Environmental indicators for sustainable development

Environmental indicators are mechanisms that articulate sustainability objectives and their importance lies in the fact that, sectorally or integrally, they are formulated in a unique and unrepeatable context at the social, administrative-territorial level. According to the form, selected information and pre-established relationships between the elements considered significant to evaluate, we will obtain the keys that indicate the interpretation of the ideal of sustainability promoted by its managers.

Introduction

This research entitled "Pressure - State - Responses (PER) indicators for measuring sustainable development" has the general objective: to explain the use of PER indicators for measuring Sustainable Development.

To comply with the proposed objective, an analysis of the origin and evolution of the concept of sustainable development is presented; the different conceptual models on sustainability are exposed; It also contains aspects related to the use of indicators, specifically the PER approach is analyzed and finally the policy on the environment in Cuba is analyzed.

Development.

Origin and evolution of the concept of Sustainable Development.

More than three decades ago, renowned French academics promoted a different conception of development, stating "that one can only speak of development if the fundamental needs of society are satisfied, including education, cultural and spiritual needs." That is, it referred to development including man in all his dimensions. Already in the 70s, the concept of Ecodevelopment was also born, an immediate antecedent of what will be the predominant approach in our days, Sustainable Development.

Ecodevelopment:

Term used for the first time at the Stockholm Conference in 1972 by Maurice Strong, to imply an idea of economic and social development that took into account the environmental variable. Eco-development proposes a different development modality from the current ones, emphasizing the styles and characteristics of local aspects, both ecological and socio-cultural. This conception was widely developed by Ignacy Sachs, who initially defined it as… “a development strategy, based on the judicious use of local resources and peasant know-how applicable to isolated rural areas of the Third World”.

From which it is proposed that ecodevelopment offers opportunities for change for marginal rural areas, and later more broadly defined as a development style that, in each ecoregion, insists on specific solutions for their particular problems, having both ecological data, immediate and long-term needs are taken into account. Thus, a clearly innovative element is introduced in this approach compared to the previous ones: concern for the environment.

Therefore, the fundamental objective of economic development becomes sustainability.

The concept of Sustainable Development was discussed at the preparatory meeting for the Conference on Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972, and described by some authors during the 1970s, such as R. Dasmann, J Miltum and P Fraeman in their book (Ecological Principles for Economie Development). After the presentation of the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, known as "Our Common Future" or simply "Brundtland Report" (1987), it is where the concept of sustainable development was made known under the statement following:

"A development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs."

The concept has been widely disseminated after the Rio Summit in 1992, reaching wide political repercussions and being promoted to high decision-making levels. According to the well-known definition of Sustainable Development outlined in the 1987 “Brundtland Report”, economic growth and the rational use of natural resources and the environment are linked from a purely ecological perspective and are perceived as the interaction between highly dynamic economic systems. and less changing ecological systems in which:

Human life can continue indefinitely. Human beings as individuals can develop. The effects of human activities must be kept within limits that do not allow the destruction of the diversity, complexity and functioning of the ecological systems that support life.

This report proposes the following as a principle of a sustainable society:

Respect and care for the community of living beings. Improve the quality of human life. Preserve the vitality and diversity of the earth. Minimize the depletion of non-renewable resources. Stay within the carrying capacity of the earth. Modify personal attitudes and practices. Empower communities to take care of their own environment. Forge a global alliance.

Other authors associated sustainability with the carrying capacity of the systems to support the development of humanity, which implies that the economic system must remain within the world's carrying capacity margins, understanding sustainability as development without growth or as qualitative improvement without quantitative increases.

Various specialists mention four dimensions of Sustainable Development: socio-economic, institutional-political, productive-technological, and ecological.

Despite the time that has passed and the large number of publications, there is still no consensus regarding what Sustainable Development really means, and the innumerable interpretations vary depending on the discipline, paradigm or ideology that serve as the basis for defining it.

Already in the eighties of the last century the World Strategy of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) stated that development in relation to nature should be conceived as the modification of the biosphere and the application of human resources and financial, for the satisfaction of human needs and the improvement of the quality of life.

Several measures have been proposed to achieve sustainability, such as: cost-benefit analysis, load capacity and sustainable performance, but they have also been rejected due to the difficulty of obtaining them, as well as the inappropriateness of establishing limits or variables. defined two groups of variables:

Variables that characterize ecological integrity: soil, biological productivity, biodiversity, fresh water and ocean Variables that characterize human aspirations: basic human needs (food, water, health, housing), fuel, cohesion and cultural diversity.

It is proposed that, knowing human aspirations, the scenarios of the possible alternatives can be built, since the soil and biodiversity variables change more slowly to achieve sustainability, then stability in these variables must be achieved.

After this analysis, you can come up with your own Sustainable Development concept:

Development is a process of sustained multidimensional changes, which brings with it the equitable improvement of the quality of life of people, through which social economic growth is sought in a harmonious relationship with the protection of the environment, in such a way that meet the needs of current generations, without compromising the development potential of future generations.

Different conceptual models on sustainability.

The group of multidimensional indicator approaches with descriptive taxonomic purposes is the best known. Although there are different nuances within this group, they share the essential characteristic of the approach, to prefer a multifaceted system (different economic, social, environmental issues) and multidimensional (different physical and monetary measurement units) of variables and indices that are grouped according to different schemes of this nature. Ultimately, the approach is descriptive, even with an implicit or explicit perception of the mode of interaction between:

Human activities, socio-economic processes or natural disasters that promote an economic, social-institutional and environmental change (category of “pressure force”); The physical means and human and biological populations that reflect said change in quality (“situation or state ”) The instances of society that react with alternatives in their behavior or with corrective policies in the face of these changes suffered (“ response ”).

There are different classification nuances on the assumed interrelation between the initial impulse forces, the experimental changes and the originated responses.

The stress approach (Friend / Rapport 1991) was proposed in Canada in the late 1980s, with the primary purpose of identifying the main global and national sources in that country. Implicitly, for this approach it is sufficient to classify according to the category of stress on the environment, the respective pressure factors in the so-called technosphere (where human beings act through their activities of production, consumption, etc.).

Therefore, a series of representative indicators for potentially polluting and degrading forces and activities were established to control the impact on the environment. Without postulating it as such, it was based on a cause-effect relationship between stress factors of economic-human origin and their environmental impacts on the biosphere. This idea has been taken up in the subsequent development of Sustainable Development indicators in different ways.

One of these developments has been the Pressure-State-Response (PER) approach proposed and launched into international debate by Adrianse (1993) and the Organization for Economic Development Cooperation (OECD) (1991, 1994).

The PER approach is limited to the environmental segment of Sustainable Development and its main objective is to create a set of indicators that make it possible to reduce, in a correct way, the complex reality to identify priorities of core problems and adequate solutions in the environment.

The Pressure-State-Response approach is based on the premise that human actions exert pressure on the environment and change the status of the quality and quantity of natural resources. Society responds to these changes through environmental, economic and political response. Based on a logic of deterministic causality, it assumes that human activities exert pressure on the environment and affect the quality of its elements and the quantity of its resources (state); To which society responds through environmental, economic and sectoral policies, as well as changes in perception and behavior (social response).

The PER framework is now widely used but is continually evolving. One of the biggest problems has been trying to differentiate between indicators of pressure and status and the need to expand the frame of reference to more specifically address the needs to describe Sustainable Development.

The PER scheme is based on three basic categories of questions, which in relation to the environmental issue are:

What is the current state of natural resources and the environment? What and who is affecting natural resources and the environment? What is society doing to mitigate or solve environmental problems and to strengthen their potential?

Pressure:

They are often classified as underlying factors or forces such as: population growth, consumption or poverty. Pressures on the environment are frequently considered from a political perspective as a starting point to address environmental issues and from an indicator point of view they are available for analysis, since they are derived on the basis of socio-economic monitoring data., environmental and others. It reflects the ultimate objective of environmental policies and includes aspects such as:

The physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the environment. The condition of the ecosystem and the ecological functions of the natural environment. The quality of life of the population.

State:

The state refers to the condition of the environment that results from the pressures described above, and the deterioration generated in them by different human activities, levels of air pollution, land degradation or deforestation. The state of the environment will, in turn, affect human health and well-being as well as the socio-economic fabric of society. For example, an increase in land degradation will lead to one or more of the following factors: decrease in food production, increase in imported food, increase in the use of fertilizers, malnutrition, etc.

It is important to understand both the state of the environment and the indirect effects. Status indicators should be designed to respond to pressures and at the same time facilitate corrective actions.

Reply:

The response component of the PER framework is related to actions taken by society, individually or collectively, that are designed to facilitate or prevent negative environmental impacts in order to correct existing damage or conserve natural resources. Those responses may include regulatory actions, research or environmental expenditures, public opinion and consumer preference, changes in management strategies, and provision of environmental information. Responses should be designed to act on pressures, but may at the same time have a modifying impact on status indicators.

There are several sets of environmental indicators, each with specific purposes.

Indicators are often used in environmental reports, evaluation of environmental performance or progress towards Sustainable Development, but they should be a basic tool in planning, contributing to clarity in policy objectives and setting environmental priorities.

According to the purpose for which the PER model is used, it can be adjusted for more detail or to incorporate some specific aspects. An example is the “Pressure State Impact / Effect-Response” (PEI / ER) model that has been developed by Winograd (1995, 1997) for the CIAT / UNEP indicator project for Latin America.

This project is designed particularly for the indicators of sustainable land use; To do so, they combine information based on current environmental statistics with “georeferenced” variables (indicators generated by geographic information system applications).

The PEI / ER model has three main features:

It assumes an interaction of forward pressure and backward response, only between the socioeconomic system and the environmental system that are considered as equivalent in terms of relative meaning and system operation. Economic and social indicators are mostly focused on the pressure category with origin in the socioeconomic system. Meanwhile, the environmental and natural resource indicators represent, in particular, the category of state, which is perceived as the quality of the environmental system itself. A mutual impact-effect interaction between the environment and resources is introduced within the scope of environmental quality., also between nature and society. Which suggests that a cause-effect sequence between both dimensions of the environmental system and between it and society,as well as a functional reaction to these impacts in the form of a response and efforts in matters of information, education and national / international policy on resources, that are identifiable and measurable.

Based on the OECD proposals, countries such as Canada and the Netherlands were the first to adopt environmental and sectoral indicators as a fundamental part of decision-making, the establishment of policies and the dissemination of information to society. This trend has spread to other OECD countries and to various international agencies.

Advantages and disadvantages of the Pressure - State - Response approach.

Advantage:

Taking into account the above, the main advantages of the PER scheme are:

Its structure has been widely disseminated precisely because it is based on a principle of deterministic causality, since, as we have seen, it is insufficient to address the complexity of environmental problems, not only because the questions to which it answers are typical of a management and decision-making process. decision on environmental matters; it does not exclusively seek to reflect the forces that modify said state (prevailing economic or social dynamics in a region or country, among others) if the social effort that is carried out is to improve it and reverse the pressures that deteriorate it.

The latter is particularly important insofar as the PER structure allows establishing the basis for evaluating not only the management carried out (the efficiency of the response) but also its impact, measured in terms of the variations in state and pressure thanks to the response of the society.

It provides the general public and decision makers with an integrated view of the environment and other interconnected aspects.

Because of this, the PER scheme is the most widely used in a monitoring and evaluation system for sustainability policies, plans, programs and projects.

Disadvantages:

It is limited to the environmental segment of sustainable development.

It is insufficient to address the complexity of environmental problems, not only because the questions to which it answers are typical of a management and decision-making process in environmental matters, but also because it does not reflect the forces that modify said state (economic dynamics or prevailing social conditions in a region or country, among others), or the social effort that is carried out to improve said state and reverse the pressures that deteriorate it.

We do not always find a methodological sequence when formulating PER indicators, they are proposed independently without direct but indirect cause-effect relationship, all are related to the theme that motivates them but not to each other.

It is not possible to establish relationships between the different indicators, each indicator is valid by itself and as such must be addressed due to its causal and linear logic.

It is not a preventive model. Derived from its logic, the information obtained will only allow the diagnosis of the situation to be established, but cannot be used in programs or policies where the principle of prevention is applied.

Sustainable Development and environmental policy in Cuba.

When we talk about sustainability in the world, we are considering the survival and advancement capacity of poor nations, because rich countries are self-sustaining, living… and in what way!…

In the midst of the globalization process that takes place on the entire planet, the nations of the North, with less than 20% of the world's population, have in their possession approximately 80% of all the Earth's resources. As if that were not enough, they concentrate 82% of export markets, dominate 68% of direct foreign investment, control 71% of international trade and consume 80% of the energy produced in the world.

What is left for the poor of the South? Well, little, very little, just 20% of the planet's resources for a population of 5,000 million human beings.

This conspires against the sustainability aspirations of poor countries. What economic potential do underdeveloped capitalist nations have to advance? How to stop the flight of professionally trained people? What sources to use to develop science and technology in the midst of societies where individual interest prevails over the interest of society?

This is precisely where the example of the Cuban Revolution offers answers to seriously think about sustainability in the south of the planet. There is no other way.

The ordering and the search for solutions to environmental problems are linked to the concept of development. Therefore, the establishment of a national environmental policy and strategies for Sustainable Development cannot be done outside the historical, cultural, economic and social elements, or outside the international context that defines them and that sometimes also conditions them.

The foregoing is essentially valid for our conditions, due to the historical, economic and social process through which it has been passed and because of its connection and effects produced on the environment. Our country has to fight to preserve the achievements and social conquests achieved, in which all these elements have been taken into account. Since the beginning of the colonial period, already in this century, under the imposed condition of a mediatized republic, the economic development that was achieved was based mainly on extensive agricultural production, with an inadequate use and management of soils and an intense destruction of land. wooded areas.

The critical social situation due to high levels of poverty, illiteracy and low levels of health, were elements of the environment that constituted a priority in the politics of the revolution since 1959.

Cuban environmental policy has been defined and supported by the principles of equitable economic and social development. In this way, through the diversification of the economy on a basis of equity, the first social and environmental achievement was achieved, which was to eradicate extreme poverty.

During all these years of validation of our policy, we have totally eradicated illiteracy, a critical situation in 1959; the development achieved by the Cuban health system is a notable indicator of the fairness of the comprehensive environmental policy, where economic and social problems play a preponderant role.

In general, basic environmental conditions have improved for the entire population of the country, both in relation to housing and access to water and sanitation services.

The application of the new knowledge acquired and the scientific results achieved have made it possible to evaluate a large part of the potential of the natural resources existing in the country, to apply more and more different practices of sustainable agriculture, to carry out better management in the management of water resources and soil, rehabilitate and restore affected ecosystems, apply new technologies for the use of residuals, and develop new vaccines and medicines.

Along with these achievements there have been errors and deficiencies due, among other things, to insufficient environmental awareness, knowledge and education; the lack of a greater demand in management; insufficient incorporation of the environmental dimension in development policies, plans and programs; and the absence of a sufficiently inclusive and coherent legal system.

The institutional changes that have occurred and are occurring in Cuba, especially the creation of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (CITMA) in charge of proposing the national environmental policy and directing, organizing and controlling its execution, provide a solid base that allows us move forward with optimism in the application of our environmental policy, whose guidelines and guidelines will lead us to a higher stage in the protection of the environment and the rational use of natural resources, as the basis of sustainable development for all.

For developing countries, the challenge of achieving sustainability requires major political, economic and social transformations, which for Cuba is a materialized fact.

Our state has declared national sovereignty over natural resources and has promoted an active process of recovery and protection of these, having man as its center and the comprehensive satisfaction of their material, educational, cultural and aesthetic needs.

Likewise, it incorporates the whole of society to attend to environmental problems through citizen participation processes based on the existence and functioning of social and mass organizations.

Conclusions

• The multidimensional approach to sustainable development allows this concept to be made much more operational, putting economic and social development and the conservation of the biophysical environment in the same order of priority.

• PER indicators express an implicit or explicit perception about the modality of interaction between human activities, socio-economic processes or natural disasters that promote an economic, socio-institutional and environmental change (pressure category), physical means and human populations that reflect said change in quality (state situation), and the instances of society that react with alterations in their behavior or with corrective policies to these changes (response).