute, Alex Campbell,
Johannes Michel, Olga Zukhova, Elisabeth Almgren and Asmir Prepic. A final
acknowledgement and thank you to Sweden and its citizens for their once-free university
education system and pioneering work towards sustainable development.
Thesis Supervisor:
Professor Lars Rydén, Director Emeritus of the Baltic University Programme, Centre for
Sustainable Development, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Thesis Evaluator:
Madeline Granvik, Assistant Professor in Planning (sustainable development and management
of urban-rural interactions), Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University
of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala, Sweden.
iv
List of Figures
Figure 1. The 'Three Spheres' Sustainability framework ............................................................ 4
Figure 2. A 'systems view' of SD placing the three spheres as hierarchically embedded ........... 5
Figure 3. Governance for sustainability: The ‗Four Spheres‘ framework for sustainabilty
analysis (adapted from O,connor, 2006). .................................................................................... 7
Figure 4. Example of goal-based framework created for the City of Sydney, Australia. .......... 20
Figure 5. The DPSIR Framework, adapted from EEA (1999) .................................................. 22
Figure 6. Stages of the policy and planning process. Adapted from Perdicoúlis & Glasson
(2011) ........................................................................................................................................ 23
Figure 7. Example of causal modelling using DPSIR (US Environmental Protection Agency
[Epa.gov], 2013) ....................................................................................................................... 24
Figure 8. Adjusting the amount of data to the audience. ........................................................... 27
Figure 9. Three methods of visual integration for SDI. Clockwise from top left: ‗Dashboard of
Sustainability‘ (IISD, 2007); AMOEBA indicator chart (Adapted from Bell & Morse, 2008);
‗Integrated Sustainability Framework Atlas‘ (Insight East, 2012) ............................................ 28
Figure 10. Map of Sweden and the Baltic Sea with Falun marked in Red ................................ 31
Figure 11. Falun City Centre, 2012 ........................................................................................... 35
Figure 12. Lake Främby, Falun, 2012 ....................................................................................... 36
Figure 13. Structure of Falun Municipality SD Programs and Indicator Monitoring ............... 42
Figure 14. Example of Falun Municipality‘s annual sustainable development reporting. (image:
Falun Municpality, 2011) .......................................................................................................... 47
Figure 15. Example of AMOEBA chart with indicators (adapted from Växjö Kommun,
2011:14) .................................................................................................................................... 54
Figure 16. Commonly suggested 'clean slate' approach to establishing SDI (top) compared to
an approach to an already operational indicator system with ties to organisational practice
(bottom). ................................................................................................................................... 56
List of Tables
Table 1. Criteria for selecting sustaiunable development indicators. ........................................ 10
Table 2. Overview of Relevant Indicators for Swedish Municipalities .................................... 33
Table 3. Falun's 'Public Health Program' subgoals and indicators. ........................................... 38
Table 4. Falun's 'Environmental Program' subgoals and indicators. ......................................... 39
Table 5. Falun's 'Growth Program' subgoals and indicators. 40
Table 6. Summary of discussion, conclusions and suggestions by focus area. ......................... 52
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1. Introduction
Managers, politicians, scientists, investors, consumers, CEOs, city governments and other
important decision-makers are increasingly asked to deal with new levels of complexity as the
links between human activity and the future of earth‘s natural systems become common
knowledge. The past two decades have seen a growing international acknowledgement that
‗business as usual‘ cannot continue. Humanity cannot go on externalising costs to nature as if
we will never receive the bill.
In developed countries, and especially in Europe, the basic concept of ‗sustainable
development‘ has taken hold in important places; company boardrooms, government buildings
at all levels, the grocery store aisle. It is now possible to say without too much naivety that
sustainability‘s basic demand we address multiple dimensions of reality when we make
decisions – at the very least the social, economic and environmental – has begun to change the
world. Yet there is still a long way to go for us to have a hope of dealing with the costs we
know are coming. The barriers to a sustainable future for humanity are high, and daunting.
Over half the world‘s population now lives in urban areas. In Europe, the EEA estimates that
by 2020, 80% of all Europeans will live in cities (EEA, 2006). It is now well established that
the systems and physical landscapes of city-dwellers‘ everyday lives are completely integrated
into national and global sustainability potentials and problems (UN-Habitat, 1996; Costanza et
al., 2007; Moore, 2011). As the modern epicentres of development, urban areas will have to be
a central concern of any successful global push for sustainable ways of living. Clean water,
greenhouse gas emissions from combusting petrol and other fossil fuels, biodiversity loss from
forest destruction and ecosystem degradation, the proliferation and spread of chemicals and
waste, political engagement in democracy, etc. are all within the reach for actors at the local
level. As such, finding effective methods for implementing and measuring sustainability at the
municipal/local level has the urgency of crisis.
Faced with such immense structural and systemic challenges, decision-makers need ways to
understand complexity. The use of indicators for sustainable development is now standard for
governments and organisations aiming to ‗make sustainable development happen‘. Indicators
are data points which measure trends over time in a given system or set of systems (like a city,
industry, supply chain, etc., and ideally tell if we are moving away or towards a desired future
state. Indicators can thus help us choose between different development paths we might take.
A huge amount of work has been put into research, development and implementation of
indicators over the last 20 years, so much so that some now refer to an ‗indicator industry‘
(Hezri, 2004). Approaching the use of indicators for sustainable development at the local level
puts one at the intersection of different fields. Inherent to the topic is the meeting of systems
modeling and information systems, urban and rural regional and city planning, and the reality
of a local political context.
As Hezri (2004) suggests, two sides of the coin are important here. The techno-scientific
design side of indicators (choices made when initially selecting and establishing indicators),
and their use by actors in practice (how we define ‗use‘, and how decisions are actually taken).
The relationship between the two is far from clear in current indicator literature. This thesis
approaches the effectiveness of indicators as tools from SD mainly from the ‗design side‘. The
views of actors within the municipal authority are taken into account, but the act of actual
decision making is not considered in depth. This is important to recognise, as the influence of
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indicators on decisions, especially those related to policy, is not a linear process. The theory
that the path to making better decisions lies in simply having the right data is insufficient to
address the full policy and planning context, a fact which can often be overlooked in more
technically oriented indicator research and work (Hezri & Hassan, 2004). Nevertheless, the
decisions made on the design side of indicators are essential to their effectiveness as tools for
SD work (Bell & Morse, 2003).
Sweden is widely recognised as a global leader in sustainable development. Swedish
municipalities were among the first in the world to adopt Agenda 21 principles and begin
taking meaningful action towards sustainability at local level. A survey taken in 2006 showed
over 60% of municipality authorities in Sweden are carrying out environmental reporting
(SALAR, 2009). Some have now expanded beyond environmental reporting and into
environmental accounting and 'EcoBudgeting'. However, not all indicators are created equal.
The thousands of municipal level governments world-wide now using indicators do so in a
variety of ways, which can be seen as a massive, ongoing experiment in sustainability
management. As Holden (2006: 170) remarks, ―the means by which urban indicator projects
can encourage a synoptic view, act as levers for strategic change, and facilitate sustainable
development, remains to be discovered‖.
This thesis adds to the discussion on indicators at the local level by attempting to develop an
approach for assessing the efficacy of sustainability indicator systems for implementing
sustainable development at municipal-level. This approach is then applied to an existing case, a
Swedish Municipality, with a goal of finding areas which could be improved for better overall
sustainability strategy. The case under study in this thesis is Falun, a mid-sized Swedish
municipality with 65, 000 residents located north of Stockholm in central Sweden.
1.1. Aim of the Study and Research Questions
In this thesis I develop an approach for assessing the design, creation and communication of
Sustainable Development Indicators (SDI) for the municipal/city level, and apply it in a case
study of Falun Municipality, Sweden. The purpose of the case study is to gain insight into the
implementation of SDI in practice at the municipality level and to identify problems and
opportunities in using SDI for the Municipality going forward.
The thesis approaches Falun‘s SDI as a tool for assisting municipalities in achieving
sustainable development, the efficacy of which depends on important elements of design and
communication. Here it is important to distinguish between two sides of a coin: the ‗techno-
scientific design‘ side of indicators, and then their actual ‗use in practice‘. The relationship
between these two sides is not well established in literature and not necessarily linear (I discuss
this further in section 3.4 of the thesis). While this thesis does largely approach SDI from the
techno-scientific/design side, I refer often to their practical use where possible.
The central research questions are:
1. How should we assess existing sustainable development indicator systems being used at
the municipal level?
2. Are Falun‘s sustainable development indicators effective tools for working towards
sustainable development in the Municipality?
3. What are the most important issues for the Municipality in improving its use of SDI in
strategy and decision making in future?
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In order to answer these questions, the thesis looks at the current design, creation and use of
indicators in Falun in five ‗focus areas‘, an approach described in detail in Chapter 5. I also
develop a sub-set of questions to assess the effectiveness of the municipality‘s use of SDI, one
for each area, which are listed in brief below.
1. Formulating a Vision of SD
Question for assessing effectiveness #1: Does the organisation have a defined vision of
SD with clearly connected goals supporting it?
2. Indicator Framework
Question for assessing effectiveness #2: Is the choice of framework suited to achieving
the SD vision?
3. Selection of Indicators
Question for assessing effectiveness #3: Are indicators chosen with a particular
approach or method shaped by systems-approach principles of sustainable
development?
4. Stakeholder Participation
Question for assessing effectiveness #4: Are indicators chosen based on input from a
broad base of stakeholders?
5. Communication – Visual Design and Strategy
Question for assessing effectiveness #5: Are indicators clearly represented for, and
strategically communicated to, target audience(s).
2. Theoretical Approach to Sustainable Development
2.1. Chapter Overview
This chapter presents a theoretical approach to sustainable development. Different aspects of
Sustainable Development are discussed, with brief overviews of the holism of a systems
approach, the contrast of weak vs. strong sustainability, and of government as playing a
regulatory role in the interactions between natural, social and economic systems. The concept
behind indicators is also introduced from a systems perspective.
2.2. Sustainable Development
Sustainable Development (SD) first became prominent in the early late 80s and early 90s. The
start of its ascension in international politics is usually attributed to the 1987 United Nations
World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) report Our Common Future,
a.k.a. the Brundtland Report, in which the most commonly used definition of SD to date is
appears. The report explicitly frames development in terms of intergenerational equity,
defining SD as ―development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs‖ (WCED, 1987). In its most broad form,
sustainable development can be seen as an organising principle for action across all levels of
human organisation (Kjellén, 2008) which may have the potential to re-orient human activity
4
towards a more sustainable world. The organising principle of sustainable development is
translated into practice using frameworks like the ‗three pillars‘ of sustainable development
(fig. 1) or the ‗four capitals‘ (Ekins, 1992) among others. These frameworks acknowledge the
fundamental interconnectedness of all domains of material reality – at the least the economic,
environmental and social – establishing these areas as building blocks for planning future
action if human development is to be sustained indefinitely. These frameworks posit a holistic
approach to action and problem solving which is based in systems thinking and acknowledges
the necessity of intergenerational justice. Such frameworks enable sustainability action in all
sectors. For example, corporations and business can use these frameworks for ‗triple bottom
line‘ decision-making. Governments can use sustainability frameworks for comprehensive,
integrated planning policy and strategy. Local communities can use them to understand their
situations and plan for the future.
The ‗three pillars‘ of sustainability (fig. 1) is now a popularised sustainability framework for
professional and academic work of all kinds, interpreted and reinterpreted ad infinitum to suit
the needs of whoever is using it. From corporate triple-bottom-line sustainability reporting to
national natural resource management policy to community environment planning, the
versatile, cognitively simple framework below has become the (perhaps now banal) conceptual
symbol for sustainable development (SD).
Figure 1. The 'Three Spheres' Sustainability framework
Sustainable development‘s adaptability as a concept has been key to its widespread uptake,
while at the same time exposing it to much critique over problems arising from its lack of
definition. For example, its being co-opted by companies looking to buy into ‗green‘ narratives
without making ‗real‘ changes. A central tension is its apparent status as an oxymoron, and
whether it is ‗sustainability‘ or ‗development‘ that is the dominant half of the concept. As
Sachs (1999) argues, the distinction is crucial. Is it nature that threatens development, or is it
development that threatens nature? Is the imperative of SD that we try to sustain our current
mode of development in the face of new, planetary threats to its progress? Or is it rather that
we work to come up with new modes of development that do not threaten the sustainability of
essential natural systems?
Much has been written on the many ways to define SD, and I will not go though it too much
here. (For engaging discussions see Daly, 1990; Mitcham, 1995; Du Pisani, 2006; O‘Connor,
2006, Kjellén, 2008) It is important to recognise that, like ‗democracy‘ or ‗happiness‘ the
concept is inherently wide, plays out in a number of levels and contexts, and thus does not lend
itself to a single definition. In any case, it is clear work with SD means accepting a certain
fundamental conceptual vagueness, and thus it can be frustratingly hard to be sure it is actually
being done. Yet it is in essence an approach to dealing with the world which is ambitiously
5
holistic and deeply scientific. Even when expressed in its simplest forms (see figures 1 and 2) it
is clear the concept attempts to contain the undeniably empirical relationships and processes
which span all human and non-human nature on the planet. So what is the closest we can come
to a core definition? From a systems perspective, AtKisson (2005; 2011) gives elegantly
simple definitions of sustainability and sustainable development. These link the two concepts
and are anchored in systems thinking:
Sustainability is a set of conditions and trends in a given system that can continue
indefinitely.
Sustainable development is a strategic process of continuous change in the direction of
sustainability.
These definitions are just about as ‗pared-down‘ as possible, however, and in practice an
organisation or group aiming for SD will need to flesh out the details with their own ‗personal‘
definition of SD and a vision for what the future holds. Again, here is where the flexibility of
the SD concept becomes a benefit rather than a weakness. A plan for change is much more
likely to be realised if those who must act have a sense of ownership and investment in it.
Despite its ascendance to the global zeitgeist it is by no means clear that sustainable
development is achievable. As Campbell, (1996) notes “some environmentalists argue that if
sustainable development is necessary, it therefore must be possible. Perhaps so, but if you are
stranded at the bottom of a deep well, a ladder may be impossible even though necessary.”
What has been well established, however, is that the longer we wait to act, the less likely it is
we can climb out of the well. At the least the global recognition of SD provides an essential
legitimacy for negotiating and navigating, at all levels, much needed new directions for
humanity.
2.3. Systems Theory and Systems Thinking
An important basis for the emergence of sustainable development as a concept is systems
science and systems theory (O‘Connor, 2006). Systems science is about the study of systems in
general. The field his broad and now includes contributions by many scholars, but its
beginnings can be traced to Ludwig von Bertalanffy and his founding in 1968 of General
Systems Theory (GST), which described systems in terms of interacting components (von
Bertalanffy, 1969).
Figure 2. A 'systems view' of SD placing the three spheres as hierarchically embedded
The general applicability of systems theory has led to its use as a foundation on which theories
and practice within many fields and research areas are now built. It has use and application in
engineering, computer science, biology, and many other fields, including sustainability science.
At its simplest, the fundamental notion of systems theory in sustainability science is the
systemic nature of all things, and the embeddedness and connectedness of systems (See fig. 2).
6
In practice, many authors and practitioners in the sustainability science field advocate a
‗systems approach‘ or ‗systems thinking‘ (e.g. O‘Connor, 2006, Bell & Morse, 2008,
AtKisson, 2010). Such an approach asks us to look beyond simple causal explanations for
phenomena, to acknowledge that the state of the world is the result of complex relations
between and within systems. A systems approach looks at problems using a holistic, rather
than a reductionist, viewpoint. This approach is essential to any work towards sustainability on
problems for which the solution requires structural change, such as dealing with waste, climate
change, consumption patterns, resource depletion, transport use, etc. Such multilevel complex
problems have roots in multiple systems, e.g. natural, social, political, economic systems. Thus
they require this holistic approach for problem definition, analysis and decision making
(AtKisson, 2010).
In The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, Meadows et al. (2005) define structural change
from a systems approach as having little to do with ‗tearing down buildings‘ or ‗throwing
people out of power‘. Doing this without making real changes to the underlying structure will
result in new people replacing the old and heading in the same wrong direction. Rather,
in systems terms, changing structure means changing the feedback structure, the information links in a
system: the content and timeliness of the data that actors in the system have to work with, and the ideas,
goals, incentives, costs and feedbacks that motivate or constrain behaviour. The same combination of
people, organisations and physical structures can behave completely differently, if the system’s actors
can see a good reason for doing so, and if they have the freedom, perhaps even the incentive, to change.
In time, a system with a new information system is likely to change its social and physical structures too.
It may develop new laws, new organisations, new technologies, people with new skills, new kinds of
machines or buildings. (Meadows et al.., 2005: 237)
SDI are a part of this effort to change ideas, goals, incentives, costs and feedbacks within
countries, societies, cities. Sustainability is not just about systems theory or systems thinking,
it is about applying these approaches/theories in practice. Despite its forward view and appeal
to the imagination, sustainable development ―embodies an ultimate practicality since it is
literally meaningless unless we can ‗do‘ it. As such, it is firmly rooted in the present.‖ (Bell &
Morse, 2008: 5).
Working towards achieving sustainability always has a normative orientation in practice,
requiring practitioners to building appropriate actions on this systems approach to the world.
As soon as we begin to ask the questions: ―sustainability of what? For whom? And through
which institutions?‖ we start to need to deal with philosophical and ethical questions which
require integration of the systemic, biological, technical, with the social, political and ethical
(O‘Connor, 2006). It is at precisely this complex juncture where officials and managers
responsible charged with ‗making sustainability happen‘ find themselves. There is a great need
for tools and methods, such as sustainability indicators, which can help them navigate this
complexity.
2.4. Strong vs. Weak Sustainability
Sustainability can be placed into two categories: strong and weak sustainability. These
categories are built on an underlying framework of four capitals: natural, social, human-made
and human capitals (Ekins, 1992). Weak sustainability is based on neo-classical economic
theory (Rennings & Wiggerberg, 1997) and allows for a flow of capital between the domains,
for example from natural to the social and human made domains, positing that sustainability is
achieved so long as the overall level of capital is maintained. Strong sustainability rejects the
idea that natural and social capitals are inherently substitutable, requiring acknowledgement of
7
the need for a level of separation between the domains. The stronger forms of strong
sustainability require natural capital is not depleted at a rate higher than it can be regenerated
(for excellent elaboration of strong and weak sustainability and the ‗capitals‘ see Ayres et al.,
2001).
Indicators can be designed to measure weak or strong sustainability. Which type they measure
depends on the definition of sustainable development, vision of the future and types of
frameworks chosen by the people developing them. These decisions will in turn depend in
practice on things like scale, institutional capacity, political goals, local expertise, and level of
stakeholder engagement. Because of the need to weigh options it is often rightly recommended
that decision makers need a mix of indicators of from both strong and weak approaches to
sustainability. However, advocates of strong sustainability often refer to carrying capacity or
‗planetary boundaries‘ (see Malthus, 1789; Meadows et al., 1974; Rockström et al., 2009) to
argue there is always a point at which we go beyond ‗weighing options‘ and bump up against
natural limits.
2.5. The Fourth Sphere
A fourth sphere can be added to the three spheres or three pillars framework for SD (figures 1
and 2). O‘Connor‘s (2006) framework (figure 3) includes the system-regulatory role of
governance through political organisation. This is a simple way of expressing how government
(or the political sphere) is positioned to have a significant influence in sustainability work.
In this conceptual framework, SDI are then tools to increase the capacity of governments to
play role in the fourth sphere, system regulation, by selectively improving the quality and
quantity of information available about phenomena within and between the spheres. It is
important to notes that sustainability can be structured in other ways, however as will be
discussed later this basic, institutionally oriented structure is particularly relevant to the work
of local government.
Figure 3. Governance for sustainability: The ‘Four Spheres’ framework for sustainabilty analysis (adapted from O,connor, 2006).
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3. Sustainable Development Indicators
3.1. Chapter Overview
This chapter is an overview of sustainable development indicators. It covers why indicators are
especially needed for work towards SD. It also gives examples of sustainable development-
oriented indicator sets developed at different levels and a set of criteria for selecting
/developing new, or assessing existing, indicators for sustainable development. The chapter
goes on to discuss the ambiguous relationship between indicators and policy.
3.2. What are Indicators?
An indicator can be anything delivering information which helps us understand phenomena in
the world. We use indicators all the time in our daily lives. We refer to them constantly, often
without consideration of their function as indicators.
―We have many words for indicator–sign, symptom, omen, signal, tip, clue, grade, rank, data,
pointer, dial, instrument, measurement. Indicators are a necessary part of the stream of
information we use to understand the world, make decisions, and plan our actions‖ (Meadows,
1998: 1).
We might choose to view internet content based on how many others have watched or ‗liked‘
it, invest in a stock based on its performance over a chosen time period, or judge how long ago
it rained by the colour of grass. As is shown in figure 4, indicators give us data about the
underlying complex system, so that we might act and make decisions. However, indicators are
always only partial reflections of reality and can therefore lead us to the wrong conclusions
(Bossel, 1999). We are operating with only partially accurately models of the multiple,
intertwined causations that make up the systems we engage with – banking, health care, a river,
or a farming system, for example. At the same time we must rely on a reading of indicators to
interact with and within systems- unless we have a perfect working model – we have no other
choice.
Because the way systems function depends on information flows within them (Meadows,
Randers & Meadows, 2004), choosing which indicators to measure is a ―crucial determinant of
the behaviour of a system‖ (Meadows, 1998: 5). A change to indicators can therefore change
the system itself. It is the improvement of this cyclic relationship between the way systems
function and the flows of information about those systems that is at the very core of any serious
attempt to develop indicators for sustainable development. The systems-oriented view of both
SD and of indicators is essential as an underlying theoretical basis for understanding how and
why intervening in social, economic, institutional and natural systems and structures using SDI
can work. But it may remain unsatisfyingly abstract for a decision maker responsible for
directing action in real situations where politics, morality, budgets, aesthetics, and human
creativity and error must be managed. Literature, theory and examples for developing
indicators for practical use at the municipal level are reviewed in the next chapter.
3.3. Why Sustainable Development Indicators?
The inherent complexity of sustainability problems and the recognition that they tend to require
a holistic approach means access to the relevant information is essential. As both Meadows
9
(1998) and Bossel (1999) argue, moving towards sustainable development at any scale requires
a well-constructed information system (which relies on input from indicators) for decision-
makers which allows them to function within the complexity they face. Sustainability
indicators emerged out of a long history of environmental and social monitoring and reporting
(Hardi & Zdan, 1997; EEA, 1999). Since 1992 UN conference in Rio and wide adoption
Agenda 21 principles, SDI have become a common practice at all levels – national, state,
regional, local and so on. So much so that in practice the sheer global number of projects at
local, national and international levels is such that the work around SDI can to be seen as an
‗industry‘ in itself (Hezri & Hasan, 2004).
SDI are designed/selected to help guide users towards SD goals by providing information
about relevant characteristics of systems. Bell and Morse (2008) define indicators as tools to
answer to a single key question for SD monitoring posed by Lawrence: ‗how might I know
objectively whether things are getting better or getting worse?‘ (cited in Bell & Morse, 2008).
Olsson et al. (2004: 8) define SDI as ―a quantitative tool that analyses changes, while
measuring and communicating progress towards the sustainable use and management of
economic, social, institutional and environmental resources. An indicator is something that
points to an issue or condition. Its purpose is to show how well a system is working towards
the defined goals‖.
Olsson et al. (2004) make a simple yet important distinction between two approaches to
measurement with sustainability indicators. These are the above-mentioned ‗goal-oriented‘
approach, and a ‗relative‘ approach. A goal-oriented approach sets a desired value or range of
values for an indicator, and then measures that indicator‘s performance in relation to that goal.
This approach is ideally used in clear connection to an overarching vision of sustainable
development. A relative approach, on the other hand, represents the indicator relative to other
countries, cities, times, systems or whatever the relevant case may be. This approach is
especially used for ‗benchmarking‘, i.e. performance measurement in, for example,
comparisons of city sustainability – however even indicators subjected to comparison should
still have a target range of values in order to be an SDI (see criteria below). The reasons for
using one of the other are discussed further in the next chapter with a focus on the municipality
level.
3.4. Criteria for Selecting Sustainability Indicators
After reviewing relevant literature addressing criteria for developing SDI (ICLEI, 1994; ICLEI,
1995; AtKisson, 1996; Maclaren, 1996; Hardi & Zdan, 1997; Meadows, 1998; Bossel, 1999;
Segnestem, 2001; Bell & Morse, 2003; Olsson et al., 2004; AtKisson, 2005; UNCSD, 2007;
Bell & Morse 2008), I here identify twelve generic features SDI at the municipality level
should possess (Table 3). The first six features are features indicators for any approach or
purpose should possess. The last six (marked with *) refer specifically to SDI, and are features
which distinguish SDI from other types of indicators.
While strict criteria for indicators are important for rigorous and quality SDI work, it is
important to note that listing criteria and then going after ideal indicators which meet them is
not likely to be a successful strategy (Meadows, 1998). In practice many indicators selected for
sustainability reporting/strategy will not have a hope of meeting all these criteria
simultaneously. Often case by case decisions will need to be made about which indicators to
keep despite their weaknesses or deficiencies, a process which is recommended
10
by many authors as part of the iterative SDI development process anyway (Bell and Morse,
2008). Guidance will be needed here. For example, twelve questions to guide thinking about
regional indicators developed by Olsson et al. (2004) for the European Regional Network on
Sustainable Development provides an excellent heuristic tool.
3.5. The Ambiguous Relationship Between Indicators and
Policy
Researching or working in SDI development and implementation at municipality level places
one from the outset at the intersection between politics and science, between political
objectives and ‗techno-scientific‘ information systems. As previously mentioned, a major
purpose of municipality-level SDI is influencing and informing policy and policy development
processes (Campbell, 1996). However, the nature of this relationship between indicators and
policy has not yet been clearly established (Holden, 2006). Research on this relationship is
sparse in the literature, with the bulk of studies focusing on the scientific and technical design
side of indicator sets, instead of on their use in practice (Hezri & Hasan, 2004). This thesis
focuses on the design side of indicators also; however there is a focus on the wider context of
Indicators should be:
1. Relevant to decision-making. Able to be used by decision-makers for planning, policy
formation or other intended purposes.
2. Clear in value. Easy to understand which direction means good change and which
direction means bad. Preferably quantitatively measurable.
3. Adequate in scope. Use time and geographical horizons which are appropriate to the
systems under study.
4. Feasible. Able to be measured at reasonable cost and within a reasonable timeframe.
5. Parsimonious. As simple as possible, but as complex as needed. This applies to sets
of many indicators.
6. Adequately communicated. Presented in a way that is able to be understood by a
large range of audiences, with attention to content and visual style.
7. *Democratic/participatory. Having some measure of broad, ‘bottom up’ input from a
process involving multiple stakeholders.
8. *Integrated/multidimensional. Indicators should be selected within a holistic
framework including e.g. social, economic, environmental, institutional aspects. Should
also address causal links between areas of the framework.
9. *Distributional. Able to express distributed nature of trends and issues which are
spread across populations/areas/times, i.e. income distribution, pollution,
intergenerational justice while still pinpointing their origins.
10. *Forward looking. Should express trends towards or away from a decided-upon
threshold or range (as opposed to providing merely historical data), and be linked to a
future vision of sustainability, allowing for pro-active rather than reactionary decisions.
11. *Physical. Quantities expressed in physical units rather than price where possible, e.g.
tonnes of household-waste rather than dollars spent on household-waste management.
12. *Comparable. There should be some level of comparability with similar projects/cases
in order to judge performance and share knowledge. Done through e.g. using common
indicators as in Ambiente Italia Institute (2003).
Table 1. Criteria for selecting sustainable development indicators. In practice, it is ususally not possible to meet many or all criteria.
11
implementation in practice. A main reason for the unclear relationship between indicators and
policy may be the ―lack of desire among the more technically-oriented SD researchers to fully
engage with the socio-political domain in which decision-making operates‖ (Clement cited in
Olsson et al.., 2003).
Hezri & Hasan (2004) argue to properly address this will mean implementing a rethink of the
assumed rationality in decision making which characterises much of the literature on
indicators. The common assumption is that decision makers use a ‗comprehensive‘ rationality,
linked to the theory of ‗economic man‘, which assumes decision-makers look at all
possibilities and choose a maximising option, which will yield the best results of all. But this
assumption is false, the authors argue. The decision making process is closer to a mix of
‗bounded rationality‘ in which decision makers choose from a limited list of possibilities and
select a sufficient option, which will satisfy needs.
Furthermore, incremental rather than dramatic changes tend to be the most successful in
political contexts, i.e. changes that are not too far from the norm. There is thus a degree of
irrationality in decision making that needs to be understood when developing and
implementing indicator systems intended to have influence on policy. If Hezri & Hasan (2004)
are right, there seems then to be a disconnect between the common techno-scientific
conception of SDI as a way to leverage institutional/social/etc. change through enhanced
information to decision makers, and the way in which political decision-makers actually use
that information in decisions. I will not go into this further here, but it is important to note that
the influence of indicators on policy related decision-making may not always be the linear
process supposed by many researchers and practitioners in the SDI field.
Furthermore, decision-makers may simply not find SDI particularly useful or valuable. This
can be for several reasons: because they have either not been involved in the process of
indicator creation (Olsson et al., 2004); they feel the indicators are not relevant for their
everyday work (Shields et al.., 2002); find them to be too confusing due to complexity; or find
them to be of low value due to poor communication design (Shields, et al., 2002; Tanguay et
al., 2010). Furthermore, indicators may simply not be attractive as political proposition. Holden
(2006: 171) describes urban sustainability as attractive in ‗spirit‘ but largely unattractive in
practice for policy makers charged with balancing the social, economic and environmental:
―maintaining a positive balance in all three accounts directly implies privileging limits and
precaution over growth and accumulation‖ (ibid: 171), in other words, political suicide. The
way around this, Holden claims, is to frame municipal sustainability as a ―community based
struggle to learn‖ (ibid: 171) with a view to the future and new understandings of the places we
live. The role of indicators, then, is to provide means for this struggle.
Despite the difficulties, sustainability work at the municipality or city level has been deemed
by many to be especially crucial to the overall project of SD. This is because a) most people
now live in urban areas and this trend will continue in the coming decades, and b) the
dynamics of systems, e.g. material flows, demographics, are easier to work with at the
municipal level. Furthermore, numerous cases such as the Sustainable Seattle (AtKisson, 1996)
project have shown that there can be benefits in establishing indicators which go well beyond
helping political decision makers to make informed decisions with hard data, such as enhanced
community engagement in sustainable development, or a better institutional understanding of
the issues behind indicators.
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3.6. Sustainable Development Indicators for the Local Level
Over half the world‘s population now lives in urban areas and in Europe, the EEA estimates
that by 2020, 80% of all Europeans will live in cities (EEA, 2006). It is now well established
that the systems and physical landscapes of city-dwellers‘ everyday lives are completely
integrated into national and global sustainability potentials and problems (UN-Habitat, 1996;
Costanza, 2007; Moore, 2011). As the modern epicentres of development, urban areas will
have to be a central concern of any successful global push for sustainable ways of living. Clean
water, greenhouse gas emissions from combusting petrol and other fossil fuels, biodiversity
loss from forest destruction and ecosystem degradation, the proliferation and spread of
chemicals and waste, political engagement in democracy, etc. are all within the reach for actors
at the local level. As such, finding effective methods for implementing and measuring
sustainability at the municipal level has the urgency of crisis.
The UN‘s Agenda 21 declaration (UN, 1992) marked the beginning of the ‗mainstream‘ push
for the use of sustainability strategy and indicators for sustainable development at
municipal/city level. This has led to the adoption of Local Agenda 21 principles by thousands
of cities and municipalities worldwide (UNCSD, 2002). As will be discussed further in chapter
6, Swedish municipalities were among the first to proactively adopt Local Agenda 21
principles, and continue with this work today, although in some municipalities Agenda 21 is no
longer explicitly referred to. SDI are established to achieve several functions. According to
Mascarenhas et al.:
The main driving influence for developing local SDI initiatives is to provide information to support
decision making and policy processes. Additionally, the driving forces recognized as the most
important are: (i) the public visibility of the municipality's progress towards sustainable
development; (ii) the monitoring of strategic instruments, in particular LA21/the local SD strategy;
and (iii) the development of local state-of-the-environment and sustainability reports (2010: 651).
While this is a good snapshot of the purpose of SDI, the full picture is a little more
complicated. ‗Providing information to support decision making and policy‘ can be done in
many ways, and issues such as community participation and behaviour change come into play
in crucial ways when meeting the political and planning context. In fact, as Holden (2006)
argues, a main driving force of indicator projects is often enhancing inclusiveness and
participation of the community. And it is at the local level where this has been most evident, as
opposed to the more top down approaches of the national and international levels. Zachary
(cited in Bell & Morse, 2008: 83) suggests a set of functions for SI which may not be so
explicit, yet are highly significant:
1. Enabling a community to identify what it values and allowing it to prioritize those values;
2. Allowing the community to hold individuals and groups accountable for achieving goals
identified by the community
3. Encouraging democracy
4. Allowing people to measure what is important and to make decisions based on those results
The difference between these two descriptions of the function of indicators reflects the scale
between expert and citizen oriented conceptions of SD and SDI so central to using indicators as
local level. See section 5.6 for more on this area.
There has for some time been growing recognition among professionals and researchers
engaged in policy and planning that there needs to be a reorientation of the field towards
sustainability (Campbell, 1996). However as Bell and Morse (2008: 118) note, cities and
regions interesting in re-inventing themselves as sustainable offer much the same as what
13
planners and policy makers have been offering for decades – a better society, economy and
environment for all. In one study, Berke & Conroy (2000) compared the comprehensive plans
of municipalities which explicitly claimed to be implementing sustainable development with
those that did not. The authors found that there was little difference in terms of actually
following sustainability principles. The implication here is that it is entirely possible for
sustainability to be an explicit goal but not be applied in a rigorous enough way to significantly
influence planning and resulting policy outcomes. This is concerning but, like the proliferation
of ‗greenwashing‘ in general, it is hardly surprising. The imperative to act and be seen to act on
the one hand, and the constraints of resources and capabilities on the other lead can to a
scenario where it is easier to make cosmetic changes rather than actually doing the job. Despite
over 20 years of use in practice, SDI are by no means a perfected art and their usefulness and
effectiveness in helping achieve SD goals needs to be under constant review.
3.7. An Ocean of Literature and Methods
The literature on SDI development is huge and has for some time constituted a field of its own.
Even if one focuses on only the municipal level, sifting through the massive number of
different projects, frameworks, development approaches, etc. for SDI can be an overwhelming
task for an actor, like a city planner or SD strategist, to try to distil into an operational strategy
(Hoerning & Seasons, 2002). This becomes problematic especially when dealing with time
and budgetary constraints, and the urgency for governments to act – and be seen to act – on
sustainability issues.
Books containing fully comprehensive text books and guides to SDI development processes
have sprung up over the last decade (e.g. Hart, 1999; Bell & Morse, 2003; Hallsmith et al.,
2005; Hák et al., 2007; Bell & Morse, 2008). A plethora of SDI guidelines, frameworks,
process designs, etc. for sustainable communities or municipalities are now available. The
United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) maintains an extensive best
practice database with information on sustainable development projects from cities in 140
countries (UN-HABITAT, 2012). A great number of networks, initiatives, institutes and other
assorted organisations, both in Europe and internationally, focus on sustainability and
monitoring for municipalities. Prominent examples are Global Community Initiatives (GCI),
the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).
Numerous authors have published studies proposing fully-formed approaches to indicator
development and selection at municipality level, ranging from the community oriented (e.g.
Pollock & Whitelaw, 2005) to the technically challenging (e.g. Wiek & Binder, 2005). Other
authors have also looked at methods for simplifying indicator selection through identifying
common indicators across large numbers of cities (e.g. Ambiente Italia, 2003; Tanguay et al.,
2010).
The academic literature for SDI is characterised by a huge amount of work around the turn of
last century, followed by a lull, and then a recent uptick in publishing in the last two to four
years. Interest seemed to wane and is now on the rise again (although to be clear I make this
assertion based only on months of database search queries and literature review, and I have not
found any ‗meta-studies‘ providing hard data on this trend). It seems that now after a decade,
many of the questions around the utility of indicators in management/government in decision
making are far from being answered. As Holden (2006:1) notes, ―the means by which urban
indicator projects can encourage a synoptic view, act as levers for strategic change, and
facilitate sustainable development, remains to be discovered‖.
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4. Methodology
4.1. Context
This thesis was carried out in coordination with Falun Municipality, in Dalarna County,
Sweden. Early in the research process it was clear that the Municipality was seeking an
analysis and assessment of their use of indicators in order to identify areas for strategic
improvement, especially in the environmental program. This is important to note as it provides
context for the format and research design of the thesis. The work presented here reflects an
attempt to balance the standards of a scientific research project and at the same time meet the
requests of the municipality that the work provide accessible information and insight with the
potential to contribute to the operations of a municipal government.
4.2. Research Design
The thesis is presented in several parts. In section 1 the introduction and research questions are
presented. Section 2 outlines the thesis‘ theoretical approach to SD and touches on systems
theory and government. Section 3 is a literature review of the diverse field of research available
on indicators for sustainable development. This chapter, Chapter 4 presents the methodology
used.
Chapter 5 presents an approach for the assessment of indicator use in municipal government by
identifying five focus areas which are crucial when developing and using indicators. The
analytic strategy here is that of developing a descriptive framework which is then used to
organise the case study in order to identify variables significant to the overall research
questions (Yin, 1994:102-108). The overall question in this case is about the effectiveness of
indicators as tools for sustainable development work in local government. These focus areas
(variables) deal mainly with the science and design of indicators, rather than how they are used
in decision-making. However while former is the focus, I take care to make important
connections to the latter.
This approach is then applied to the situation in Falun in the final part of the thesis, Section 6,
the case study itself. The case study is exploratory and treads a line between presenting data on
the current situation in Falun, and identifying strengths and weaknesses in the municipality‘s
current use of indicators. Here data from interviews is presented also. The main aim is to gain
insight into factors which significantly constrain or enable the effectiveness of the
municipality‘s indicators as tools SD related policy and planning decisions. Section 7 presents
a discussion of each focus area and suggestions for the future. Sections 8 and 9 finish with a
conclusion suggestions for future research.
4.3. Interviewing
Interviewing is a particularly good data gathering method if the researcher‘s purpose is to
understand subjects‘ perceptions, and how they attribute meaning or value to certain things
(Berg, 2000). Semi-structured or ‗semi-standardised‘ interviewing techniques were used to
gather data for the case study. Semi structured interviews are characterised by
―..the implementation of a number of predetermined questions and/or special topics. These questions are
typically asked of each interviewee in a systematic and consistent order, but the interviewers are allowed
freedom to digress; that is, the interviewers are permitted (in fact expected) to probe far beyond the
answers to their prepared and standardized questions.‖ (Berg, 2000:70)
15
A major difficulty that can arise with interviewing is ensuring effective communication (Berg,
2000). The interviewee needs to understand the purpose behind and wording of the questions,
and the interviewer needs to understand the answers. This was particularly important in the
case study as interviews were conducted mostly in English, which is not the mother tongue of
the interviewees. However, three things act to counter this difficulty. First, the interviewees‘
English literacy in their professional fields was relatively high. Second, the interviews were all
with subjects working for the same organisation, and thus common terms about work and
organisational culture were easy to navigate. And third, the semi-structured interview form
allowed me to clarify and digress when questioning; a higher level of accuracy than using e.g.
a standardised survey.
Each semi-structured interview consisted of questions grouped around three themes. The first
theme was the development of the indicators, e.g. was the interviewee involved in selecting the
indicators? How was the process carried out? The second was the indicators as a tool for
monitoring, e.g. are they an effective tool? Did the interviewees find them useful in everyday
work? Did the indicators help them approach/deal with multiple dimensions of SD? The third
was communication, e.g. did they find it easy to understand the data? Were they able to use
them in their own communicative tasks?
Data for the case study was gathered through interviews with key personnel. The interviews
were carried out in June 2102 with key municipality personnel. In total I conducted interviews
with seven municipal employees. This included strategists Economic Growth Program and
Environment Program strategists, the Energy and Climate strategist, an officer in the nature
conservation department and a strategist working in the Public Health Program focused on
education.
4.4. Other Data Gathering
Other data for the case study was gathered through a review of government documents, and
access to information from the internal control-database the municipality uses in its operations.
The review of official Falun Municipality and other government documents, and information
from the internal database was carried out over several months during the thesis research.
Official data sources included:
Annual sustainable development reports (Utveckling i Falun),
Official program plan documents for the Environment, Growth and Public Health
programs (Lokalt Miljö, Tillväxt och Folkhälsa programplanner),
Corresponding program ‗action plans‘ (Åtgärdsplaner) for each program.
Internal data from municipality information system: hierarchical record of the
Municipality‘s work by program, sub-goals, goals and indicators.
Internal data from municipality information system: listing of all indicators in the
Environmental and Public Health programs. This showed what was measured and the state
of progress towards a goal (good, bad, no change) of indicators for each program.
(Indicators for the growth program were not available as they were not kept in an
information system like the other programs. Rather, they were communicated to me by
strategists during interviews.)
16
4.5. Case Study Method
In the final part of the thesis the case study is presented. Case studies are often viewed with
suspicion. The case study as a method has been criticised as being insufficiently defined for
rigorous scientific research. Despite the available literature elaborating case study typologies
and methodologies (albeit with arguable rigour), case studies are still often labelled as ‗bad
science‘ (Scholz & Tietje, 2002). In contrast, case studies are used often in teaching and are an
excellent tool for establishing a framework to generate space for discussion and analysis in
pedagogic settings (Tellis, 2009). Case studies in for research, however, need to present data in
an empirical way and show evidence of research – the reader must be able to fully see the steps
of the research process and sources of all data, if not repeat it.
Another important question is whether case studies are generalisable. Of course, whether a
study is generalisable depends first on the research design and topic. But a deep study of an
isolated case will logically produce more particular results that constitute less generalisable
findings, as opposed to a broad comparative study of multiple cases. However, a case study
must always generalise to some extent because any case presented must include consideration
of other cases in order to describe what it is that is being studied and why (Gerring, 2006).
Cases studies thus are always both particular and generalisable to a greater or lesser extent:
No case study (so-called) denies the importance of the case under special focus, and no case study
foreswears the generalizing impulse altogether. So the particularizing/generalizing distinction is rightly
understood as a continuum, not a dichotomy. Case studies typically partake of both worlds. They are
studies of both something particular and of something more general. (Gerring, 2006:76)
The study would likely have been strengthened by the addition of one or more cases to the
research design in order to make comparisons. However, I do present other relevant cases and
examples in the first part of the thesis when developing the analytical framework, thus linking
these to each area under consideration in the case study.
4.6. Delimitations of the Study
My base requirements for potential case study municipalities were that they must have
Worked with indicators for over five years, so that there was sufficient time and
familiarity for interviewees to evaluate outcomes, and sufficient history/data for me to
gather relevant information.
Be both actively engaged in sustainability publicly, e.g. in programs and investment, and
actively promoting a perception of being engaged in sustainability, e.g. on website and in
marketing.
Have at least made attempts to engage the public and various stakeholders in creating
indicators.
Four cities/Municipalities were originally on my list for possible case studies, none of which
were Falun. They were Uppsala, Stockholm, and Örebru. However, it became clear that none
of these cities were going to agree to participate in such a study in the timeframe required. I
contacted Falun next, and they were positive to the proposal. Choosing to focus on only one
case for the thesis means can drastically reduce if not cancel the generalisability of the
findings. However, the decision was made to spend the time and resources available on
studying Falun‘s situation in depth in order to gain insight, apply the developed assessment
approach, and aim to identify areas for strategic improvement. Other cases are included in the
17
literature review and are referred to in the case study, however the data used is of course
secondary.
Interviews gave insight into decision-makers‘ perceptions of indicators; however the
interviewees were municipal employees only. No politicians or other stakeholders were
included. This was again a choice about the scope of the study with consideration to time and
resources. Politicians especially are an important group as they form policy which is supposed
to be informed by indicators. However, as the study progressed it did become clear that due to
the highly technical role indicators play in the municipality, it is the municipal employees who
work with indicators most intimately. They are thus arguably in the best position to speak on
the three themes above.
4.7. Geographical Scale
In this study, I focus in SDI for the local level, with Falun Municipality as a case study. In
reviewing the literature on indicators, one finds many terms referring to scale. International,
National, State, Regional, County, Municipal, City, Local and Community are the most
common terms used to denote scale. In this study I refer to 1) international level, 2) the
national level and 3) the municipality level. For the purposes of this study I take the
‗municipal‘ and ‗local‘ levels to be roughly equivalent, and use the terms interchangeably.
5. An Approach for Assessing SDI as Tools for
Municipality Governments
5.1. Chapter Overview
In this chapter I develop an analytical framework through which to examine the use of
indicators in municipal level government. The framework is made up of five ‗focus areas‘
which are crucial for the function of SDI in policy and planning. These areas are the focus in
the case study, specifically in interviews, analysis of the municipality‘s program structures and
documents, and other data gathering. The goal is to gain insight into factors that constrain and
enable the effectiveness of existing indicators as tools for a municipality government for both
increasing understanding of and use in decision-making in sustainability issues. The case study
itself is addressed in chapter 6.
5.2. Developing the Focus Areas
When it comes to choosing the best process/project design for developing indicators, there are
numerous options available (see section 3.6) especially at the municipal level, each of which
emphasise different steps and methods. At the same, a municipality may not follow one
particular methodology, plan or policy when creating the indicators they use today. The
indicators and the way they are used in practice can exist as a result of incremental changes
over years (for a treatment of instrumentalism in policy and indicator use see Hezri & Hasan,
2004). The challenge in this study then was to find a way to approach the municipality‘s design
and use of indicators, i.e. how to assess the system in use today.
To do this I selected five focus areas based on a literature review. Each area below has broad
support in key literature as being a crucial element of establishing indicator systems. Each will
be elaborated further in the rest of this chapter. As the main research question is whether
18
indicators are effective tools for the Municipality‘s SD work, a research question for assessing
effectiveness is included with each area. I make an analysis of the situation in Falun in each
area to gain insight and identify how factors in each area constrain/enable the effectiveness of
indicators as tools for the Municipality in its SD work.
Focus Area 1: Vision. Formulating a Vision for the future and a definition of SD introduces
creativity and direction into SD work, giving goals and indicators links to an actual future state.
Choosing an agreed-upon definition of SD is an integral part of creating a vision. (ICLEI,
1994; Hardi & Zdan, 1997; Bell & Morse; 2003).
Question for assessing effectiveness: Does the organisation have a defined vision of SD with
clearly connected goals supporting it?
Focus Area 2: Indicator Framework. The chosen type of indicator framework is crucial to
indicators‘ potential to be effective tools for increasing understanding and helping in decision
making in pursuit of goals and an overall vision. Different frameworks have inherent strengths
and weaknesses. (Maclaren, 1996; Meadows, 1998; Bossell; 1999; UNCSD, 2001; Bell &
Morse, 2003)
Question for assessing effectiveness: Is the choice of framework suited to achieving the SD
vision?
Focus Area 3: Indicator Selection. Here the focus is on selecting indicators which are
especially suited to measuring sustainable development. These are indicators which have been
chosen based on some type of SD principles, address multiple dimension of SD, are causally
linked and/or are suited to benchmarking/comparison. The costs and benefits of selecting such
indicators vary. (Maclaren, 1996; Hardi & Zdan, 1997; Meadows, 1998).
Question for assessing effectiveness: Are indicators chosen with a particular approach or
method shaped by systems-approach principles of sustainable development?
Focus Area 4: Stakeholder Participation. Relevant community stakeholders can have input
into selecting SDI. There are different strengths and weaknesses associated with different
levels of such participation (Hardi & Zdan 1997; Bell & Morse, 2003; Fraser et al., 2006;
AtKisson, 2010)
Question for assessing effectiveness: Are indicators chosen based on input from a broad base
of stakeholders?
Focus Area 5: Communication Design and Strategy. Here the focus is on choosing the
right level of complexity when communicating indicator data showing progress in SD for
different audiences, representing indicators with various visual techniques for interpretation,
and using them as part of a communication strategy in order to reach target audience(s).
(Shields et al., 2002; Bell & Morse, 2008; Ryden, 2008)
Question for assessing effectiveness: Are indicators strategically communicated to target
audience(s)?
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5.3. Focus Area 1: Vision
The ability to formulate images of the future is fundamental to our ability to enact change in
the present. The capacity to generate visions of the future is crucial to cities‘ (and societies‘)
ability to adapt and survive. Yet often
―…in imagining possible urban futures, both experts and citizens lack the tools and processes for
useful dialogue beyond economics, technologies, and functional needs, into the realm meaning,
beliefs, and quality of life.‖ (Wuellner, 2011:662).
Visions allow us to bridge this difficulty in connecting means and ends, and between what we
are doing now and what might be. Formulating a vision for SD is a fundamental requirement
for successfully developing and using indicators as part of any sustainability strategy because it
needs to be clear not only which direction each indicator should move in, but where it is
heading (UN, 1992; Hardi & Zdan, 1997; Bell & Morse, 2003). Visions are usually
recommended as the ‗first step‘ in indicator processes (AtKisson, 2008). This vision should
contain a definition of what sustainable development is. The geographical scale (what area
does this vision cover?) and the time frame (a vision to 2020, to 2050, 2100?) are the most
basic elements here. A vision for a shorter time frame allows for more concrete planning with
attention to the decided upon definition of what SD will be. However, this can lead to a vision
which relies heavily on the way the organisation ‗works today‘ and simply projecting it
forward. A longer time frame allows for more ambitious visions, encouraging creative
thinking which steps outside the constraints of the everyday. It is often recommended that both
a shorter and a longer term vision be developed simultaneously (Bell & Morse, 2003; Rydén,
2008). In order to select goals and indicators which are relevant to the municipality, a vision
for SD should also be contributed to by relevant stakeholders (Bell & Morse, 2008).
Visions give decision-makers charged with making sustainability happen the context for setting
goals and selecting indicators that will bring about change. Visions function as ‗frames of
reference‘ for goals, making them relevant; explaining why they are significant. For indicators
to be oriented towards goals (sustainability or otherwise) means a deciding upon a value or
range of values deemed desirable, what Bell and Morse (2008) call the indicator‘s ‗band of
equilibrium‘. For example, when measuring the average number of kilometres travelled when
citizens commute, there should be a target number at which the indicator shows a desirable,
sustainable, etc. level. Deciding on this range is then more substantive and effective when
working with goals supporting a vision. It is of course possible to carry out monitoring and
reporting work with SDI in the absence of a vision, but this limits the possibility of using SDI
strategically. Without a vision and goals to support it, indicator selection and use can remain
nothing more than an exercise in monitoring and data gathering which, while useful for many
operational purposes, has no clear connection to change in the direction of sustainability.
Organisations and governments have been using development visions for decades as part of
policy, planning, marketing work etc. Formulating a vision for SD which explicitly
acknowledges sustainability problems and opportunities is essential to re-orienting action in the
direction of sustainability (Boyko et al., 2012). However a relevant question for policy makers
and planners at local level is how to approach incorporating the SD vision into their operations.
Three options seem possible: (1) a ‗sustainable development section‘ is added as an
amendment to the existing vision (2) a vision for SD is developed and used separately to the
overall vision, or (3) the municipality reformulates it‘s overall vision completely, re-orienting
it towards sustainability principles.
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Much of the literature suggests a sustainable development vision should be formed on its own
as part of a process which involves establishing indicators also, and then that progress towards
the vision should be reported through monitoring and reporting (e.g. Maclaren, 1996; Bell &
Morse, 2003). Decision makers engaged in sustainability work must then manage the
interaction between an SD vision and a more or less separate development vision for the
municipality.
5.4. Focus Area 2: Indicator Framework
Types of Frameworks
A framework structures knowledge and concepts in the abstract, while in practice providing the
basis for action and communication. In a practical sense frameworks function as ―a conceptual
platform on which a group can stand to talk about a complex topic, so that everyone can be
reasonably sure that they are talking about the same thing.‖ (AtKisson, 2004). The framework
chosen when establishing SDI is crucial as its structure will significantly constrain/ enable
sustainability monitoring outcomes (UNCSD, 2001). Different types of frameworks have been
well covered by Maclaren (1996), who identifies five types of frameworks for sustainability
reporting: domain-based, goal-based, issue-based, sectoral and causal. Below I summarise
Maclaren‘s (1996) classification work in order to bring a clear framework typology into this
study. While Maclaren‘s focus is on indicators, such frameworks are also used to structure
wider SD strategy (also see Hoerning & Seasons, 2004).
A simple example of the use of the domain based framework used often in sustainability work
is the ‗three spheres framework‘ presented in Figure 1. Using the domain-based type of
framework, goals, activities and/or indicators for a project are separated into conceptual
dimensions of SD, in this case into the three categories of economic, social and environmental.
As is discussed in the case study in chapter 6, Falun Municipality uses a modified version of
this framework – not just for indicators, but to structure sustainability strategy and therefore
decisions and action. Using domain-based frameworks has for some time been recommended
by authorities in the field (UNCSD, 2001). A prominent example is Seattle‘s now famous
‗Sustainable Seattle‘ project (AtKisson, 1996). Between 1990 and 1995 Sustainable Seattle met
in a series of forums and workshops, creating one of the most widely cited SDI projects to date.
The work was community driven (bottom-up) and distinguished five domains: Environment,
Population and Resources, Economy, Youth and Education, and Health and Community.
Figure 4. Example of goal-based framework created for the City of Sydney, Australia.
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A problem with domain-based frameworks is that they tend to do a poor job at linking
sustainability monitoring with SD goals (Maclaren, 1996). There is also a lack of integration
between the domains. Goal-based frameworks mitigate these weaknesses by requiring the
identification of overall goals first as the ‗building blocks‘ of the SDI project. Indicators or
groups of indictors can then be created to show movement towards these goals (ibid). An
example of a currently used, goal-based framework is that produced by Partridge et al. (2011)
for the City of Sydney (fig 5). A problem with this type of framework is that while the links to
SD are clear, ―complex relationships among the various dimensions of sustainability‖
(Maclaren, 1996: 192) are still largely left out.
Issue-based frameworks structure sustainability monitoring based on locally important issues
like waste management or employment easily understood by actors, but does not explicitly link
to goals or ensure coverage of all dimensions of SD (ibid). Sectoral frameworks structure
sustainability monitoring based on the existing departments/areas of responsibility or the local
government, like energy, education, or nature conservation. These frameworks are well aligned
with the work of municipality politicians & staff, and make accountability clear, but again lack
attention to linkages across areas, resulting in a ‗silo‘ effect in practice (ibid) in which sectors
do not integrate.
Although the above frameworks can be operationalised in productive ways, they all contain
weaknesses related to capturing an integrated picture of SD. Maclaren (ibid) argues that the
complexity of sustainable development can only be monitored if they are combined with a
causal framework. Causal frameworks are based on systems theory and give attention to the
causal relationships between dimensions of SD. Below I review two more frameworks. The
first is PSR (or DPSIR in its later incarnation), a framework widely used in environmental
monitoring. The second is Donella Meadows‘ (1998) extension of the Daly Triangle (Daly,
1973). It can be classified as both domain-based and causal, although there is room for
combination with other models like DPSIR. It is one of the most comprehensive and interesting
frameworks for SDI available, however questions remain over how well this framework
translates into practice in, e.g. which scale it is most suited to; national, regional, local etc.
Pressure State Response (PSR)
A widely used model for selecting indicators is the Pressure-State-Response (PSR) framework.
Developed by the OECD and growing in popularity from the early nineties onwards, it is a
systems modelling-based approach to development and classification of indicators in causally
linked chains. Put simply, the PSR model is designed to help ―establish causal links between
human activity, environmental conditions and policy and programme responses‖ (Hoerning &
Seasons, 2004:86).
Originally developed for environmental reporting (EEA, 1999), the PSR framework mirrors the
‗Stock-Flow-Feedback‘ elements of dynamic systems modelling, where pressures correspond
to Flows, States to Stocks, and Feedbacks to Responses. The framework has been readily
adopted for developing indicators for a host of sustainability applications, such as cities,
development projects or coastal management schemes (Bell & Morse, 2008). PSR has been
expanded into the now commonly used Driving Forces-Pressure-State-Impact-Response‘
(DPSIR) by the European Environmental Agency (EEA, 1999). Carr et al. (2007: 545) provide
a neat summary of the framework‘s typology of indicators when applied to sustainable
development (for an environmentally focused purpose, the framework may have been
elaborated differently, with different examples):
22
Driving forces (or Drivers) refer to fundamental social processes, such as the
distribution of wealth, which shape the human activities that have a direct impact on the
environment.
Pressures are both the specific human activities that result from driving forces which
impact the environment, such as the resource extraction necessary to fuel the automobile
fleet of the United States, and the natural processes that have a similar impact on the
environment, such as volcanoes and solar radiation.
State is the condition of the environment. This condition, under current
conceptualizations, is not static, but is meant to reflect current environmental trends as
well.
Impacts are the ways in which changes in state influence human well-being.
Responses generally refer to institutional efforts to address changes in state, as
prioritized by impacts.
Donella Meadows’ Extension of the Daly Triangle
Donella Meadows, lead author of The Limits to Growth, and a leading world authority on
information systems for sustainable development (AtKisson & Davis, 2001), provides a
comprehensive framework for SDI (Meadows, 1998). Her framework builds the work of
former senior World Bank economist Herman Daly. The ‗Daly Triangle‘ (Daly, 1973) places
human society within a hierarchy between ultimate means and ultimate ends and incorporates
the now widely used ‗Four Capitals‘ (referred to in section 2.5 of this thesis): natural,
economic, social and human capital (for a clear elaboration of the ‗Four Capitals‘ in connection
with SD work, see O‘Connor, 2006).
The Daly Triangle distinguishes between ‗ultimate means‘, ‗intermediate means‘ and ‗ultimate
ends‘ for human societies. Meadows (1998) extended this to include ‗intermediate ends‘ also.
The structure of the framework places human development in a hierarchical relationship with
nature and ultimate social goals at either end.
This structure is absent in other frameworks like the ‗Three Spheres‘ domain-based framework
or the causal DPSIR, and represents a more holistic view for sustainable development work. It
also directs attention to the top and bottom of the triangle (ultimate means and ultimate ends),
which are usually under-represented in indicator sets, in the workings of markets, and in
government decision making (Meadows, 1998). One critique of this framework is that it may
difficult for projects at a smaller scale to implement due questions of where to place system
Figure 5. The DPSIR Framework, adapted from EEA (1999)
23
boundaries. Also, that its hierarchical structure is anthropocentric and fails to incorporate the
‗cyclic‘ qualities of nature (Meadows, 1998).
5.5. Focus Area 3: Indicator Selection
Multidimensional Indicators and Causal Modelling
One challenge at the city/municipal level is how to select indicators which address multiple
dimensions of sustainability, e.g. environmental, economic, social, political, etc. For example,
measuring the number of jobs which pay a ‗living wage‘ (as opposed to say, merely
employment) which refers to progress towards goals in both social and economic conditions.
Here ‗indices‘, aggregations of many indicators into one, can be useful as they are designed to
represent diverse indicators in one measurement. However, there is a risk that important detail
can be lost when creating an index, and indices do not address linkages between indicators they
aggregate. (Indices are discussed in section 5.7 on communicating SDI.)
Hoernig & Seasons (2004) offer a useful classification of three approaches to indicators:
‗Conventional‘, ‗Integrative‘ and ‗Performance‘. Conventional indicators fall into the familiar
social, environmental and economic categories, taking a ‗discrete, single sector, often single
discipline‘ approach to each. Integrative indicators monitor with ‗holistic, multisector, and
multi- and inter-disciplinary‘ approaches that use integrative accounting of environmental,
social and economic development, and inform a holistic and ‗positive‘ vision. Performance
indicators take an organisational performance approach, using performance measurement and
benchmarks to monitor progress towards program or policy goals, and contrast organisational
practices with ‗best practice‘. A municipality may want a combination of all of these types of
indicators, but certainly it is the integrative approach which is best suited to sustainability work
(ibid).
Using DPSIR and/or other causal frameworks can produce integrative indicators (Maclaren,
1996. However DPSIR creates casual chains rather than causal networks. Indicators based on
causal networks, are dynamic and show the interlinking multiple causations in underlying
systems. A well-functioning network model could be potentially hugely useful to planners and
policy makers, providing analytical and even predictive capacity not possible with standard
indicator sets. Perdicoúlis & Glasson, (2011) demonstrate that most commonly used types of
indicators may have a limited value for policy/planning built in to their design. The authors
study define three types of SDI: ‗anthology‘ type SDI, which are essentially lists of diverse
indicators displaying historical, linear trends about specific elements of SD; ‗index‘ type SDI,
which are indicators aggregated into indices; and ‗model‘ type SDI which are based on causal
modelling of the underlying systems indicators express (see Figure 4).
Anthology and index types of indicators are the most commonly used types of indicators used
in planning and policy situations. The authors argue that these types of indicators do not
Figure 6. Stages of the policy and planning process. Adapted from Perdicoúlis & Glasson (2011)
24
significantly help in important stages of the policy and planning process (Figure 8). They help
in defining a problem (its current conditions & possible outcomes). They also help in
measuring ‗performance‘ (how well the problem is solved). But, Perdicoúlis & Glasson argue,
they do not significantly help in problem analysis, finding solutions, simulation in order to test
solutions, and decision making (the four middle stages in figure 8). Causal modelling, on the
other hand, can help significantly at every stage. However the feasibility of detailed causal
mapping can be questionable for the local level, due to cost and the rigorous interdisciplinary
scientific work required for such a project (see figure 7).
Nevertheless, research continues in this direction, and these costs can potentially be reduced as
method development and experimentation continues. Far more feasible and already tested in
practice are less scientifically/numerically rigorous but more practically applicable ‗hybrids‘ of
stakeholder participation, systems analysis and indicator development like Bell and Morse‘
(2003) Systemic Sustainability Analysis (SSA) methodology. The Earth Charter Partnership
for Sustainable Communities‘ (ECPSC) EarthCAT guidebook (Hallsmith et al., 2005) also
contains detailed guidance for cities and local governments wishing to begin mapping systems
and casual links between areas they are charged with managing, e.g. transport use,
employment, health of individuals, using an established systems approach yet including
‗bottom up‘ input from stakeholders.
Figure 7. Example of causal modelling using DPSIR (US Environmental Protection Agency [Epa.gov], 2013)
25
Comparability
The use of ‗common‘ or standardised SDI which can facilitate comparison between regions,
cities, etc. is discussed often in the literature. There now exist numerous examples of projects
and research aiming to establish standardised or common SDI at the municipality/city level
(e.g. Ambiente Italia, 2003; Mascarenhas, 2012). At the same time it is at this level the lack of
standardisation in SDI development methods, processes, goals and outcomes is particularly
evident (Tanguay et al., 2010). The attraction of standardised sets of indicators is their
comparability. The less variation in SDI development and selection between regions, the more
possibility there is for measuring performance through benchmarking, i.e. performance
measurement (Boyko et al., 2012). Comparability is also important in measuring the success
of specific SD strategies and activities so that municipalities may reduce the cost of sharing
such knowledge and practice with each other (Mascarenhas, 2010).
However, some authors argue that attempting common or universal measurement of SD can be
problematic. According to Hosseini & Koneko ―interactions between pillars of sustainable
development are regional phenomena, not global facts‖ (2010: 197). Although the authors are
referring to the national rather than municipality level it nevertheless follows that interactions
between pillars of SD for cities (especially those within different countries) may be regionally
specific also. If the causal links between phenomena in the spheres of sustainable development
are different region to region, using common or standardised indicators can potentially give a
poor reflection of reality, i.e. not be relevant enough for local decision makers.
Under this logic, SD measurement should then be as regionally, culturally, environmentally,
etc. specific as possible in order to address sustainability issues in a locally relevant manner.
This is one of the reasons the potential for SDI to lead to significant change within
municipalities depends on the participation of local stakeholders raising local issues and having
a hand in shaping SDI (Hardi & Zdan, 1997; Bell & Morse, 2003). However problems with
standardised measurement will likely be more pronounced when comparing cities with large
differences, e.g. in poor countries vs. rich countries. The benefits of comparison between
municipalities remains essential to the overall goal progressing SD and it is hard to imagine not
being able to find significant similarities which allow comparability between more
homogeneous municipalities, e.g. cities within the same country.
In short, standardised SDI allow for comparisons between cities/municipalities essential to the
overall project of SD at the municipal level. However, they can exclude significant place-
specific variation in the causal connections between phenomena in different spheres of SD. On
the other hand, locally-specific SDI address sustainability issues which are specific to the local
complexity of a region, and can be more relevant to local actors. However, they do not allow
for the comparative power of standardised indicators. In order to overcome these weaknesses,
SDI developed for a municipality should strike a balance between capturing important local
features, for example a seasonal local fishing industry, while also covering common regional,
national and/or internationally important areas, like carbon emissions from transport. In
practice this means municipalities in the EU facing an ever changing ‗landscape‘ of indicator
initiatives need to be attentive to relevant ‗common indicator initiatives‘ as part of their
maintenance of their SDI and be open to including common indicators, e.g. the European
Common Indicators (Ambiente Italia, 2003).
5.6. Focus Area 4: Stakeholder Participation
A key issue for municipalities when approaching SDI is whether they should aim for an ‗expert
or citizen oriented‘ outcome. Which SDI should be decided by experts in the field (or in the
26
office)? How should citizen groups, business owners, etc. be involved SDI if at all? This expert
vs. citizen tension is certainly not limited to SDI projects and will be familiar to those engaged
in science and technology policy (Rowe & Frewer, 2000).
It is now well recognised that participation by a broad base of stakeholders in processes for
establishing SDI can be crucial to the success of SDI projects (Hardi & Zdan, 1997; UNCSD,
2001), particularly at the municipal and city levels (AtKisson, 1996; Maclaren, 1996; Bell &
Morse, 2003; Fraser et al.. 2006). As Bell & Morse (2008) note, sustainability efforts at
municipality level in particular have been most successful at including stakeholder
involvement relative to those at other levels. ―It is the participatory nature of sustainable city
projects that largely distinguishes them from other attempts to put sustainability into practice.
If one looks at almost all of the other examples of SDI development, including those of the
UN…. the flavour is very much one of top-down‖ (Bell & Morse, 2008: 83).
Also widely supported in the literature is the need for stakeholders to be involved in three steps
of SDI processes, (1) imagining a vision/ defining sustainability, i.e. ‗where do we want to go
in future?‘ (2) Indicator scoping and selection – ‗what is possible to measure?‘ (3) Ongoing
communication and review efforts. Involving a broad base of stakeholders in SDI processes
can have many benefits. It can increase the political and practical legitimacy of attempts to put
sustainability into practice (Meadows, 2008; Rametsteiner et al.; 2011). It can establish
ownership and emotional investment in SDI from stakeholders crucial to achieving change
(AtKisson, 1996). It can also help communities get a better understanding of goals and values
through collaborative processes involving learning and action (Bell & Morse, 2008).
In fact, Bell & Morse, (2008) found that in the Case of Norwich City council in the UK, the
primary function of establishing indicators may not have been the obvious one– to measure
sustainable development–rather it was about ―an attempt to increase the increase the
appreciation of the many issues behind each SDI‖ (ibid, 83) through participation in
collaborative processes. The community chose and prioritised goals and values and then
identified who was accountable for achieving them. Such participatory processes can increase
communities‘ capacity to deal with sustainability issues in future and even ―may be more
significant than the results of the actual development projects‖ (Fraser et al., 2006: 115).
A key benefit of bottom-up participation is that it can lead to the ownership and emotional
investment in SDI required to make SDI relevant and salient to those who must act (Fraser et
al., 2006). In other words in order for indicators to be part of a process for change, people have
to care about them in the first place. Another benefit is that involving stakeholder groups may
increase democracy in ‗doing‘ sustainable development (Eckerberg & Mineur, 2003). This can
increase the perceived legitimacy of indicators as tools for decision making for politicians.
―Just as the expert brings scientific credibility to the indicator selection process, so does the
non-expert bring political credibility.‖(Meadows, 1998: 26).
While broad based participation can be highly valuable, it must be emphasised the participation
of experts remains absolutely essential if indicators are to be created/selected and monitored in
a rigorous way which ensures they meet criteria for quality, feasibility etc. in a technical sense
(Bell & Morse, 2003). An approach which mixes of top-down, expert oriented and bottom-up,
citizen oriented approaches is now an aim of best practice in indicator work. For example Reed
et al. (2006) propose a best practice approach to applying sustainability indicators in
communities which combines the two approaches effectively in an adaptive learning process;
an iterative ‗back and forth‘ cycle between citizens and experts, and between qualitative and
quantitative research. The aim is to produce the nuanced, ‗hybrid‘ expert-citizen knowledge
needed to form relevant sustainability indicators. However, to run effectively integrate expert
27
and non-expert opinion and knowledge requires investment and expertise which may not be not
available to many municipalities.
5.7. Focus Area 5: Communication Strategy and Visual
Design
A main purpose of indicators is to make complexity more understandable. The visual form and
degree of complexity in which they are communicated is thus essential to their effectiveness as
tools for decision making. Indicators may be communicated in different ways depending on
who the intended audience is. Deciding on how SDI should be communicated means first
knowing who the SDI are intended to inform and/or influence and what they may use SDI for.
Making indicators useful and influential for companies, government employees, politicians, the
general public, etc. may require communication through different formats and media as part of
a communications strategy.
Figure 8. Adjusting the amount of data to the audience. Adapted from Shields et al. (2002)
Interestingly, it can be argued that simply establishing indicators where before there were none
has a communicative function. Measuring something and communicating the measurement
indicates value. It sends signals that a part of the world we may not have previously been
aware of is worth knowing about. ―We measure what we care about and we care about what we
measure,‖ (Meadows, 1998).
This is not to say that any significant change will happen simply through creation of an
indicator, but the point is there is a socio-communicative function of indicators which
complements their technical measurement function. For example, in their case study on
establishing SDI on the Island of Guernsey, McAlpine & Bernie (2005) found it was only once
an indicator system was up and running that people became interested and begin engaging with
the issues in a significant and effective way. This ‗indication of value through measurement‘ is
of course enhanced or constrained depending on the contextual relevance of indicators and how
effectively it is communicated.
The potential for communication to be effective is also strongly linked to the participatory
aspect of indicators. Indicators need to carry emotional content; people need to care about them
if they are to be effective (Fraser et al., 2006; Bell & Morse, 2008). Sending out messages
28
about indicators with little relevance to the audience is bound to be ineffective. The
relationship between participation in indicator development and the communication of those
indicators may be one of positive feedback – the more communities/stakeholders participate in
creating the indicators, the more likely they are to respond to them. ―The methods used to
collect, interpret and display data must be easily and effectively used by local communities so
all stakeholders can participate in the process.‖ (Fraser et al., 2006: 115)
It is also important to choose which indicators should be communicated. A city or region may
develop a large number of SDI, sometimes over a hundred. Trying to distribute/communicate
data from a too-large number of indicators carries costs, resulting in a loss of efficiency and
clarity (Hardi & Zdan, 1997; Bell & Morse, 2003). However, aggregating indicators through
indexes or integrating them visually requires simplification and loss of information that also
carries risks, especially if the larger, full set of indicators is not made accessible. A decision
needs to be made about this trade off, and about which method is the most appropriate for
which audiences (Figure 9).
There are two ways to simplify indicators in this way: visual and numerical (Olsson et al.,
2004). Visual integration of SDI refers simply to displaying indicators in a visual
communication design. A smaller number of key or headline indicators are often used. Some
examples of visual integration are:
Headline/Key Indicator Selection means selecting a group or groups of fewer, selected
indicators so that different groups who may be the target of SDI, e.g. politicians or the public,
are not overwhelmed with information. These are usually referred to as ‗headline‘ or ‗key
indicators.
Sustainability Reports in which a limited sample of is individual indicators published. In this
sense the sustainability report itself is a visual integration which simplifies diverse data. These
can be static publications, virtual and interactive sites, or real-time databases (usually used for
‗in-house‘ operations).
Figure 9. Three methods of visual integration for SDI. Clockwise from top left: ‘Dashboard of Sustainability’ (IISD, 2007); AMOEBA indicator chart (Adapted from Bell & Morse, 2008); ‘Integrated Sustainability Framework Atlas’ (Insight East, 2012) (Images approved for public use.)
29
Dashboard of Sustainability (figure 10) (see IISD, 2002; Scipioni et al., 2008), a visual
grouping together of ad-hoc indicators in different domains such as Environment, Economy
and Society. The official ‗Dashboard of Sustainability‘ also uses (relatively simple)
mathematical techniques to normalise indicators to make them comparable, e.g. on a scale of
0.0-1.0. However, simply displaying indicators and their status together in a ‗cockpit‘ style
board of indicators may also work in terms of simplification, so long as their status is
represented using common system so that values are comparable/analytically equivalent (e.g.
, and representing good change, bad change, and no change.) On the other hand, it is
important to note that such normative labels (good, bad, etc.) are political, and do not
necessarily correspond to SD values/goals that should be measured in a hard scale like a
percentage.
AMOEBA charts (Figure 10, middle). Originally invented as a simple way to represent
numerous, relatively complex ecosystem indicators while maintaining a holistic view. Able to
visually integrate larger numbers of indicators in an intuitive way (see Bell & Morse, (2003)
and Bell & Morse (2008) for application in SDI work).
GIS Mapping of SDI in which indicators can be integrated with maps, as in the UK ‗Regional
Interactive Sustainability Atlas‘ (Lindley, 2001) and the ‗Integrated Sustainability Framework
Atlas‘ (www.insighteast.org) developed for East England in the UK. These are complicated to
make and thus costly, however can provide an excellent visual guide and have in some cases
been integrated with modelling and forecasts (see www.insighteast.org).
Essentially all the examples of visual integration above use headline indicators (HI). This type
of selective simplification is popular because of ―the perception that robust core sets of
measures are easier to understand, and they help track progress (or lack of it) towards selected
policy goals. It also reflects an understanding that working with a long list of indicators can be
counterproductive, as in all-inclusive indicator sets real priorities tend to be lost‖ (Pintér et al.,
2005: 7).
However, there is a need for caution when selecting and using HI because, as Pintér et al. (ibid)
argue, ‗whether HI represent sustainable development priorities or not depends on their
relationship with any declared sustainability objectives and a more rigorous underlying
conceptual framework. HI may simply be constructed around political priorities, whether they
reflect sustainability considerations or not.‘ This can be quite misleading, focusing on current
issues dominating political discourse and obscuring significant issues influencing future
sustainability. One way around this is to ensure ‗inconvenient‘ or politically unattractive
indicators are represented sided by side with others.
On the other hand, numerical integration of SDI refers to integrating many indicators into an
index or indices. An index is an aggregation of many indicators into one (see Mori &
Christodoulou (2012) or Sing et al. (2012) for a comprehensive review of current indices) in
order to simplify communication and comparison between e.g. regions or countries. There are
risks in creating indices, however. An index which says ―sustainability = 24‖ risks painting an
opaque and inaccessible picture of complex issues. Such indexes can also require a huge
amount of mathematical manipulation to calculate which leads to questionable results as in
Yale & Columbia Universities‘ ambitious and well known Environmental Sustainability Index
(Bell & Morse, 2008). However, some of index examples are:HDI is the UN‘s Human
Development Index (HDI) which combines life expectancy, education and Gross National
Income (GNI) adjusted for inequality between countries (UNDP, 2011).
30
Ecological Footprint is well known for its use by the WWF in its annual Living Planet Report,
ecological footprint measures the demand of humanity on Earth‘s natural capital by calculating
the amount of land needed to support a given country or activity with primary produce such as
crops fisheries, etc.
GDP is the aggregation of a country‘s economic activity over time into one value. Measuring
GDP is a classic and now often derided (see Daly, 1977; van den Bergh, 2007) example of a
highly aggregated indicator used to measure the (economic) development of regions over time.
Its simplicity and usefulness as an index for comparisons between countries made it an
extremely popular indicator. But it largely fails to convey important information such as
income distribution or human wellbeing. It communicates that economic growth is happening
but not how it is happening. Natural disasters and car accidents can increase GDP just as easily
as manufacturing or building infrastructure can.
The GDP example illustrates the need to be able to move up and down the hierarchy within a
system of information – from the highest aggregated indicators which address macro level
questions, down to those indicators at the bottom, measuring localised phenomena (Meadows,
1998). The less this hierarchy is visible and accessible, the less legitimate/useful the
information system or model is as a reflection of empirical reality (ibid).
6. Case Study: Falun Municipality, Sweden
6.1. Chapter Overview
In this chapter I first give a brief introduction to the Swedish context. Municipality
sustainability characterised in Sweden as an ongoing experiment in ecological modernisation,
and is largely the domain of experts. This is followed by an introduction to Falun Municipality
itself. In the rest of the chapter I apply the analytical framework of five focus areas - Vision,
Framework, Selection of Indicators, Stakeholder Participation and Communication - to the
municipality‘s use of indicators in their sustainable development programs.
6.2. The Swedish Context: Sustainable development as
ecological modernisation by experts
Sweden has for some time been seen as a global leader in implementing sustainable
development (OECD, 1996; Jordan & Lenschow, 2008; Statistics Sweden, 2012c). It continues
to be at the forefront of sustainability at the local level (Naturvårdsveket, 2007). In the early
nineties many Swedish municipalities were among the first internationally to adopt Agenda 21
principles; writing them into policy and strategy, developing new training for employees,
adapting in house practices to environmental concerns, and numerous other activities to ensure
the maintenance of Local Agenda 21 over the long term (Rowe & Fudge, 2003).
It was also apparent among citizens that Agenda 21 principles were in general worth adopting,
and that people‘s ways of living needed to change (ibid). Today there has generally been a
slowdown in the cutting edge work being done by Swedish Municipalities, and Sweden‘s
status as a leader here is not what it used to be (Naturvårdsverket, 2007). This is not so
surprising, however, as Sweden‘s relatively early decision to take the initiative with SD work
means much of the ‗low-hanging fruit‘ has already been picked. Agenda 21 funding from the
national government has also significantly dried up over the last couple of decades. Making
31
progress today is thus generally more challenging. The reasons for the ‗slowdown‘ are
however a little more complex than that.
In the early nineties the Swedish national government began developing a strategy for
sustainable development (see Swedish Government, 1996) which acknowledged the need for
change from the ‗business as usual‘ exploitation of nature. It acknowledged that natural capital
could not go on being be degraded or costs continue to be externalised to the environment
without serious consequences for humanity. The proposed way forward was through work
within a framework of ‗ecological modernisation‘ which featured attention to the role of
technology, the state and the market, and also included relatively new acknowledgement of the
need for cultural and institutional change (Fudge & Rowe, 2001).
As ecological modernisation develops environmental and sustainability problems tend to
increasingly be expressed in policy at national level as areas for preventative social, technical
and economic reform, to be implemented through decentralised governmental efforts with
increased attention to the market and economic actors (ibid). This process is reflected in
Sweden‘s national Sustainable Development Strategy (Swedish Government, 2003; Swedish
Government, 2005). However cultural and institutional change within municipalities has been
difficult to realise for reasons I will discuss, and this is crucial as municipalities are arguably
the most powerful decentralised points of decision-making in Sweden.
Figure 10. Map of Sweden and the Baltic Sea with Falun marked in Red
32
Fudge and Rowe (2001) argue that this is due at least in part to a ―deeply conservative, expert-
led `silo' culture still evident throughout governmental departments, agencies, and
municipalities‖. In fact several studies point to the potential negative effects of this high level
of ‗expertisation‘ of sustainable development in Sweden (see Fudge & Rowe, 2001; Rowe &
Fudge, 2003; Bretzer et al., 2006; Mineur, 2007). Broadly, the authors argue that while
progress is being made towards SD, the positioning of SD questions as the domain of experts
may be serving to: 1) stifle necessary creative thinking about SD problems; 2) lead to an overly
technical orientation to SD issues which tends to reduce the social issues and visions of the
future; and 3) exclude stakeholder involvement in the development and implementation of SD
policy and strategy, which comes at the expense of stakeholder engagement necessary to enact
change.
Furthermore, Eckerberg & Mineur (2003) studied the attempts in Swedish cities – Stockholm
and Sundsvall – to include stakeholders in the cities‘ well established and comprehensive SDI.
They concluded that the democratic/participatory aspect of SDI design and use was largely
symbolic, and that both cities were still finding it difficult to implement SD in terms of citizen
participation despite officially expressing interest and starting some ongoing efforts.
In an in-depth study of indicator systems in three Swedish Municipalities, Stockholm,
Sundsvall and Växjo, Mineur (2007) found that stakeholder participation was often
interpreted as simply ‗informing stakeholders and inviting them to meetings‘. The study also
found there was also common concern among municipal-level politicians that using
participatory methods in indicator processes were contradictory to principles of
representative democracy. It was also found that efficiency-driven indicator systems created
by experts and which contained less ‗soft‘ indicators were much more likely to be
implemented. This was because of a broad emphasis in Municipal governments on efficiency
over participation, and that politicians‘ trust in expert knowledge was high (ibid).
The degree to which effective stakeholder participation in sustainable development for
municipalities is desirable is still very much an open question in the literature. And it is
evident in the case studies I just cited that these cities have achieved much in terms of SD,
despite difficulties with managing stakeholder participation.
The National Government has also directly funded sustainability work through large scale
National programs such the Local Investment Program (LIP) and the Climate Investment
Program (KlimP). These have been instrumental in driving SD project work at the municipal
level (Eckerberg et al, 2005; Naturvårdsverket, 2007). This has had a massive impact, seeing
billions of Swedish Kronor spent on SD related work. Interestingly, it also may have helped
engender what Mineur (2007) found to be a common perception among municipal decision-
makers: that sustainable development is achieved through project work, rather than as a
continuous process to be managed over time as part of general operations.
This is significant as it can be argued that the institutional, structural, economic, etc. changes
SD requires are only achievable, or at least much more likely to be reached, with attention to
the latter, longer term approach (see for example AtKisson, 2010). The national strategy
(Swedish Government, 2005) provides a broad and more comprehensive vision (beyond
project work), however the independence and political strength of the municipalities means
their own long term visions for SD are crucial.
The independence of municipalities in Sweden has historically been strong. Regional level
counties in Sweden are more of an administrative entity than an extra level of government
33
Ind
icat
ors
Ow
ne
r &
Re
fere
nce
d S
ou
rce
Ye
ar
Esta
bli
she
d
Po
liti
cal L
eve
l /
Ge
ogr
aph
ical
Sco
pe
No
. of I
nd
icat
ors
Vis
ion
Fram
ew
ork
Ind
icat
or
Sele
ctio
n
Par
tici
pat
ion
in
de
velo
pin
g in
dic
ato
rsC
om
mu
nic
atio
n
EU 'E
uro
sta
t' S
DI
EU
(Eu
rost
at,
20
12
)2
00
5EU
/ E
U
10
He
ad
lin
e
Ind
ica
tors
(13
0
tota
l)
EU S
ust
ain
ab
le
De
velo
pm
en
t St
rate
gy
(20
06
)Is
sue
-Ba
sed
Ind
ex
typ
e; i
ncl
ud
es
som
e c
au
sal &
dyn
am
ic S
DI (
rate
s o
f
cha
nge
)
Euro
pe
an
Co
mm
issi
on
exp
ert
wo
rkin
g gr
ou
p
Up
da
ted
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lin
e, A
nn
ua
l
Re
po
rts,
Co
un
trie
s' o
wn
rep
ort
ing
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om
mo
n In
dic
ato
rs
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bie
nte
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lia
,
20
03
)2
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0EU
/ C
ity
10
He
ad
lin
e
Ind
ica
tors
No
ne
. De
volv
ed
to
pa
rtic
ipa
tin
g ci
tie
sIs
sue
-Ba
sed
In
de
x ty
pe
; lin
ea
r SD
I
25
Mu
nic
ipa
l
au
tho
riti
es
& a
gen
cie
s.
On
e w
ork
ing
gro
up
pe
r
SDI.
Co
un
trie
s su
bm
it d
ata
an
d r
ep
ort
. Use
d in
an
nu
al '
Euro
pe
Gre
en
Ca
pit
al'
aw
ard
s
Swe
dis
h N
ati
on
al S
DI
Swe
dis
h
Go
vern
me
nt
(20
05
)2
00
5Sw
ed
en
/ N
ati
on
al
12
He
ad
lin
e
Ind
ica
tors
(se
lect
ed
fro
m
87
to
tal)
Swe
dis
h S
tra
tegy
for
SD
(20
06
)
Issu
e-B
ase
d. (
He
alt
h, S
ust
ain
ab
le
con
sum
pti
on
& p
rod
uct
ion
; Eco
no
my;
Soci
al c
oh
esi
on
; En
viro
nm
en
t& c
lim
ate
,
Glo
ba
l de
velo
pm
en
t)In
de
x ty
pe
; lin
ea
r SD
I
Swe
dis
h G
ove
rnm
en
t &
Sta
tist
ics
Swe
de
n (S
CB
)
Off
icia
l Sw
ed
ish
Go
vt.
Re
po
rtin
g
Na
tio
na
l He
alt
h
Pri
ori
tie
s
Swe
dis
h N
ati
on
al
Inst
itu
te o
f Pu
bli
c
He
alt
h (F
HI)
(2
01
2)
N/A
Swe
de
n /
Na
tio
na
l1
0 P
rio
riti
es
Pu
bli
c H
ea
lth
Fo
cus
An
tho
logy
typ
e; l
ine
ar
SDI
Inte
rna
l FH
I wo
rkin
g
gro
up
an
d e
xpe
rts;
ext
ern
al e
xpe
rt r
evi
ew
bo
ard
Off
icia
l Sw
ed
ish
Go
vt.
Re
po
rtin
g
Swe
dis
h E
nvi
ron
me
nta
l
Qu
ali
ty O
bje
ctiv
es
Swe
dis
h
Go
vern
me
nt
(20
04
)1
99
9 /
20
04
Swe
de
n /
Na
tio
na
l1
6 O
bje
ctiv
es
Solv
e m
ajo
r
en
viro
nm
en
tal p
rob
lem
s
no
w, f
or
the
ne
xt
gen
era
tio
n'
Envi
ron
me
nta
l Fo
cus
Ind
ex
typ
e; s
om
e
cau
sal l
inks
; so
me
fee
db
ack
loo
ps
Nu
me
rou
s Sw
ed
ish
Go
vern
me
nt
age
nci
es
an
d g
rou
ps
Up
da
ted
on
lin
e p
ort
al;
Off
icia
l Re
po
rtin
g a
t
regi
on
al/
mu
nic
ipa
l
au
tho
rity
leve
l
Gre
en
Ke
y In
dic
ato
rs
(Sw
ed
ish
Eco
-
Mu
nic
ipa
liti
es,
20
02
)
Swe
dis
h E
co-
Mu
nic
ipa
liti
es
(SEK
OM
)2
00
2
Swe
de
n /
Mu
nic
ipa
lity
12
Ind
ica
tors
Imp
rove
d m
on
ito
rin
g/
com
pa
riso
n; h
igh
ligh
t
act
ion
s n
ee
de
d; N
atu
ral
Ste
p 4
ru
les
An
tho
logy
typ
e; l
ine
ar
SDI
Sele
cte
d b
y SE
KO
M
Me
mb
ers
in 2
00
2
Re
spo
nsi
bil
ity
of
Mu
nic
ipa
lity
No
rdic
Ind
ica
tors
No
rdic
Co
un
cil o
f
Min
iste
rs
(No
rde
n, 2
00
9)
20
03
No
rdic
Co
un
trie
s /
All
Co
un
trie
s1
8 in
dic
ato
rs
Sust
ain
ab
le
De
velo
pm
en
t - N
ew
Be
ari
ngs
for
the
No
rdic
Co
un
trie
s: 2
00
9-2
01
2
Issu
e-B
ase
d. (
Cli
ma
te&
en
erg
y;
Sust
ain
ab
le p
rod
uct
ion
& c
on
sum
pti
on
;
No
rdic
we
lfa
re s
tate
; Ed
uca
tio
n&
re
sea
rch
,
pu
bli
c p
art
icip
ati
on
/ lo
cal S
D)
An
tho
logy
typ
e; l
ine
ar
SDI
No
rdic
Co
un
cil o
f
Min
iste
rs
On
lin
e, P
ub
lish
ed
Stra
tegy
Re
po
rt
Ene
rgy
Ind
ica
tors
Swe
dis
h E
ne
rgy
Age
ncy
(20
12
)
20
10
(in
re
vise
d
form
)Sw
ed
en
/ M
un
icip
ali
ty
25
Ind
ica
tors
; 3
Up
da
tea
ble
'Th
em
e'
Ind
ica
tors
Na
tio
na
l En
erg
y P
oli
cy
Ob
ject
ive
s to
20
20
Ene
rgy
Focu
sed
; Iss
ue
-ba
sed
in li
ne
wit
h
po
licy
go
als
; In
clu
de
s ro
om
for
cau
sal
ind
ica
tors
Lin
ea
r SD
I;
Ba
ckgr
ou
nd
' dri
vin
g
forc
e in
dic
ato
rsSw
ed
ish
En
erg
y A
gen
cySC
B; A
nn
ua
l re
po
rtin
g
Falu
n S
D In
dic
ato
rs
Falu
n M
un
icip
ali
ty
(se
e fu
ll li
stin
g in
this
th
esi
s Ta
ble
s 2
,
3, 4
)2
00
1M
un
icip
ali
ty /
Fa
lun
circ
a 1
50
Ind
ica
tors
Bru
nd
tla
nd
De
fin
itio
n o
f
SDD
om
ain
Ba
sed
An
tho
logy
typ
e; l
ine
ar
SDI
Pu
bli
c p
art
icip
ati
on
in
eco
no
mic
; lim
ite
d
pa
rtic
ipa
tio
n in
oth
er
pro
gra
ms
An
nu
al R
ep
ort
wit
h
sele
cte
d p
osi
tive
an
d
ne
gati
ve t
ren
ds.
Tab
le 2
. O
verv
iew
of
Rele
van
t In
dic
ato
rs f
or
Sw
ed
ish
Mu
nic
ipa
liti
es
34
(although the county-level is still highly influential in e.g. regional planning), with a great
number of important powers divulged to the municipalities (kommuna) themselves. Around
two thirds of the average individuals‘ tax payment goes to their municipal government
(Statistics Sweden, 2012a), giving the municipalities a strong economic role at the local level.
Swedish municipalities certainly have the legal authority required to carry out sustainable
development work and many also have the economic resources and even political support to do
so,but what is often lacking in Sweden‘s (and the world‘s) municipalities is the capacity to ‗do‘
sustainable development. And, as the critique of expertisation implies, there are serious
questions over what the nature of this capacity should be.
Fudge & Rowe argued a decade ago that ‗individual well-informed officers and activists within
municipal councils, agencies, nongovernmental organisations, and the professions seem unable
to catalyse the conceptual shift which is required‘ (2001:1534) to move Sweden towards
achieving the lofty goals of ecological modernisation expressed in national strategies. Today
the gap between broad, holistic policy goals and the reality of what is achievable through
implementation at local level by experts is an ongoing tension (Bretzer et al., 2006; Mineur,
2007) this is by no means a Swedish phenomenon and in part reflects a larger ambiguity over
what exactly constitutes SD, and effective practice in SD work, in municipalities and cities
internationally.
Nevertheless, there remains a positive effort from municipal governments to continue working
towards sustainability goals in a transparent and effective way. And while the critique of
expertisation is a serious one, it can be argued that there are significant benefits to a relatively
expert oriented, technical approach to SD. Monitoring and reporting with indicators is
increasingly rigorous and, as with most official information in Sweden, tends to be highly
transparent and accessible to the public. New initiatives are regularly enacted to improve the
level of professional standards in the sustainability sector. For example, a Swedish ‗guidance
standard for sustainable development‘ for the local and regional level is now under
development at the Swedish Standards Institute (SKL, 2009a), in which 19 businesses,
university and government stakeholders are so far participating.
A survey taken in 2006 showed over 60% of municipality authorities in Sweden are carrying
out environmental reporting (SALAR, 2009) and some have expanded beyond environmental
reporting and into environmental accounting and EcoBudgeting (see ICLEI, UN-HABITAT &
UNEP, 2008). Reporting varies in scope and design, with some municipalities presenting
reports as in line with Agenda 21 goals, national environmental goals, or with the
municipality‘s own operational objectives (ibid). Most municipalities communicate their work
in published annual reports with varying designs and depth, ranging from inclusion of a small
number of environmental indicators to full environmental accounting alongside municipal
budgeting, e.g. in Växjö Municipality (Växjö, 2012). Some municipalities also have
interactive ‗sustainability barometer‘ (hållbaretsbarometer) websites, with detailed
information available online, such as those presented by Lund and Stockholm.
6.3. Falun Municipality
Falun is the capital of Dalarna County (Dalarnas län) in central Sweden. The city and its
surrounding municipality lies north of Stockholm with a population of about 60 000, in a
country of nine million. It has a unique environmental and economic history. It is well known
for its copper mine, the Great Copper Mountain (Stora Kopparberg), which is UNESCO
World Heritage listed and at one point supplied two thirds of the world‘s copper (Lindeström,
2002). Operating the mine was devastating for the region‘s environment, but produced a huge
35
amount of wealth. It spewed sulphur-filled smoke into the sky in a column seen for miles and
left huge piles of black mining waste lining the city‘s roads. It caused what may be the first
cases of anthropogenic lake acidification ever recorded worldwide (Ek & Renberg, 2001).
People walking the town‘s streets needed to hold burning torches to be able to see in the
daytime, and no vegetation grew for 10km around the city limits (Lindeström, 2002). At the
same time, the mine was injecting immense riches into Sweden‘s national treasury and
provided much of the wealth for Sweden‘s in its rise as a great power in the 17th
Century,
including various wars (ibid). When the mine eventually closed in 1992, the company which
had been operating it was said to be the oldest company in the world.
Today the landscape has largely ‗recovered‘, and the only visible sign of this bleak part of its
history is the mine itself, now a museum which reportedly sees about 100,000 visitors per year.
The landscape is a forest, lake and mountain-filled area which attracts domestic tourism and
contains many protected sites. Of course remnants of the area‘s industrial past can be found.
For example, the city‘s commitment to contamination-related monitoring are more stringent
than the law requires, in some part due to a history of dealing with contaminants. And as with
so many ex-mining towns, there is a strong political and economic sensitivity over population
numbers, jobs and ‗staying on the map‘– although these are of course concerns for all cities,
especially smaller cities.
Neighbouring Borlänge also has a population of about 60 000 and the two are so close
together (18km between them) they have coordinated in many areas and have shared aspects of
comprehensive planning since 1995. There is a trend towards collaboration suggesting the two
cities may in future see a more harmonised government and administrative configuration in
some areas, including sustainable development planning. Both cities have experienced the
difficulty of the slow but steady socio-economic drift to the south of the country and have been
consistently under pressure to keep residents and jobs local (Fudge & Rowe, 2001). Poor air
quality due to traffic has been an ongoing issue for both cities due in part to topography – the
municipalities lie in a slightly low part of the region. Falun has recently seen success in
implementing creative and integrated ideas for increasing public transport use.
Falun was among the Swedish municipalities which adopted local agenda 21 goals in the early
1990s. From 1992 the municipality began officially reporting on its Local Agenda 21 efforts.
In 2005 Agenda 21 reporting was replaced with the annual Sustainable Development Report,
and today Falun continues to carry out Local Agenda 21-related work under its environmental,
economic and public health programs. The municipality has for some time now given
Figure 11. Falun City Centre, 2012
36
important recognition at the political level to the difference between development as a
qualitative concept and development as a quantitative concept, and the benefits of favouring
the former (Fudge and Rowe, 2003). This has been challenging to implement in practice, but
reflects a generally positive view towards integrating environment and sustainability issues into
general municipal operations and domains. Falun spends a high amount per capita on
‗environmental health and sustainable development activities beyond just regulation‘ relative
to other Swedish Municipalities (Statistics Sweden, 2012b), consistently ranking in the top
25% of municipalities since 1999.
6.4. The Role of Indicators
The municipality government and administration uses indicators for monitoring and reporting
on work carried out within its general operations. In this study I refer specifically to
indicators used within the municipality‘s three programs for sustainable development
(officially labelled as such); the Growth, Environment and Public Health programs. Falun‘s
SDI have four main roles:
For monitoring. Falun‘s SDI are used to monitor progress towards the roughly 150
goals in the three programs. For example, the indicator ‗number of heart attacks‘ shows
progress towards the goal of ‗reducing heart attacks by 10%‘, which is listed under the
sub-goal ‗a more health-promoting health and medical service‘ in the Public Health
program (Falun Municipality, 2007b). Another example is the indicator ‗proportion of
urban population with green space within 300 metres from home‘ listed under the sub-
goal ‗good built environment‘ in the environmental program (Falun Municipality,
2007a). Success is measured by the indicator, in this case the number of heart attacks or
number of people with access to green space. The relevant department or actors must
come up with work activities which are meant to achieve the goals, and indicators are
used to measure results (Interview 1).
For use in decision making. Falun‘s SDI are intended to be used by strategists,
politicians and municipal staff when planning and making decisions. The complexity of
using a large number of diverse indicators means that head strategists within the
programs are likely to be the only ones who have the ‗complete picture‘ and are thus
responsible for interpreting and communicating the holistic picture of SD for politicians
and municipal staff (Interview 5, Interview 6).
Figure 12. Lake Främby, Falun, 2012
37
For use in official reporting. Falun‘s SDI are published in various internal and external
municipal communications efforts. Indicators appear in official reporting including
annual SD reports and are used to also used in creating progress reports for the three
programs (e.g. Falun Municipality, 2012) to show that the Municipality is taking such
actions.
As a way of communicating information in order to increase stakeholders’ awareness
or understanding of issues. Indicators often stimulate curiosity about what is ‗going on
behind them‘ when presented to politicians (Interview 6). In the same way they also can
raise new issues for discussions and planning within the municipality administration
(Interview 4, Interview 5, Interview 6). Falun‘s indicators are communicated to the
public, media, business, industry, etc. almost exclusively through annual reports
(Interview 6)., PDF files made available on the website, and in print available from the
municipality on request
6.5. Falun’s Sustainable Development Indicators
The municipality uses over 100 indicators in its SD monitoring efforts. They are presented
below. To give context to this number of indicators, the Swedish cities of Sundsvall, Växjö,
and Stockholm, with populations of 50 000, 80 000 and 870 000 respectively, all use under 40
indicators to monitor SD (Mineur, 2007). However, this risks an unfair comparison and some
clarification is needed. These cities do in fact use more than 40 indicators in their general
operations, but they all use under 40 to measure sustainable development goals. The difference
is that in Falun there has been no significant distinction made between which goals and
indicators are an important for SD and those that are less so. Thus, all goals and indicators in
the three very wide programs are by default part of achieving SD.
Tables 4, 5 and 6 show indicators listed by program, and grouped under broad sub-goals
(delmål). The specific goals of each program have been omitted from the tables due to space
restrictions. For a visual representation of the programs‘ hierarchical structure, see figure 13.
The growth program uses few indicators, with most of its goals not clearly connected to
indicators.
6.6. Vision
Question for assessing effectiveness #1: Does the organisation have a defined vision of SD
with clearly connected goals supporting it?
The municipality uses what is basically the Brundtland Report‘s (WCED, 1987) definition of
sustainable development: development that meet the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs; ―A future in which
economic growth does not come at the expense of health and the environment‖ (Falun.se,
2012). The intention is that this will be achieved through work towards the 150 or so goals in
the three SD programs, and is to be done with attention to the interdependency of the
economic, social and environmental (Falun Municipality, 2011). Some of the sub-goals in each
program do suggest a future state towards which work is directed, e.g. ‗healthy and safe
environments and products‘ (Falun Municipality, 2007b). However, the indicators being
monitored are very diverse, and it is often not necessarily clear how they are connected to SD
goals.
38
Table 3. Falun's 'Public Health Program' subgoals and indicators.
Publ ic Health (Folkhälsa) Progam
Sub-Goal Indicators
Overall Progress [no indicators ]
Participation and influence Voters in Municipa l Elections
Equal i ty Index
number of Civi l Society Actors
Economic and social security Individuals needing Financia l ass is tance
% of fami l ies with chi ldren: low-income s ingle
% of fami l ies with chi ldren: low-income other
% pens ioner fami l ies : low income
% s ick leave and activi ty leave
Unemployed 20 -24 year olds
Unemployed people in a program with activi ty support 20 -64 years
Unemployed 20- 64 year olds
Number of Jobs in Fa lun
The percentage of profess ionals who are foreign born
Increased Physical Activity How do young people feel?
Healthier working life Incapaci ty rate in women
Incapaci ty rate in men% 20-64 year old women with psychologica l disorders due to work
environment (county-level data)% 20-64 year old men with psychologica l disorders due to work
environment (county-level data)
Healthy & safe environments and products [This indicator l i s ted in the Environmental Program]
[This indicator l i s ted in the Environmental Program]
[This indicator l i s ted in the Environmental Program]
Appointed " Al lergianpassad Municipa l i ty "
[This indicator l i s ted in the Environmental Program]
[This indicator l i s ted in the Environmental Program]
[This indicator l i s ted in the Environmental Program]
[This indicator l i s ted in the Environmental Program]
More health-promoting medical care Number of heart attacks
Number FYSSordinationer (Including exercise on prescription)
Effective protection against spread of disease % of chi ld vaccinations
Safe Sexuality and good reproductive health Cases of Gonorrhea (county level data)
Cases of HIV (county level data)
Cases of Chlamydia (county level data)
Cases of Chlamydia (Fa lun)
Number of abortions
Increased Physical Activity % of people phys ica l ly active 30 min/day
(access to parks - see environmental program)
Good eating habits & safe food % with diabetes
% with obese BMI 30 and over
% with underweight BMI 18.4 and under
Morta l i ty from ischemic heart disease (Myocardia l infarction) per 10,000
Reduced tobacco and alcohol; free of illicit
drugs, doping, excessive gambling. % of smokers in Grade 9
%of inhabitants who smoke dai ly
% who use snus (mouth tobacco)
% with non hazardous a lcohol habits
% with ri sky hazardous a lcohol habits
% expecting mothers who smoke
Safe and good childhood conditions How do young people feel?
39
Envi
ronm
enta
l (M
iljö)
Pro
gram
Sub-
Goa
l (D
elm
ål)
Indi
cato
rsSu
b-G
oal (
Del
mål
) In
dica
tors
Sub-
Goa
l (D
elm
ål)
Indi
cato
r
Ove
rall
Prog
ress
Cert
ifie
d "
Gre
en
Fla
g"Sa
fe R
adia
tion
Nu
mb
er
of
ne
w c
ase
s o
f m
ali
gna
nt
me
lan
om
a (
cou
nty
le
vel)
A r
ich
Agr
icul
tura
l lan
dsca
pe
Na
tura
200
0 fa
rmla
nd
Sust
ain
ab
le D
eve
lop
me
nt
Sch
oo
l' A
wa
rdG
am
ma
ra
dia
tio
n (
μSv
/ h
)N
ati
on
al
inte
rest
cu
ltu
ral,
fa
rmla
nd
(n
um
be
r)
Agr
icu
ltu
ral
lan
d (
ha
)
Lim
it c
limat
e im
pact
Carb
on
dio
xid
e e
mis
sio
ns,
re
sid
en
tia
l a
nd
se
rvic
e s
ect
or
(to
ns/
yr)
No
eutr
ophi
cati
onIn
div
idu
al
sew
age
Nu
mb
er
of
farm
s (p
c)
Carb
on
dio
xid
e e
mis
sio
ns,
th
e p
ub
lic
sect
or
(to
ns
/ ye
ar)
Ove
rflo
w F
räm
by
sew
age
tre
atm
en
t p
lan
ts (
%)
Live
sh
ack
s
Carb
on
dio
xid
e e
mis
sio
ns,
tra
nsp
ort
(to
ns
/ ye
ar)
Ove
rflo
w B
jurs
ås
sew
age
tre
atm
en
t p
lan
ts (
%)
Me
ad
ow
an
d p
ast
ure
(h
a)
Carb
on
dio
xid
e e
mis
sio
ns,
in
du
stri
al
sect
or
(to
ns
/ ye
ar)
Ove
rflo
w S
ågm
yra
se
wa
ge t
rea
tme
nt
pla
nts
(%
)
Emis
sio
ns
oth
er
gre
en
ho
use
ga
s e
mis
sio
ns
(to
ns
/ ye
ar)
Ove
rflo
w G
ryck
sbo
se
wa
ge t
rea
tme
nt
pla
nts
(%
)G
ood
Bui
lt E
nvir
onm
ent
Wo
rld
He
rita
ge b
uil
din
gs (
nu
mb
er)
Dri
vin
g d
ista
nce
s b
y ca
r (m
il /
F)
Ove
rflo
w s
ew
age
Bo
da
(%
)%
of
urb
an
po
pu
lati
on
w. g
ree
n s
pa
ce w
ith
in 3
00 m
fro
m h
om
e
% o
f ca
rs u
sin
g a
lte
rna
tive
fu
els
Ove
rflo
w E
nvi
ken
se
wa
ge t
rea
tme
nt
pla
nts
(%
) Fo
ssil
fu
els
, re
sid
en
tia
l a
nd
se
rvic
e (
MW
h /
ye
ar)
Sale
s o
f b
ioe
tha
no
l (E
85)
an
d b
us
eth
an
ol
(MW
h)
Ove
rflo
w L
ingh
ed
se
wa
ge t
rea
tme
nt
pla
nts
(%
) Fo
ssil
fu
els
, pu
bli
c a
cto
rs (
MW
h /
ye
ar)
Ele
ctri
city
Vä
ste
rma
lm A
gen
cie
s (G
Wh
/ y
ea
r)O
verf
low
fo
ldin
g se
wa
ge (
%)
Foss
il f
ue
ls, t
ran
spo
rt (
MW
h /
ye
ar)
Tota
l Ca
rbo
n d
ioxi
de
em
issi
on
s (t
on
s /
yr)
Ove
rflo
w D
an
ho
ln s
ew
age
tre
atm
en
t p
lan
ts (
%)
The
sh
are
of
ren
ew
ab
le e
ne
rgy
sou
rce
s
Tota
l G
ree
nh
ou
se G
ase
s (t
on
s /
yea
r)N
itro
gen
oxi
de
s in
air
(to
ns
/ ye
ar)
Ele
ctri
city
Vä
ste
rma
lmsg
all
eri
an
wo
rks
(GW
h /
ye
ar)
Sl
ud
ge f
rom
lic
en
sed
se
wa
ge t
rea
tme
nt
wo
rks
tha
t m
ee
ts t
he
lim
it a
nd
gu
ide
lin
e f
or
use
on
fa
rmla
nd
Sale
s C
ar
eth
an
ol
(E85
) a
nd
Bu
s e
tha
no
l (M
Wh
)
Fres
h A
irSu
lph
ur
dio
xid
e c
on
ten
t, a
nn
ua
l m
ea
n (
μg/
m3)
Perc
en
tage
se
wa
ge s
lud
ge t
ha
t h
as
be
en
re
turn
ed
to
th
e c
ycle
Ene
rgy
con
sum
pti
on
pe
r ca
pit
a (
KWh
/ c
ap
ita
)
an
nu
al
me
an
nit
roge
n d
ioxi
de
co
nte
nt
(μg/
m3)
Re
lea
se o
f p
ho
sph
oru
s fr
om
wa
ste
wa
ter
tre
atm
en
t p
lan
t (k
g/yr
)V
asc
ula
r W
ast
e a
nd
Bu
lky
wa
ste
(kg
/ c
ap
ita
)
ho
url
y a
vera
ge n
itro
gen
dio
xid
e C
on
cen
tra
tio
n (
μg/
m3)
Am
mo
nia
Em
issi
on
s (t
on
s /
yea
r)Co
mp
lain
ts R
oa
d t
raff
ic n
ois
e
da
ily
ave
rage
nit
roge
n d
ioxi
de
Co
nce
ntr
ati
on
(μ
g/m
3)R
ad
on
in
ho
me
s
be
nze
ne
(μ
g/m
3)Fl
ouri
shin
g La
kes
and
Stre
ams
Surf
ace
Ext
ract
ion
Are
as
Na
ture
re
serv
e 'F
rilu
tfsl
iv' m
m (
ha
)
VO
C Em
issi
on
s (t
on
s /
yea
r)N
atu
re r
ese
rve
s: l
ake
s a
nd
wa
terw
ays
Na
tio
na
l in
tere
st c
ult
ura
l e
nvi
ron
me
nt
(nu
mb
er)
Part
icle
s PM
10 (
μg/
m3)
Na
tura
200
0: l
ake
s a
nd
wa
terw
ays
Bu
ild
ing
cult
ura
l h
eri
tage
(n
ot
wit
hin
th
e W
orl
d H
eri
tage
Sit
e)
De
velo
pe
d w
alk
ing
an
d c
ycli
ng
rou
tes
(Km
)
Onl
y N
atur
al A
cidi
fica
tion
Nit
roge
n o
xid
es
(to
ns
/ ye
ar)
Gro
undw
ater
Qua
lity
The
pro
po
rtio
n P
rote
cte
d /
Re
gula
tio
ns
No
ise
co
mp
lain
ts
Lim
ed
la
kes
Lim
ed
wa
ter
Thri
ving
Wet
land
sN
atu
re r
ese
rve
s, w
etl
an
ds
Ric
h D
iver
sity
of
Plan
ts &
Wild
life
Na
ture
re
serv
e, a
nim
al
an
d p
lan
t li
fe
Toxi
n-fr
ee E
nvir
onm
ent
Tra
nsp
ort
of
Zin
c fr
om
Fa
lun
to
Ru
nn
(to
ns
/ ye
ar)
Na
tura
200
0 w
etl
an
d
Tota
l re
serv
e
Un
sort
ed
am
ou
nts
of
ha
zard
ou
s w
ast
e (
ton
ne
s)To
tal
Na
tura
200
0
Sust
aina
ble
Fore
sts
Na
ture
re
serv
es,
fo
rest
Prot
ecti
on o
f O
zone
Lay
er[n
o in
dica
tors
]H
ab
ita
t
Pro
tect
ion
Agr
ee
me
nts
Na
tura
200
0 fo
rest
Na
tio
na
l in
tere
st c
ult
ura
l, w
oo
dla
nd
(n
um
be
r)
Tab
le 4
. F
alu
n's
'E
nv
iro
nm
en
tal P
rog
ram
' su
bg
oals
an
d in
dic
ato
rs.
40
Growth/Economy Ti l lväxt. Program
Indicators
TO WORK IN FALUN
Business development Number of new bus inesses opening per year
Population
Unemployment rate
Total Retai l sa les in SEK
Competence and Skills Total Jobs
Bus iness Cl imate- number of bus iness in contact with the kommun
Number of new hous ing constructions – houses
Number of new hous ing constructions – apartments
Media Number of people commuting
Number of s tudents at region's technica l col lege (Högskolan Dalarna)
TO LIVE AND EXPERIENCE FALUN
Life Environment - the Creative City
Culture
Sport
Tourism Industry
FALUN- COMING AND GOING
Brand Name
Connecting to the World
Communications
Sub-Goal (delmål)
Table 5. Falun's 'Growth Program' subgoals and indicators. (Please note: indicators are not formally grouped under subgoals as they are in the other programs, and relatively few are used)
41
In interviews strategists expressed a perception that the sustainable development vision was
vague and that this was problematic for both integrated work across programs and work within
programs (Interview 5, Interview 6, Interview 7). For example the Growth Program which is,
at least officially, part of overall sustainable development, has carried out participatory
processes with community stakeholders every few years. Each time, the outcome of the process
is used to shape the goals and indicators in the Growth program. However, not having a future
vision for SD - and for the Growth Program itself - contributed to an ‗unfocused‘ output which
did not take a long term perspective (Interview 5). A new initiative towards creating an overall
vision for the municipality‘s future development (not just for SD) is to be started late 2012,
although it was not clear during my research how SD will be approached in establishing this
vision.
As will be shown later, the three SD programs and their content are the result of a rather
disjointed history. The piecemeal way Falun‘s three SD programs have been put together has
contributed to the current use of the rather conventional ‗default‘ definition of SD and the
absence of a strong vision. However, as one Municipality strategist said ―in an ideal world, you
create the vision and then goals and indicators but we can‘t do that, everything is moving at the
same time‖ (interview with environmental strategist, 10 May, 2012). In other words, there is no
‗clean slate‘ on which to place an SD strategy and develop ideal indicators. The political and
operational reality is messy. However, the result is that the municipality has not created a
sustainable development vision and selected goals and indicators specifically for achieving it.
Although in fact such a process was begun in 2005 and never finished, being cancelled before
completion due to budgetary constraints (personal communication with environmental
strategist, December, 2012).
6.7. Framework
Question for assessing effectiveness #2: Is the choice of framework suited to achieving the SD
goals, and ultimately the vision?
The Municipality has used a domain-based framework to structure its SD program. This
framework is the formative structure for the municipality‘s SD related policy and goal-oriented
activities. The framework splits planning and policy work into three programs: Folkhälsa
(Public Health), Tillväxt (Economic Growth), and Miljö (Environment). These roughly mirror
the conventional ‗three pillars‘ of Sustainable Development, giving attention to the social,
economic, and environmental. This three pillar framework is a commonly used framework for
approaching sustainability in theory and practice. Work towards SD carried out by the
Municipality predominantly falls under one of three major programs (see Figure 11).
Municipality employees are then responsible for creating and carrying out action towards these
sub goals and goals, and indicators measure progress towards them.
The programs are hierarchically structured. Under each of the three programs is a list of broad
sub-goals (delmål), for example ‗toxin-free environment‘ or ‗economic and social security‘.
Grouped under each sub-goal are specific goals (måler), some of which are quantified, e.g.
‗reduction of carbon emissions by 60%‘, and some of which are simply a description of a
desired trend, e.g. ‗the percentage of people voting should increase by 2013‘. Indicators have
been selected for most of these specific goals in order to show progress towards them (some
goals do not have corresponding indicators because indicators were not or could not be
selected during the selection process for various reasons, e.g. lack of data gathering capacity).
42
The three programs‘ different development histories mean that goals and indicators were not
designed together but rather grouped together into a framework. This configuration allows for
clear measurement towards goals, but creates some problems too. The ‗domain-based‘
framework (discussed in section 5.4) has certain weaknesses, some of which are reflected in
Falun‘s sustainability monitoring efforts. First the goals and indicators have been formed to fit
the three domains (see Figure 14), between which no explicit causal links have been expressed.
Second, although much of the three programs‘ content is indeed linked to SD, these links are
thus not formally expressed in the structure in Figure 14. The link to SD is also often not clear
in practice, according to feedback from actors working within the programs (Interview 3,
Interview 5, Interview 6). For example, the sub goals ‗a good built environment‘, under the
Environment Program, or ‗economic and social security‘, under the Public Health Program, are
areas with important links to sustainable development. However, within the current framework
it is not explicit how they fit into a vision for sustainable development. This stems in part from
the fact that the framework was not used in creating the programs. They were not initially
designed as ‗three parts of a whole‘. Rather, as is covered in Section 6.9, the programs were
created at different times by different actors before being grouped together under a SD
framework for the Municipality‘s SD planning & policy, and monitoring & reporting activities.
6.8. Indicator Selection
Question for assessing effectiveness #3: Are indicators chosen with a particular approach or
method shaped by systems-approach principles of sustainable development?
Multidimensionality, Causal & Dynamic Modelling
The majority of Falun‘s indicators meet multiple criteria listed in Table 1 (Section 3.4.) and are
highly suitable as SD indicators. Taken as a whole, indicators for the three programs address
multiple dimensions of SD in that they measure the social, environmental and economic. Some
individual indicators are relevant to more than one area, and in some cases are presented as
Figure 13. Structure of Falun Municipality SD Programs and Indicator Monitoring
43
such e.g. when presented in the annual SD Report Utveckling i Falun (Falun Municipality,
2011) or in the official program action plans. However,
However, SDI have been selected by actors focused only on a specific program and as a result
were not designed to address the important criteria (see Table 1) of ‗integration/
multidimensionality‘. The goals and indicators of the Environment Program, for example, are
based on Sweden‘s 16 Environmental Quality Objectives (see Swedish Government, 2004), but
do not come with any ready-made links to other domains of SD relevant to the local context in
Falun. The goals of the Growth Program come from stakeholder meetings focused purely on
the objectives of Falun‘s economic future. And the numerous goals and indicators of the Public
Health Program are similarly lacking integration with other domains.
Strategists and municipal staff expressed this issue in interviews. There was a general
awareness that problems were not usually approached in an ‗integrated‘ way. All interviewees
expressed a perception that an integrated, holistic approach to problems is what sustainable
development requires. However it was also recognised that many barriers existed in terms of
time, resources and capability (Interview 3, Interview 5, Interview 6, Interview 7).
Interviewees also often expressed that they perceived value in having clearer links between
programs (or domains/ dimensions of SD). For example, one interviewee (Interview 3) said
that he often worked towards his goals with the assumption of links between the municipality‘s
environmental goals and economic goals. He said these links were not mapped, however. If
they were, it would allow him to better show in what ways his area, Nature Protection, was
valuable economically.
However, the ‗separateness‘ of the programs was not necessarily seen as a limitation and was
in some cases considered an efficient way of working. Having to deal with the content of the
other programs would involve too much administrative work, and it was better to actually ‗get
things done‘ rather than spend excessive amounts of time ―discussing all the links to other
programs‖ (Interview 5).
So the current goals and indicators are designed to monitor dimensions of SD separately. No
overarching, integrated SD principles or framework has been used in creating the indicators, or
goals. The interactions between the social, economic and environmental domains are
predominantly assumed or implied, not explicit. Actors are however still taking actions and
decisions based on assumptions about these interactions. Part of the reason no particular
approach or method has been used to create SD goals and SDI may be the history of the
programs, discussed in Section 6.9 below.
’Comparability’
While the municipality is not part of any ‗common indicator‘ network or project within
Sweden or the EU, some of Falun‘s SDI are used or are suitable for use in benchmarking and
comparison. The Environmental program indicators are already used in benchmarking and
comparison activities, due to their adherence to the National Environmental Objectives (see
Naturvårdsverket, 2008). The majority of other Swedish municipalities also monitor these
same areas. In fact, in many specific areas such as energy or economy, good data on other
municipalities is available to municipality staff for comparison. The Public Health Program
likewise contains some goals and indicators suited to benchmarking, e.g. national policy
priorities like ‗delivering improved health care‘. The Economic Growth program also monitors
many commonly used indicators, e.g. employment and population growth. However it also
contains many regionally specific goals with ‗weak‘ indicators which are either not well
monitored or not easy to collect data for, or both (Interview 5).
44
Some comparison appears in the municipality‘s annual sustainability report. For example, the
report shows the ‗equality index‘ which measures disparity between men and women in a
number of areas such as income. Falun‘s position is shown relative to national statistics.
Several other indicators are also shown relative to the national average. This type of
comparison is a useful indicator to judge progress, and Falun performs reasonably well in each
category.
However, it is important to note that indicators measure progress of goals within the three
programs, but these programs contain over 100 goals and indicators, and a distinction is not
made between those indicators important for SD and those reflecting simply operational or
political objectives. In other words the municipality has not enacted benchmarking or
comparison with other municipalities, regions, etc. for a range of indicators specifically
selected to measure SD. Although, some indicators those tied to the Swedish Environmental
Quality Objectives are included in national comparisons already.
6.9. Stakeholder Participation
Question for assessing effectiveness #4: Are indicators chosen based on input from a broad
base of stakeholders?
As happens in most Swedish Cities to some degree (Naturvårdsveket, 2007), Falun
Municipality‘s SD efforts are developed based on local, regional and national goals. The
current goals and indicators in the programs have thus emerged from a mixture of locally-
specific and nationally standardised policy. The programs were assembled at different times by
different actors working at different levels, as shown in Figure 15 below. Decisions on the
content of the environmental and health programs can be characterised as ‗expert driven‘ with
some input from other stakeholders, whereas goals and indicators for the economic program
have been generated with input from expert and non-expert stakeholders though a regularly
occurring series of participatory processes.
In 2004 a facilitated meeting that included regional and local actors was carried out for the
Public Health Program. Here the main question facing participants was ‗which actions can we
take towards meeting the public health program goals?‘. In 2002 stakeholders gave input
through a similar meeting during a review of the Environmental program, which was ongoing
as part of a proposed ‗Sustainability Strategy‘. However, this strategy was not carried through
to completion (due to ‗a lack of resources‘) and it is unclear how much of this stakeholder
input was used in the environmental program. Other input from various industry and public
stakeholders is taken on board in informal ways by strategists and municipal employees
engaged in work within the three programs (interview 7).
The history of the programs in terms of how their content was assembled was difficult to trace.
However, according to interviewees (Interview 1, Interview 3, Interview 5, Interview 6) there
has been no formal attempt to establish indicators specifically for SD with input from a broad
base of stakeholders, or from municipal employees in the different programs collectively.
45
The Environmental Program is structured around Sweden‘s 16 ‗National Environmental
Objectives‘ (Naturvårdsverket, 2008), which are comprehensive and for the most part demand
indicators for which data is readily available. One way stakeholders external to the
Municipality, i.e. not politicians or municipality staff have input into goals and indicators is
through ‗informal‘ contact with strategists. As described already, here has been effort to
include input from stakeholders (as opposed to just the municipality). At the same time it is
clear the national goals largely provide the structure for the program. (A review of the
environmental program is at the time of writing of this thesis is currently underway, and is due
to be completed in the first quarter of 2013).
The Public Health Program‘s sub goals, goals and indicators have been selected by regional
and local experts, subject to review and approval by Falun‘s Municipal Health Board on which
local experts sit. Some of the goals are taken standardised at the national level. This may be
because of the expert-driven nature of public health issues. However, a formal process which
included input from a broad base of stakeholders was carried out in 2004. This process was a
meeting of representatives from private, public and civil society various organisations and
sectors. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss actions that could be taken towards
achieving the program goals. This was intended to be input for the Action Plan for the Public
Health Program (Folkhälsa lokal åtgärdsplan) (Falun Municipality, 2007b). The overall
structure of program goals was built on work done at the national and regional level and
experts at local level then made additions to these.
The Growth Program was originally created to address concerns and fears about the economic
future of the region after the military ceased operations Falun in 2001. The goals and indicators
have been revised several times since then, once in 2005 and once in 2010. The Growth
Program is different to the other two in that there has been community stakeholder
involvement in establishing the goals and indicators, including input from experts and non-
experts.
Figure 15. The origin of Falun’s SD programs’ goals and indicators. Solid lines indicate direct input/use by decision makers in forming goals and indicators. Dotted line indicates indirect input from public consultation that was formally included but not able to be linked to specific goals and indicators.
46
The process carried out in 2010 included between 100-200 people and lasted several days. The
purpose of the process was to establish focus areas for the Economic program, not to create
indicators. Many goals were created for which indicators were hard or not possible to establish
(Interview 5). The program goals are thus often not linked to indicators at all. Measurability
was not significant a part of the criteria for goal creation. Thus the stakeholder participation
process produced many ‗hard-to-measure goals‘ which nevertheless were included in the
program plan because ‗people needed to see that their work was used in the end product‘
(Interview 5). In practice, this has meant that the goals are at times ignored in favour of simply
contributing to population growth and job increases. At the same time relevant data, e.g.
economic data, is gathered by various authorities and is available for those working with the
Growth Program.
The goals and indicators in the environmental and health programs are seen by staff from the
Growth Program as being ‗easier to manage‘ in that they tend to have quantifiable, feasible
indicators which are easier to interpret. Strategists gave a strong impression that citizen and
stakeholder participation was seen as having ‗weakened‘ the Growth Program by creating
goals which were difficult to measure (Interview 5). Not surprising, as part of the municipal
strategists‘ job is to provide measurable results to politicians and the public. Thus, ‗default‘
indicators like job growth and population are now being used to ‗fill the gaps‘.
Even in the case of the Growth Program, which has had much input from stakeholder
participation, the focus was on goals, and to a lesser degree indicators, for that program only.
There seems to have been little opportunity to understand the issues behind indictors; the
linkages, relationships, etc. to other domains (environmental, social, economic) which may
have led to a more integrated picture of links between programs.
6.10. Communication Strategy and Visual Design
Question for assessing effectiveness #5: Are indicators clearly represented for and
strategically communicated to target audience(s)?
Indicators from the Growth, Public Health and Environment programs are communicated for
audiences both internal and external to the Municipality Government (here I refer to both the
political and administrative branches of the government together as ‗internal‘ audiences).
For internal audiences, indicators are communicated in meetings in which the audience is
politicians and other Municipality staff, e.g. at meetings of political boards such as the Public
Health Board (Folkhälsorådet). Here again the method is to pick indicators deemed relevant to
the meeting or presentation. It is thus the job of strategists to simplify and ‗translate‘ what they
see as relevant parts of the overall information-rich picture given by the indicators. Indicator
data are also displayed in an internal database available to politicians and administrative
municipality staff. Several interviewees expressed the view that the high number of goals and
indicators may be reducing the accessibility and (and therefore value) of the information for
relevant actors throughout the organisation (Interview 1, Interview 5, Interview 6, Interview 7).
However, they did not suggest a preference for how this should change.
47
For external audiences, Falun‘s indicators are presented in annual official sustainable
development reports titled ‗Development in Falun‘ (Utveckling i Falun). These are publicly
available online and in print. The indicators are also can communicated selectively in other
official reports, e.g. annual economic reporting, where needed. The large number (app. 160) of
indicators means that some method of simplification is necessary when communicating the
results. For external audiences, the current method is to pick indicators which are deemed
relevant, important or otherwise necessary. Annual reports carry a small selection of indicators
seen as particularly relevant for that year, the selection of which politicians have final approval
of (see Falun Municipality, 2011).
At present, the visual format used to communicate the indicators is as conventional charts
showing trends over time, with an accompanying statement of whether the trend moves
towards or away from the measured goal. This method is effective for communicating a series
of separate goals, however, communicating more than a small selection of indicators in this
manner becomes complex. The overall picture of sustainable development, or at least progress
within the three domains, is represented through charts of indicators, with references to the
source of the data and descriptions of how the indicator is important.
7. Discussion
For a municipality of around 60 000 residents, Falun‘s current SD efforts are extensive. They
are perceived by many municipal decision makers as an important part of municipal operations
in terms of both funding and recognition in the political process. A great deal of work has been
put into establishing this program and indicators to measure progress over the last decade. This
thesis has looked into how the municipality monitors its overall progress towards sustainable
development through indicators. It has also questioned the effectiveness of indicators as tools
for work towards sustainable development at the local level by looking at five focus areas:
vision, framework, indicator selection, participation and communication. In studying the use of
indicators it was also possible to gain some insights into Falun‘s operations which went beyond
the function of indicators and into overall SD strategy and its implementation.
Falun has established sustainable development as legitimate concept for policy and decision
making within municipal operations. Interviews, a review of official publications including
‗Action Plans‘ (åtgärdsplaner) for the programs, and the municipality‘s work on e.g. traffic
and energy reflected a generally positive attitude towards sustainability. Familiarity with the
Brundtland definition of sustainable development and the basic need to address the ‗three
Figure 14. Example of Falun Municipality’s annual sustainable development reporting.
(image: Falun Municpality, 2011)
48
pillars‘ of sustainability (economics, nature, society) is perceived as common knowledge
among municipal employees. Nevertheless, the municipality faces constraints in moving
forward with its stated goal of achieving sustainable development. These are (1) the absence of
a long term vision for sustainable development, (2) an excessive number of indicators labelled
as indicators of sustainable development, (3) a low level of understanding of the relationships
and causal links between dimensions of development (economic, social, environmental,
political, etc.), (4) a highly technical approach to indicator design and use which may be
excluding input from important actors, and (5) challenges in communicating the indicators. I
will elaborate each of these points below.
Vision
Considering the significant resources and time spent on SD work it is significant that the
municipality does have a vision for sustainable development which goes beyond a
conventional Brundtland Report definition referencing, rather vaguely, intergenerational justice
and holism. Visions give decision-makers charged with making sustainability happen the
context for setting goals and selecting indicators that will bring about change. Visions function
as ‗frames of reference‘ for goals, making them relevant; explaining why they are significant.
The absence of a vision for the municipality means that while SD work goes on in a technical
and professional manner in projects, larger or more long term processes of change which could
be guided by a vision are instead not addressed in a formal way at the local level.
Using the Brundtland Report‘s definition of SD to join the social, economic and environmental
allows for a flexibility or adaptability of SD strategy, making it easier to integrate with the
numerous national and regional-level goals, policy and projects. In a changing Swedish and
global landscape of policy and values, being able to adapt can have benefits over locking-in
long-term strategies. But while Sweden‘s national SD strategies can provide guidance, they are
by necessity filled with generality and thus do not address local issues.
As municipalities in Sweden have such a high level of political and economic independence (at
least potentially), lacking a vision is arguably a valuable lost opportunity for taking action at
local level. This vague vision means an easy acceptance of ‗weak sustainability‘ (see Section
2.5), and that the important distinction between ‗weak‘ and ‗strong‘ sustainability is not
actually made explicit. This reduces the amount of ‗heavy lifting‘ the municipality has to do in
working out SD strategy, but can result in a superficial outcome. Rather than choosing
particular areas that are important to Falun‘s local sustainability and long term change, the
current vision allows for a huge range of indicators and goals to be pushed under the umbrella
of ‗sustainability‘ making it a rather empty (or over-full) symbolic term.
Of course, it is one thing to say a vision is necessary for sustainable development. It is quite
another to create a vision that is e.g. inspiring, inclusive, convincing, open to necessary change,
is politically attractive, inspires innovation, etc. while at the same time addresses
sustainability‘s sharp edges, e.g. the inevitable fixation on limits and boundaries, or upending
the narrative of classic economic growth. Here leadership, expertise and indeed courage are
essential, as is communication with the right base of relevant actors and organisations.
The three SD programs and their content are the result of a rather disjointed history. The
piecemeal way Falun‘s three SD programs have been put together has contributed to the
current use of the rather conventional ‗default‘ definition of SD and the absence of a strong
vision. This is consistent with forming goals and indicators under an incremental model of
decision making in sustainability policy (see Hezri & Hasan, 2004) in which diverse decision-
makers proceed with many small changes over time in a ‗bit-by-bit‘ fashion, rather than
49
carrying out large changes all at once. While this is perhaps not surprising, it may be leading to
significant costs and putting the overall project of SD in question.
At the time of writing Falun has begun a process leading up to creating a vision. If SD is a
serious goal for the municipality, it is essential that when creating the vision policy makers do
not only consider (highly important) economic conditions, such as competition with other cities
as Sweden‘s population continues to drift to the south of the country, the faltering European
economy, or the potential for new business development. They could also consider a new
vision of a Falun which has the capacity to manage equally real and imminent conditions and
unsustainable practices e.g. chemicals in the urban environment, peak oil, and climate change.
The new vision will also influence the design and use of indicators (and goals). The data and
trends the municipality monitors to show progress towards SD can fundamentally change
depending on how SD is defined. For example, monitoring progress towards a ‗resilient and
sustainable economy‘ is a different proposition to monitoring progress in ‗economic growth‘,
and will require different strategies and information.
Framework
All interviewees in this study had for years been working in an organisational approach to
sustainability which placed economic, social and environmental goals in separate economic,
environmental and social domains; separate programs. However, if the overall objective is to
strive for a SD vision using goals and indicators, this domain-based framework has weaknesses
that could be improved upon.
This type of framework is not necessarily well suited to connecting action and monitoring to
sustainability goals, as opposed to say a goal-based framework (see section 5.4).
‗Environment‘, ‗Public Health‘ and ‗Growth‘ are categories, not ends in themselves. This is
problematic in light of the fact that, as already mentioned, the municipality lacks a vision or
significantly defined definition of SD. Politicians were promising a better economy, society
and environment for all for all since long before the Brundtland Commission dropped
Sustainable Development on the world stage. Without overall direction, when using this type
of framework it becomes very easy to include any number of interesting data points, as one can
choose broadly from within the environment, economy or human society.
A large number of goals and indicators – circa 150 and 100 respectively –are considered part
of work towards SD. This is a very high number (as previously discussed in section 6.7,
Stockholm uses about 40) and, I argue, this risks ‗watering down‘ SD to the point where is
ceases to be any different to the type of conventional monitoring that has been carried out by
governments for decades (see Bell and Morse, 2008: 118). In contrast "the strength of a goal-
based framework is that it reduces the number of indicators that have to be considered to only
those relating to specified sustainability goals." (Maclaren, 1996:191). However, as discussed
in Section 5.4, goals based frameworks are not much better at capturing the complex
interactions between domains.
Meadows (1998) version of the Daily Triangle (see Section 5.4) is a much more ‗rigorous‘
framework for sustainability. However, it seems to serve as an example of the difficulty of
wedding elegant frameworks to practical situations. Could a small to medium-sized
municipality implement such a model in a way that translated into action? Certainly,
developing indicators and goals based on this model would give a different picture than
Falun‘s current approach. For example, it would place far more weight on understanding not
only rates of resource use and ‗ultimate means‘, and on ‗wellbeing‘ and the ‗ultimate ends‘ of
human development.
50
To be clear, this is not to say the work and monitoring in the Municipality is generally
ineffective or deficient. Taken on their own terms, the activities carried out under the Growth,
Environment and Public Health programs may be highly effective, and it is not possible in this
thesis to comment on their success or failure in achieving organisational targets, data collection
standards, etc. But this study does not ‗take them on their own terms‘. Rather the point is to ask
how they function together in working towards sustainable development, with a focus on how
indicators are used to monitor progress towards the same.
The situation is thus one of making and monitoring incremental progress in a very diverse
range of areas – which, again, can have significant effects but which I argue lacks a vital link to
a vision, i.e. larger change processes. Once a vision is created, the municipality may benefit
from making some decisions about what areas to focus on for work towards SD, and how to
prioritise them. In practice this could mean changing the framework completely. It could also
mean creating ‗focus areas‘ or which are the main goals in each program. These would likely
use some of the existing goals and indicators, but also require new ones to be selected. For
good examples of places which have done such prioritization are Växjo Municipality in
Sweden, Copenhagen, Vancouver and Stockholm. Later in the discussion I will come back to
this point, as it would have also benefits for communication strategy.
Indicator Selection
SDI have been selected by actors focused on a specific program, and thus a specific domain
(environment, economy, society). This fits well with the ‗progress-monitoring‘ role indicators
play in Falun‘s operations. Indicators are useful to decision-makers in so far as they can see the
results of their actions towards specific goals. Designing indicators in this way also makes
accountability clear – if you are the person or group responsible for acting towards achieving
goal, it is clear which indicators are relevant for you. However, as already discussed the
domain-based framework encourages a monitoring strategy in which indicators are positioned
within separate domains (see Figure 13).
The result is a blend of a ‗conventional‘ (discrete, single sector, often single discipline) and
‗performance-based‘ (organisational goals and best-practice) goals and indicators, as opposed
to an ‗integrated‘ (holistic, multisector, and multi- and inter-disciplinary) approach to SD (see
section 5.5). No causal mapping or modelling, for example using DPSIR (see section 5.4) is
used to capture linkages and interactions between dimensions of SD, for example, between
consumption, new businesses and waste production. The goals and indicators were thus not
designed to address the important criteria (see Table 1) of ‗integration/multidimensionality‘.
The goals of the environmental program, for example, come from Sweden‘s 16 Environmental
Quality Objectives (Swedish Government, 2004), but do not come with any clear relation to
other domains of SD.
The links and interactions between the social, economic and environmental domains
nevertheless have to be assumed or implied in the Municipality‘s decision making and
activities. As long as there is no explicit mapping, it is difficult to test these assumptions
against data and observations, or to discuss how they might change. This may be limiting the
ability of the municipality to use an integrated approach to SD monitoring (see section 3.3).
The municipality would benefit from new methods for approaching, understanding and
working with the systemic relationships between the dimensions of SD (nature, society,
economics, politics, etc.) that lie behind the trends shown by indicators. It is precisely these
relationships that, arguably, strategists, politicians and other decision makers must begin to
engage with in order to solve difficult, (structural, systemic, complex, etc.) sustainability
51
problems. Using tools like with Meadows (1998) ‗Daily Triangle‘ framework could allow new
thinking in terms of what is particularly valuable for sustainability. In interviews, municipal
strategists expressed understanding of the need for a more holistic and integrated approach.
This is not surprising, as few professionals in any sector would argue against the rather fuzzy
idea of a more integrated working method in their organisation. However, there is a serious
‗knowledge gap‘ about how to do so.
This is by no means a biting critique however. Cities and municipalities all over the world
struggle to apply the sustainability mantra of a ‗holistic, integrated approach‘. Effectively
answering questions like ‗how much does our economy rely on healthy ecosystems?, ‗how can
we best reduce the number of chemicals released in the environment from products?‘, or
‗where should we invest capital to achieve carbon reductions?‘ requires navigating complex
bundles of systems like freshwater ecosystems, waste management, human psychology, etc. Of
course strategies are available for some of these issues, but in many cases they are not, or are
based on significantly incomplete models and maps, e.g. on economics alone.
Nevertheless, using indicators should be an effective way to help measure and understand some
of this complexity. Indicators can be chosen using a systems-oriented approach to measure not
the goals from within one area of SD, but rather capture a picture of systemic interactions.
Again here the necessity of a vision comes into play as the first step – by helping focus on what
is relevant for SD. As mentioned above, using frameworks like PSR or DPSIR is a possibility.
Modeling of system dynamics within the municipality would be ideal, however cost and
required expertise are challenges.
Already tested in practice are less scientifically/ mathematically rigorous but more practically
applicable ‗hybrids‘ of stakeholder participation, systems analysis and indicator development
like Bell and Morse‘ (2003) Systemic Sustainability Analysis (SSA) methodology. The four
principles or ‗system conditions‘ of The Natural Step‘s sustainability framework (The Natural
Step, 2008) also provide as a basis on which to build integrated indicators.
The Earth Charter Partnership for Sustainable Communities‘ (ECPSC) EarthCAT guidebook
(Hallsmith et al., 2005) also contains detailed guidance for cities and local governments
wishing to begin mapping complex systems they must manage, e.g. transport use, employment,
health of individuals. This would allow using an established systems approach yet including
‗bottom up‘ input from stakeholders. This would of course require expertise; guidance by a
professional consultant and/or researchers.
Finally, it is also important to note a distinction is not made between those indicators important
for SD and those reflecting simply operational or political objectives. When it comes to
benchmarking or comparing with other municipalities in Sweden or abroad, a range of
indicators specifically selected to measure SD could be highly valuable in terms of increasing
curiosity in, and understanding of, success and failures in SD issues, e.g. sustainable transport.
This also may increase indicators‘ influence on SD related policy and decision making by
highlighting particular areas, and connect SD work to a wider (competitive and/or cooperative)
context. Ideally the role of local performance measurement is enhanced when monitoring of
SD is perceived as part of a larger project.
Sets of ‗ready-made‘ indicators exist, some of which are now well established across Europe or
Sweden, which have the explicit purpose of benchmarking at the local level. Several are
already in use in various regions in Sweden. Examples are the European Common Indicators
and the Swedish Eco-Municipalities (SEKOM) Green Key Indicators.
52
Focu
s A
rea
Cla
ssif
icat
ion
/De
scri
pti
on
Be
ne
fits
Co
nst
rain
tsP
oss
ible
Str
ate
gic
Imp
rove
me
nts
Bas
ed
on
An
alys
is
Vis
ion
fo
r SD
• B
run
dtl
an
d r
epo
rt d
efin
itio
n f
urt
her
qu
ali
fied
as
“a f
utu
re i
n w
hic
h e
con
om
ic g
row
th d
oes
no
t co
me
at
the
exp
ense
of
hea
lth
an
d t
he
envi
ron
men
t”
(Fa
lun
.se,
20
12
).
• Se
pa
rate
vis
ion
is
als
o o
ffer
ed f
or
each
of
the
thre
e p
rogr
am
s.
• Fl
exib
le, a
da
pta
ble
, no
t co
nst
rain
ed b
y h
ard
req
uir
emen
ts.
• Ea
sily
in
tegr
ate
s w
ith
na
tio
na
l a
nd
reg
ion
al
SD
stra
tegy
.
• La
ck o
f m
id o
r lo
ng
term
su
sta
ina
bil
ity
visi
on
mea
ns
ma
y m
ake
it
ha
rder
to
gu
ide
lon
g te
rm
cha
nge
.
• D
iffi
cult
y, w
ith
ou
t a
vis
ion
, of
gett
ing
ou
t o
f th
e
pra
ctic
al
con
stra
ints
of
'no
w' a
nd
in
to c
rea
tive
thin
kin
g a
bo
ut
futu
re.
• Fo
rmu
late
a v
isio
n w
hic
h i
ncl
ud
es p
rin
cip
les
of
SD a
nd
des
ired
fu
ture
sta
te(s
) fo
r th
e w
ork
do
ne
in
the
pro
gra
ms.
Fram
ew
ork
• D
om
ain
-Ba
sed
, ‘Th
ree
Pil
lars
’. SD
pro
gra
m
crea
ted
by
pla
cin
g th
ree
pro
gra
ms
toge
ther
un
der
on
e SD
ba
nn
er.
• D
om
ain
s li
nke
d t
o s
pec
ific
pa
rts
of
org
an
isa
tio
n
all
ow
ing
clea
r re
spo
nsi
bil
ity
for
goa
ls.
• Ea
sily
rec
ogn
isa
ble
ca
tego
ries
'eco
no
my,
so
ciet
y,
envi
ron
men
t' f
aci
lita
te d
iscu
ssio
n a
nd
dec
isio
n
ma
kin
g.
• W
eak
lin
k b
etw
een
go
als
/in
dic
ato
rs a
nd
sust
ain
ab
le d
evel
op
men
t go
als
.
• A
lso
en
cou
rage
s ‘s
ilo
eff
ect’
.
• Th
ree
pil
lars
are
so
fa
mil
iar;
ma
y n
ot
dem
an
d/e
nco
ura
ge c
ha
nge
fro
m t
he
no
rm
• Fo
rmu
late
a v
isio
n w
hic
h i
ncl
ud
es p
rin
cip
les
of
SD a
nd
des
ired
fu
ture
sta
te(s
) fo
r th
e w
ork
do
ne
in
the
pro
gra
ms.
• Th
is c
an
ma
ke l
ink
to S
D m
ore
exp
lici
t a
nd
hel
p
ove
rco
me
‘sil
o e
ffec
t’.
Ind
icat
or
Sele
ctio
n
• 1
50
+ d
iver
se i
nd
ica
tors
. ‘A
nth
olo
gy’ t
ype
set
of
ind
ica
tors
in
th
ree
do
ma
ins.
• So
me
ben
chm
ark
ing,
bu
t n
ot
pa
rt o
f ‘c
om
mo
n’
ind
ica
tors
sch
eme.
• B
ase
d o
n t
hre
e p
illa
r m
od
el w
ith
lo
w d
escr
ipti
on
of
lin
ks b
etw
een
pil
lars
.
• C
ove
rs a
wid
e a
nd
th
oro
ugh
ra
nge
of
issu
es i
n
the
mu
nic
ipa
lity
.
• M
an
y sp
ecif
ic i
nd
ica
tors
, e.g
. En
ergy
in
dic
ato
rs
can
be
com
pa
red
acr
oss
oth
er m
un
icip
ali
ties
in
Swed
en.
• C
rea
tin
g in
dic
ato
rs f
or
SD u
nd
er 't
hre
e p
illa
rs' a
use
ful,
rel
ati
vely
lo
w c
ost
heu
rist
ic.
• N
o g
oa
ls/i
nd
ica
tors
ch
ose
n s
pec
ific
all
y a
s SD
pri
ori
ties
, th
us
all
pro
gra
m g
oa
ls/i
nd
ica
tors
are
SD, l
ead
ing
to l
ack
of
focu
s a
nd
def
init
ion
.
• N
o e
xpli
cit
ma
pp
ing
of
hu
ma
n-n
atu
re
inte
ract
ion
s in
mu
nic
ipa
lity
, ca
usa
l li
nka
ges
bet
wee
n i
nd
ica
tors
, d
rivi
ng
forc
es b
ehin
d
ind
ica
tors
, etc
.
• Se
lect
in
dic
ato
rs a
s SD
I th
rou
gh e
.g. u
sin
g ‘r
ead
y
ma
de’
in
dic
ato
r se
ts, o
r n
ew p
roce
ss t
o d
efin
e SD
an
d n
ew g
oa
ls/i
nd
ica
tors
.
• C
on
sid
er m
ap
pin
g d
yna
mic
s b
ehin
d k
ey
ind
ica
tors
wh
ere
po
ssib
le.
• U
se s
yste
mic
/co
mm
un
ity
act
or
‘hyb
rid
’ mo
del
e.g.
Bel
l &
Mo
rse
SSA
or
Eart
hC
AT.
Stak
eh
old
er
Par
tici
pat
ion
• D
efin
ing
wh
at
to m
easu
re t
o m
on
ito
r SD
is
larg
ely
left
up
to
exp
erts
.
• B
roa
d b
ase
of
sta
keh
old
ers
wit
h i
np
ut
into
gro
wth
pro
gra
m.
• So
me
citi
zen
an
d p
riva
te i
np
ut
into
oth
er
pro
gra
ms.
• C
lea
r li
nk
bet
wee
n r
esp
on
sib
le a
cto
rs, s
pec
ific
goa
ls a
nd
in
dic
ato
rs w
hen
exp
erts
ma
na
ge t
he
pro
cess
.
• D
iffi
cult
to
acc
om
mo
da
te p
ub
lic'
s in
pu
t ye
t
crea
te m
easu
rab
le g
oa
ls a
s sh
ow
n i
n G
row
th
Pro
gra
m
• Fa
vou
rin
g a
'to
p-d
ow
n' a
pp
roa
ch l
ack
s
emo
tio
na
l en
gage
men
t/o
wn
ersh
ip r
equ
ired
fo
r
seri
ou
s ch
an
ges
SD n
eed
s
• G
row
th p
rogr
am
go
als
per
ceiv
ed a
s h
ard
er t
o
imp
lem
ent
an
d m
easu
re w
ith
in
dic
ato
rs
• En
act
a n
ew p
roce
ss t
o d
efin
e a
vis
ion
an
d
def
init
ion
of
SD a
nd
sel
ect
a m
ix o
f n
ew a
nd
curr
ent
sust
ain
ab
ilit
y in
dic
ato
rs -
req
uir
es
inve
stm
ent
bu
t ca
n b
e h
igh
ly v
alu
ab
le.
• M
ay
take
th
e fo
rm o
f a
pa
rtic
ipa
tory
pro
cess
invo
lvin
g st
ake
ho
lder
s a
nd
cit
izen
s.
Co
mm
. De
sign
and
Str
ate
gy
• A
nn
ua
l re
po
rtin
g in
on
e d
ocu
men
t w
ith
sep
ara
te
da
ta p
oin
ts.
• Th
ree
pil
lar
pro
gra
ms
rep
ort
ed o
n i
n d
eta
il
• In
tern
al
‘liv
e’ i
nd
ica
tor
da
tab
ase
fo
r
mu
nic
ipa
lity
sta
ff.
• Li
mit
ed c
om
mu
nic
ati
on
str
ate
gy a
imed
at
po
liti
cia
ns,
em
plo
yees
an
d p
ub
lic.
• SD
Rep
ort
ing
is s
imp
le, l
ow
co
st.
• In
tern
al
ava
ila
bil
ity
of
da
ta m
ean
s m
un
icip
al
sta
ff, p
oli
tici
an
s, p
ub
lic
serv
an
ts h
ave
acc
ess
to
mu
ltis
ecto
r in
dic
ato
rs
• ‘W
ho
le p
ictu
re’ o
f SD
no
t co
mm
un
ica
ted
wel
l.
• In
tern
al
da
tab
ase
ra
rely
use
d t
o v
iew
are
as
oth
er
tha
n o
ne'
s o
wn
fie
ld
• Lo
w e
nga
gem
ent
of
Pu
bli
c, m
edia
an
d o
ther
s a
s
pa
rt o
f co
mm
un
ica
tio
ns
stra
tegy
.
• R
edu
ce n
um
ber
of
ind
ica
tors
. Use
vis
ua
l
inte
gra
tio
n d
esig
n.
• Li
nk
da
ta a
cro
ss s
ecto
rs/p
rogr
am
s b
ase
d o
n
ma
pp
ed l
inks
bet
wee
n p
illa
rs o
f SD
, i.e
. im
pro
ved
info
rma
tio
n f
or
dec
isio
n m
aki
ng
• Ta
rget
mo
re a
ud
ien
ces
wit
h o
nli
ne,
med
ia b
ase
d
or
inte
ract
ive
met
ho
ds,
in
crea
sin
g fe
edb
ack
of
info
rma
tio
n t
o c
ha
nge
beh
avi
ou
r .
Tab
le 6
. S
um
mary
of
dis
cu
ssio
n,
co
nclu
sio
ns a
nd
su
gg
esti
on
s b
y f
oc
us a
rea.
53
Stakeholder Participation
As repeatedly referred to in Chapter 6, sustainable development in Sweden is largely the
domain of experts in terms of defining problems, forming goals, and carrying out actions. The
majority of Falun‘s SD goals and activities related to the environment, social and health issues
have been created in a ‗top down‘ way from national level objectives, and regional or local
experts. Many of these goals and indicators may indeed be best left to experts, for example
health authorities. However implementing SD at local level requires ‗ground-up‘ participation
(see section 5.6).
Again, the point here is not that the broad work going on in the three programs is not valuable
for the municipality. Rather, it is that establishing and choosing sustainability goals needs to be
approached differently to other general operations of the municipality. In reviewing published
work from academia, governments, the UN, think tanks, NGOs, etc. one finds another repeated
mantra alongside that of the ‗holistic integrated approach‘ already mentioned – the need for
‗stakeholder participation‘.
However, including input from a diverse range of actors can be a risky proposition, as those
managing Falun‘s Growth Program discovered. Including 200 stakeholders over several
participatory meetings proved to be a difficult task, in which many problems arose, e.g. the
lack of attention to indicators and data for monitor progress towards the goals created, which
has created dissatisfaction among many responsible actors (some are ‗experts‘) charged with
making the goals happen. The value of including stakeholder input in such scenarios is under
serious question.
Growth Program interviewees gave a strong impression that citizen and stakeholder
participation was perceived to have ‗weakened‘ the Growth Program by creating goals which
were difficult to measure (Interview 5). As I have mentioned previously, this is not surprising,
as part of the municipal strategists‘ job is to provide measurable results to politicians and the
public. But this means, ‗default‘ indicators like job growth and population are now used to fill
the gap.
There are ways to mitigate this ‗watering down‘ of goal setting and monitoring. More emphasis
on selecting indicators during the participatory process would demand those who would create
goals to think about the measurement of those goals. This could be followed by an expert
review of the feasibility of those indicators which may in fact lead to some being discarded. In
this area, again, choosing and adopting a specific approach to goals and indicator development
could be a solution here as well.
The situation in Falun is one in which many actors have had the chance to contribute valuable
insight and capabilities to SD work. However, the effective level of stakeholder participation in
SD goals and indicators has proved hard to trace for this study. Nevertheless, some processes
have been carried out in which broad base of stakeholders have been consulted. Input has
usually come from processes focused specifically on one program, for example the process
carried out for the Growth Program.
As already suggested, establishing a vision and deciding on ‗where we want to get to‘ in
certain areas focused specifically on SD – as opposed to labeling all the political and
administrative goals, actions and indicators in the three programs as work towards SD – may
lead to valuable results in terms of ownership and engagement of stakeholders with specific SD
goals. There is certainly much potential for ‗non-expert‘ and non-government actors to have
input in these processes. Holding an event or series of sessions to gain input from actors in the
54
community about what is important for defining and measuring sustainable development in
Falun could bring fresh insight into defining focus areas most important for the municipality.
The overall lack of input from community actors may be contributing to a perceived lack of
understanding of the issues behind SDI among politicians and municipal employees, and lack
of ownership and investment in SDI among municipality actors responsible for SD work.
However, it is unclear to the municipality administration how such input should be managed
and integrated in an effective way; in what area input should be allowed, e.g. all goals and
indicators, or just a small set of goals, etc.; or how much value could be added by including
more stakeholders in the process.
Communication Strategy and Visual Design
The municipality goes to some lengths to monitor progress towards SD. Progress is reported in
an annual publication ‗Utveckling i Falun’, and in a less focused way other annual accounting
and reporting. The annual reports use about 20 indicators to show progress towards or away
from sustainable development goals. The municipality could use different strategies to show
overall progress in an easy to understand format. A visually integrated picture of sustainable
development could still show multiple indicators and data points. Such a communicative tool is
easy to update and display in many different contexts and for many different audiences.
Using a visual integration approach such as an AMOEBA chart (Figure 19) as suggested by
Bell & Morse (2003) or the ‗Compass of Sustainability‘ suggested as part of the ISIS Method
(AtKisson, 2011) would allow integration of selected/headline indicators from different
domains for an integrated view of overall progress. This could also encourage attention to issue
behind and links between indicators. Using a numerical integration approach such as
aggregation of indicators into indices is also possible, especially considering the number of
indicators in Falun‘s indicator system. This could take the form of e.g. single indicators
representing each sub-goal. Either of these methods may increase the effectiveness of
communicating indicators by making complexity more understandable (see Figure 9) to
different audiences.
Sustainability reporting is now quite ‗static‘, being displayed once a year in a sustainability
report on the municipality‘s website, whereas information for internal audiences (in the internal
municipality database) is possible to update regularly. Online and/or interactive displays of
indicator information may increase interest and accessibility for external audiences. This also
allows data to be updated more regularly relative to e.g. annual reporting, enhancing the
‗feedback‘ function of the indicator data.
Figure 15. Example of AMOEBA chart with indicators (adapted from Växjö Kommun, 2011:14)
55
This could be a website, or part of the municipality‘s website. Examples of such ‗alive‘ or
interactive sustainability reports are Stockholm‘s ‗Sustainability Barometer‘ (City of
Stockholm, 2012), Washington University‘s ‗Sustainability Dashboard‘ (University of
Washington, 2011), or Community Indicators Victoria‘s interactive maps and extensive,
customisable indicator data (CIV, 2007). The purpose here would be to gain as much value as
possible from monitoring and collecting data, if the purpose is to make sustainability a part of
habitual thinking in everyday work/life for the municipality employees and politicians, but also
for more of the public.
8. Conclusion
This thesis presented an approach to assessing the design, creation and communication of
sustainability indicators and then applied it in a critical assessment of sustainable development
monitoring in Falun. The Municipality struggles with many of the same sustainability issues
municipalities in developed (and not so developed) countries around the world struggle with
today in both policy and implementation. To commit to sustainable development can mean
high costs and risks, especially in the face of all the other economic, social and environmental
pressures smaller municipalities face in Sweden, like creating jobs, keeping population
numbers while competing with bigger cities, creating a good business environment, valuing
nature in political decisions, and so on. Working with a holistic, integrated approach to
development is by definition not a simple demand, and it‘s often not clear what the appropriate
approach is. The way we gather, make sense of and distribute information is crucial to the
whole SD project and if we don‘t get it right, we are doomed to at worst to destroy the systems
we depend on, and at best repeat business as usual. At the local level, achieving SD is a
―struggle to learn more, to learn better, and to learn in a more contextualized fashion within the
communities of our lived experience‖ (Holden, 2006:171). We need to constantly review our
own ways of learning.
In Falun Municipality one finds a very diverse landscape of action and monitoring, often in
areas with relatively weak ties to a sustainable development vision, and even weaker ties the
long term change processes (structural, systemic, etc.) required to achieve it. Strategists and
planners at the Municipality do express interest in implementing an integrated sustainability
monitoring strategy. However, at present they are using conventional indicators with a domain
based framework to separately monitor economy, public health/society, and environment with
an emphasis on performance-based measurement (see Hoernig and Seasons, 2004) rather than
integrative approach through for example environmental accounting or dynamic modelling.
The current approach is easy to understand and makes progress towards goals easy to measure,
but often neglects to address causal linkages between these different dimensions of SD, and
important drivers of change that need to be addressed. Improving this understanding through
better construction of indicators based on better, more integrated models could thus help to
make better decisions.
Nevertheless, a great deal of progress has been made in the last decade in legitimising and
implementing sustainable development policies and projects in Falun. The considerable
political motivation and resources for environment and sustainability issues in municipality
signals that steps could be taken to make sustainable development more deeply embedded in
the future the Municipality sees for itself. Enacting a new process to define Falun‘s vision and
definition of SD, e.g. ‗where would we like to be in 20 years‘ would then likely lead to creating
a revised set of new and current sustainability indicators. This requires investment but can be
56
highly valuable. This may include of a participatory process involving stakeholders and
citizens to increase ownership and engagement.
It could also be valuable to simplify the existing large number of goals and indicators for
communication. The wider group of indicators is still needed for strategists; however, the rest
of the municipality may find the indicators much more useful in simpler form. This study has
touched on three options: choosing headline indicators, improving communication through
visual integration, and/or creating indices. Ideally a project could combine both the above
actions. A participatory process to define a vision and new indicators with introduction of
causal framework and then an integrated picture like AMOEBA for overall SD. Examples of
such a process such are Bell & Morse (2003) ‗Imagine‘ approach, or Stockholm based
AtKisson Group‘s ISIS approach (AtKisson, 2010).
9. Towards a Methodology for Assessing
Established SDI Systems
Many authors have focused on how to develop sustainability indicators ‗from scratch‘,
however, it may be that, particularly in areas of the world such as Europe where using SDI has
become commonplace, there is rarely such an opportunity.
Existing
Organisational
Operations without
Sustainability
Indicators
’From Scratch’
Sustainability
Indicator
Development
Process
New
Organisational
Operations with
the use of
Sustainability
Indicators
Existing
Organisational
Operations with
the use of
Sustainability
Indicators
’Intervention’
Sustainability
Indicator
Improvement
Process
New
Organisational
Operations with
changed use of
Sustainability
Indicators
Figure 16. Commonly suggested 'clean slate' approach to establishing SDI (top) compared to an approach to an already operational indicator system
with ties to organisational practice (bottom).
The point of this study is to assess at which point to intervene in an already functioning
‗system‘. Which are the important points to look at when reviewing indicator systems and how
should one do so? In this thesis I developed an approach to do just this, focusing on 1) vision,
2) framework, 3) indicator selection (modeling, comparability), 4) stakeholder participation,
and 5) communication strategy & visual design.
Thousands of cities worldwide now use a set(s) or system of SDI in their general operations.
These have varying origins, ages and levels of effectiveness. It may be that may cities in a
region or country have the same or a significantly similar combination of framework,
57
monitoring strategy, integration methods (or lack thereof), participation, visualisation, etc. for
reporting and communication strategy. This could mean it is possible to recommend a
standardised model identifying areas for strategic intervention in existing SDI processes in
order to lead to improved outcomes. Furthermore, it may be possible to single out and
recommend heuristic ‗tweaks‘ to existing SDI processes which have been shown to be
effective.
***
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11. Appendices
11.1. List of Interviews
All interviews were carried out in various Municipality Government buildings in Falun. All
interviewees are employees of the Municipality Government. Each interview was
approximately 90 minutes long
Interview Name Position Date
1 Thomas Sundin Envrironmental Strategist 11 May, 2012
2 Margareta Morén
Public Health Coordinator -
Schools 18 June, 2012
3 Ola Bergeå Energy and Climate Strategist 19 June, 2012
4 Pär Karlsson Nature Conservation Biologist 19 June, 2012
5
Karin Perers /
Mats Reutherborg
Head of Growth Program /
Former Head of Growth
Program 19 June, 2012
6
Lena Melander /
Thomas Sundin
SD Strategist & Indicator
Manager / Environmental
Strategist 20 June, 2012
7 Thomas Sundin Environmental Strategist 21 June, 2012
65
11.2. Interview Brief sent to Interviewees and
used in Interviews
Interview Brief
Research Focus
Effectiveness of use and communication of indicators for sustainable development (ISD) at
regional level
Interviewees
Key personnel within Falun Municipality, Dalarna, Sweden.
General Interview Topics
The current indicator set – history, selection process, integration.
Use of ISD as a management tool –interaction with ISD in daily operations and work.
Communication of ISD – effectiveness, potential for future.
Topic Descriptions
Indicator set: Questions will focus on the history of the use of indicators by the
municipality, and about the process of selection and any desired level of integration
between indicators. This line of questioning will be relevant for particular interviewees who
have direct involvement in this history.
Use of ISD as a management tool: Questions will focus on how indicators are used in
decision making and the interviewees‘ perceptions of, for example, how practically useful
the ISD are, or how they could function better.
Communication: Questions will focus on the visual and other forms of communication the
municipality uses to represent indicator data, and which audiences are the desired target and
why.
Interviewees Please Note
This is a guide only. Some content may change before the interviews are conducted, and as
more interviewees are added. However, the three main topic areas will remain the same.
Copies of the interviews will be available once the work is completed. Any confidentiality
requested by Falun Kommune or interviewees will be agreed to.