Beneath the blizzard of statistics, Ron Colman’s heartfelt plea caught the spirit of what was happening in the Ottawa conference room.
“We should talk about children, not sustainable development,” he said matter-of-factly. “This is a very personal endeavour, not just numbers. I have a nine-year-old daughter. What kind of world are we leaving to the next generation of Canadians?”
That sobering question is behind a growing movement to expand our vision of human progress. Currently, we measure progress and well-being largely according to economic indicators, such as: ‘Is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rising? What about housing starts?’ But these indicators make no distinction between economic activity that benefits us, and that which causes harm — such as the reckless depletion of fish stocks. Nor does the GDP take into account non-economic considerations, such as health, leisure time, voluntary involvement, crime rates — the kind of things that count to most Canadians, when they ask themselves if their lives are getting better.
Finally, alternative indicators are gaining respect — and a foothold. All over Canada, citizen groups and think tanks — such as Colman’s GPI Atlantic research group — are using thorough research methods to evaluate well-being in their communities and provinces.
In fact, so much is going on in this field that 600 people gathered in Ottawa March 27 to share their knowledge about sustainable development indicator projects in Canada and throughout the world. The conference was sponsored by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, a federal agency overseeing a three-year project to develop a set of Canadian sustainable development indicators.
The size of the gathering, and the wealth of information shared, made it clear this is a growing movement, with a broad spectrum of Canadians and individuals doing detailed quality-of-life research.
“Environmental progress depends in large measure on the quality of information,” said federal Environment Minister David Anderson in a keynote speech. “We need new and more innovative ways, so we can truly measure progress.”
Across Canada, groups have been involved in fascinating — and revealing — projects to see whether our lives are getting better or not. Economist Mark Anielski, of the Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development, has taken an in-depth look at life in Alberta through his Alberta Genuine Progress Indicator Project. Starting with the values of Albertans, it measures 50 indicators of well-being in economic, social and environmental areas including economic growth, debt, poverty, unemployment, crime, air and water quality. The indicators cover 40 years (1961 to 1999).
They reveal some striking findings, as Anielski puts it, “into a more complex picture of well-being.” While Alberta’s wealth from oil and natural gas is well known, did you know that Alberta’s volunteers and homemakers did $38 billion worth of unpaid work in 1999, equivalent to 35 per cent of Alberta’s GDP? Or that Alberta’s wealth is built on a shaky foundation, from a long-term sustainability perspective?
Using the “ecological footprint” model of measuring total environmental impact in terms of energy use and resource depletion, Anielski found that Alberta has the fourth heaviest ecological footprint in the world. “If the world lived like Albertans,” said Anielski, “we’d need five more worlds” to provide the resources needed.
Ron Colman outlined equally revealing findings for Nova Scotia, based on GPI Atlantic’s work on a provincial index of sustainable development. He zeroed in on forestry as an example of how we need to value “natural capital,” like forests, fish, farmland and other natural resources that God has bestowed on us. Forests have value far beyond their timber: they conserve soil from erosion, protect watersheds, provide habitat for wildlife, provide recreation space, attract tourists, and provide a buffer against climate change.
Despite this, the area of clearcut forests has doubled in Nova Scotia in the past 10 years. Colman’s group has documented the harmful effects of current forestry practises, down to the fact that fish stocks in rivers are worsening, leading to less money being spent by anglers.
What difference will all this research make? So far, there seems to be little impact on public policies. While David Anderson voices support for sustainable development, he and his government have been under attack for a weak stance on curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Colman agrees that progress in terms of affecting governmental policy-making is slow. “It’s not going to happen overnight. Economic growth is so deeply ingrained in the minds of policy-makers,” he admits ruefully. And yet, Nova Scotia Premier John Hamm has been quoting GPI Atlantic’s report that volunteers contribute $1.9 billion worth of services to Nova Scotia. And volunteer groups are using this research on the value of their efforts in their funding applications.
There are signs that the growing body of research on the harmful results of ‘business as usual,’ and the benefits of sustainable practices, is helping to bring sustainable development into the policy-making arena. People like Anielski and Colman are talking to their provincial governments about their findings. The highly-respected Canadian Policy Research Network carried out an extensive Quality of Life Indicators project last fall, surveying Canadians from coast to coast, and is now working to publicize this work. Meanwhile the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has just released a report on the quality of life in 18 cities, from Halifax to Burnaby.
And while Anderson and his government have been disappointing on the climate change issue — a key measure of sustainability — they have provided $9 million to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy for its ‘genuine progress indicators’ work.
All this sophisticated research, and the organizations and citizens involved in them, are building a momentum for change — although there’s no illusion that change will not take time. As economist and author Hazel Henderson noted, there’s a big step ahead, in terms of educating Canadians about genuine progress indicators, and why governments should pay attention to them.
“People may not know what GDP means, but they know they want it to grow,” noted Henderson. “How do we get new indicators out to the public? How do we fight GDP and housing starts as the measure of progress?” That’s the challenge ahead in building support for new measures of well-being.
Murray MacAdam is editor of the Catalyst, the newsletter of Citizens for Public Justice, a national ecumenical public policy organization.