| Introduction | Progress towards sustainability | Background | Assessment |

Introduction

Progress towards sustainability is an ongoing objective.

In places where such progress has been evaluated, it has been towards a Vision (or a concept) of what is seen as desirable by decision-makers of the day. Once the Vision is known, objectives can be proposed, against which the progress towards the Vision can be assessed. As progress is made, the Vision may be modified to achieve always-higher ideals.

To the best of our knowledge there is no agreed or stated Vision for the Australian Capital Region. A concise Vision that would appear consistent with the objectives of establishing the Australian Capital Region might be something like:

• a Region where people commit to work together to achieve social, economic and ecological well-being.

NSW Councils in the Region must now consider their actions in terms of ecologically sustainable development. The ACT has adopted guidelines for high quality design for sustainability. A shared Vision for the Region is something from which the Region may benefit and something that the Regional Leaders' Forum may be willing to consider if we are to move towards sustainability as a Region. Such a Vision would also be consistent with the objectives of the National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development, to:

• enhance individual and community well-being and welfare (through) economic development that safeguards the welfare of future generations
• provide for equity within and between generations
• protect biological diversity and maintain essential ecological processes and life-support systems.

It would possibly be more complex to assess progress towards sustainability for the whole Region than it would for any one Local Government Area or for the ACT because of the diversity among the Local Government areas of the Region—some urban, some rural and heavily modified for farming, some largely in their natural state, some with coastal shores, some with alpine mountains, some mainly dependent on primary industries, and some mainly dependent on tourism.

Our ability to assess progress towards sustainability has been hindered by the inaccessibility of data. If we are serious in our quest to understand progress towards sustainable development, it is essential that the basic datasets be available. As a minimum, we would need recent and reliable data on land resources, water resources, the amount of fuel used in motor vehicles, the amount of energy consumed and ecosystem dynamics.

To more comprehensively assess the ACR's performance in progress towards sustainability, we will have to obtain data relevant to Materials Flow Analysis, and from that, to understand the impact that the Australian Capital Region has on the places that supply the materials for our way of living. This study would be complemented by the understanding of considerations such as those in the 'Urban (or Regional) Footprint'.

In this amalgamation of individual reports plus a Regional overview on the state of the environment, the reports for Eurobodalla Shire and the ACT contain initial assessments of progress towards sustainability.

Summary of the Region's progress towards sustainability

Generally speaking, the society of today is a 'convenience society', giving little thought to the true environmental (or even monetary) cost of any of our activities. In this regard, the Australian Capital Region is little different from any other part of Australia. In some aspects, such as environmental flows of our rivers, salinisation of fresh waters, generation of Greenhouse gases and the related use of fossil fuels, we are beginning to adapt to some constraints of our ability or right to 'do as we please' within the legal system.

In the Australian Capital Region, as in all other parts of Australia, we do not yet have the measures to allow us to answer the question "How sustainable are our practices?" Even if we try to address one component of that question – viz – "How sustainably are we using our resources?" we immediately face the challenge "What are our resources?" Are they the air we breathe, the water we use for so many different purposes, the food we eat, the fibres and materials we use for cars, planes, houses, clothing, the land we use to grow our crops or the built structures such as roads, reticulated water, sewerage, electricity and gas, the transport systems and the buildings in which we live and work? They are all of these things, and the list can be more comprehensive and detailed. Only now are we beginning to systematically address the challenge of defining the right questions and knowing what to measure, to give meaningful answers. There is little doubt that human skills and innovative thoughts and practices will provide possible solutions to many of the challenges. We must select wisely from the available technologies, including the biotechnologies.

Analysis of the built infrastructure is one aspect where a start can be made.

In the NSW Local Government Areas, the State Government first required reporting on valuation, condition and expenditure on land and buildings assets in 1994–95. In 1995–96, such reporting was required of transport and communication assets, and in 1996–97, of drainage assets. Some Councils have been able to provide reasonable quality information on the condition of their assets, but others have been unable to provide data. It is hoped that by the time of the next comprehensive State of the Environment Report, all Councils will have collected and maintained data on infrastructure. In the ACT, condition of infrastructure is being progressively documented by the commercial and quasi-commercial utilities but is only just being required of other Government agencies.

The analysis of the built infrastructure is but the start of a much more intensive awareness and analysis system. Another highly visible feature of modern life is waste – even if we consider only waste to landfill. Overall, there has been a considerable increase in awareness of the need to reduce waste to landfill within the Australian Capital Region since the 1997 State of the Environment Report. The ACT had developed its No Waste to landfill by 2010 strategy in 1996. By the end of the 1997–2000 reporting period, most of the two-year goals had been met, and new targets and goals are being adopted. There has been joint activity between the ACT and Councils in the Australian Capital Region in the Regional Waste Management Strategy. Thirteen Councils have indicated some improvement in management and/or measurement of waste. Improvements include the adoption of a strategy and setting clear targets for waste reduction. However, four Councils still keep no data on waste—even estimates. The target set by the NSW Government of the year 2000 to achieve reduction in waste to landfill to 60% of the 1990 levels has not been met anywhere in the Region. This does not mean that Councils are not trying—four jurisdictions have achieved an overall reduction in the amounts of waste to landfill.

Energy is another resource that we have, in modern society, largely taken for granted. Much of the Australian Capital Region is in places of significant temperature extremes, where we need to adjust the temperatures of home and workplace—to heat in winter and cool in summer. The total energy consumption continues to rise in the ACT—that much is known. But too much information has become withheld from access in the time since the last Report for any assessment to be made. No information was available on a Shire-by-Shire basis in the NSW Local Government Areas on energy consumption. From the information we were able to obtain, it would appear that rural residential households use more electricity than their urban counterparts, but each rural business uses about half the energy of an urban business.

Given the very recent awareness of the need to develop sustainability indicators, we can not in 2000 be more specific with respect to the three objectives of the NSESD than the following:

To enhance individual and community well-being and welfare through economic development that safeguards the welfare of future generations

Overall, the support structures to cater for individual and community well-being and welfare are well established and diverse in the Australian Capital Region and particularly in the ACT. They can be expected to further develop with increasing diversity of population and of economic development, but in the foreseeable future some individual Councils will have to rely on the resources provided by the larger centres of population.

To provide for equity within and between generations

Many social and institutional arrangements are in place to maximise the opportunities for equity within the current generation, but all the opportunities can not be taken by all people. Equity within generations remains a challenge to be addressed, by all societies.

To move towards equity between generations, we must quantify the cost of the materials and services imported to sustain the individual and community well-being and welfare that have been created in the current arrangements.

To protect biodiversity and maintain ecological processes and life-support systems

From the ecological perspective, it would be desirable to retain, at least, those areas currently in National or State Parks or in other protected areas, at least until studies show the dynamics and character of the different biological communities. At that time decisions could be made as to whether a greater or lesser area was required for conservation purposes. In the meantime, the Precautionary Principle should apply.

Environmental Flow Guidelines should ensure greater protection of aquatic systems in the Australian Capital Region, and in time, re-establishment of native aquatic communities that have not been evident in recent years.

All these factors suggest that the Australian Capital Region can be managed for sustainable development, given the ongoing concept of interaction recognising the interdependencies of different Councils and the ACT as being the provider of some services and the receiver of other services.

Background

Sustainable development is an objective for most Australian States and Territories.

Reporting on progress towards sustainability allows Local Governments to take full advantage of the information collected and analysed within State of the Environment reporting indicators. All three components of sustainable development (social, ecological and economic well-being) can then be considered, integrated where appropriate, and assessed and incorporated into holistic management plans.

For the Australian Capital Region, reporting on progress towards sustainability allows an assessment of the value of the Regional concept for the constituent Councils, and how different activities are influencing social, ecological and economic well-being.

The questions to be addressed in assessing progress towards sustainability derive naturally from the consideration of each of the five Themes that we discuss in State of the Environment reporting (Atmosphere, Biodiversity, Human Settlement, Land and Water) and specifically from the 'Implications' section of each of the Issues within each Theme.

If the condition of the environment is properly assessed, the change in that condition is going to be the best overarching indicator of our progress towards—or away from—sustainability.

It is timely to recall the structure of the State of the Environment reports, where there are a small number of Themes, which represent the topics under which most environmental matters of concern can be discussed. Once a Theme is identified, one has to consider the Issues that are significant within each Theme, and, when the Issues are agreed, one considers what Indicators (Condition, Pressure, and Response) must be addressed to bring all the necessary information together, to understand the Issues.

There will often be Indicators that are relevant to the understanding of several Issues.

An always-present challenge is to recognise that a change within one or more Themes may have an impact on or within another Theme or other Themes. The interactiveness and the interdependencies among and within Themes must always be considered.

Linking local and regional vision and goals to national and global factors

One of the fundamental objectives of our State of the Environment reporting process has been, as far as is practicable, to use a framework for analysis which is compatible with those used nationally and internationally.

In this way, we adapted, since our first ACT State of the Environment Report in 1994, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Pressure–State–Response Model to the slightly changed emphasis on 'Condition' (as a synonym for 'state') so that we called it the Condition–Pressure–Response Model. We also illustrated how closely that related to the sensible management of our own human health.

We also adopted the Themes of Atmosphere, Biodiversity, Human Settlement, Land and Water as a first step for analysis, and from those Themes, derived appropriate Issues and Indicators.

Once all those basic considerations were recorded, there was - and there remains - the challenge to analyse the interactions and interdependencies which must be considered to assess the State of the Environment.

In that way we also foresaw a situation where Local and Regional State of the Environment Reports could lead into State and National State of the Environment Reports.

Our collaboration with member Shires of the Australian Capital Region in the development of a template for authoring State of the Environment reports in 1999–2000 is illustrative of that philosophy, as is the effort to achieve standardisation of data to be used in State of the Environment reports. (SoE Author was completed with financial support from the Federal Government.)

The incorporation of this chapter in 'Towards Sustainability' continues that challenge, while recognising that different regions and different Local Government areas will be starting their quest for progress towards sustainability from different levels of development.

Linking with a National approach to Sustainable Development

As mentioned earlier, the National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development (NSESD) commits all levels of Australian governments to the three core objectives.

As a further example of a National commitment to achieving progress towards Sustainable Development, an Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council (ANZECC) State of Environment Task Force has been assisting Environment Australia in the development of a set of National Sustainability Headline Indicators, which are currently being debated.

It is our belief that the way in which we have tentatively analysed progress towards sustainability will allow ready comparison between the criteria we have used, and the draft national Headline Indicators.

We will no doubt have to make some adjustments in the next State of the Environment Report.

Awareness of other initiatives in understanding progress towards Sustainable Development

We have taken note of several major national and international exercises and considered their implications for the task of deciding a limited number of essential indicators of progress towards sustainable development of the participant NSW Local Government Authorities, for the ACT and for the Region.

Among those considered were:

• The World Commission in Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission, 1987)
• The 1992 Earth Summit, and particularly Agenda 21 of the Summit
• Sustainable Development in the United States - An Experimental Set of Indicators, December 1998
• Sustainable Development in Asia, August 2000
• An Assessment of British Columbia's Progress Towards Sustainability, 1997
• The Bellagio Principles for Ecologically Sustainable Development, 1996
• Sustainable Regional Development (SRD Kit), April 2000
• State of the Territory Report (ACT, 1999)
• Chapter Drafts of 'Towards Sustainability, Emerging Systems for Monitoring Sustainable Development', 2000
• Pilot Environmental Sustainability Index, World Economic Forum, 2000.

This list does not represent all the material sourced for comparison, and for awareness of how other groups were approaching the challenge of assessing progress towards sustainable development.

It is provided as an illustration of the amount and diversity of effort being committed to assessing progress towards sustainable development.

Our approach is compatible with most of the approaches in the above lists, but no one method may be suitable for international acceptance, because of the different legislative arrangements, and because of the different states of development of different countries. The major objective should be to ensure that there is the ability to have reliable comparison of the different evaluations of progress towards sustainability. We intend to work towards that situation.

Selection of methods of assessing progress towards Sustainable Development in the Australian Capital Region and its constituent parts

General considerations

In the template we developed for State of the Environment reporting in 1999–2000, we stated that:

'Assessing progress towards sustainability should have a practical focus and be based on:

• an explicit set of categories (or an organising framework) that links vision and goals to indicators and assessment criteria
• a limited number of essential sectors for analysis, eg infrastructure, social support systems, energy balance
• a limited number of key indicators (or indicator combinations) to provide clear signal of progress
• standardising measurement from year to year to permit reliable comparison over time
• an ability to relate indicator assessments to targets or thresholds and directions or trends, as appropriate.'

We recognised that the emphasis on specific indicators or groups of indicators may differ from rural to urban areas, and/or from coastal to inland areas, but sustainability indicators must also allow consideration of the impact of local practices on other areas away from the reporting area, and vice-versa.

We have accepted the three core objectives of the National Strategy for NSESD as the general objectives, which must be considered in assessing progress towards sustainable development, and used the framework of Themes and Issues of the State of the Environment Report to provide an overall framework for analysis.

However, we have long recognised that there was a need for cross-linking of indicators and for groupings of indicators to take into account the interactions and interdependencies of factors within individual Themes.

The Issues for State of the Environment reporting were therefore seen as providing that integrated information which would be essential in assessing progress towards sustainability.

The way in which the Issues are written up provides for the derivation of 'Implications' and Recommendations, throughout the State of the Environment Report. The identification of Issues and of Indicators also allows for an analysis of the key factors to be considered in assessing progress towards sustainability. We have called these 'factors of concern'.

Factors of concern in Sustainable Development

As can be seen from Table 2 below, common factors of greatest public concern are consistent with the Themes and Issues adopted for the 2000 State of the Environment Report.

This comparison gives reassurance as to the potential value of the Issues from State of the Environment reporting, in assessing progress towards sustainable development, while still allowing for consideration of over-riding issues of public concern such as:

• environmental disasters—national and human induced
• current issues such as animal (including human) health and the environmental effects of Genetically Modified Organisms.

Some factors, which directly need discussion, such as 'human population', are themselves of uncertain impact on progress towards sustainable development, because technological changes may dramatically change the impact of humans per head of population, on the environment, and on progress towards sustainable development.

Other factors receive little recognition because inadequate thought has been given to living patterns and activities. For example, the myth that the average Australian spends the majority of time outdoors, may require much greater attention to indoor air quality then had been the case in the past.

Whatever system is adopted, there will always be the need for lateral thought to ensure all information is taken into account.

Assessing progress towards sustainable development

We can assess progress towards sustainability within the three core objectives of the NSESD as per the National exercise, with the same major subheadings, but using the analysis of the Issues in the State of the Environment reports to form the basis for discussion. For example:

To enhance individual and community well-being and welfare (through) economic development that safeguards the welfare of future generations

• Community wellbeing
• Infrastructure and services
• Water quality and ecology
• Air quality
• Waste

To provide for equity within and between generations

• Waste
• Infrastructure and services
• Community wellbeing
• Air quality
• Conserving biodiversity
• Water quality and ecology
• Water use and allocation
• Land quality
• Landuse and management.

(In fact, all the Issues relate to this aspect.)

To protect biological diversity and maintain essential ecological processes and life-support systems

• Conserving biodiversity
• Air quality
• Water quality and ecology
• Water use and allocation
• Land quality
• Infrastructure and services
• Landuse and management

As per Table 2, the Factors of Concern can then be linked to the relevant Issues. In several cases, the same Issue is relevant to more than one component of the three core objectives of the NSESD.

This situation highlights the need to be alert to the interactions and interdependencies that must be considered if we are to understand changes in the condition of the environment, and if we are to be able to assess progress towards sustainability.

We therefore believe that we can build on this framework for assessment of progress towards sustainability, and will discuss with leaders of the Australian Capital Region if they wish to have this assessment as a component part of their 2004 State of the Environment Report.