Making the Invisible Visible: Indicators and Tools for Better DecisionMaking

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Making the Invisible Visible Indicators and
Tools for Better Decision-Making

• David Jaber
• Natural Logic

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Community Quality of Life

• Indicators Overview
• How? and Why? The Benefits
• Campuses, Communities, and Companies in Action
• Were All Presenters! Indicator Exercise
• Indicator Tracking and Benchmarking Tools

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Terms and Definitions

• Sustainability environmental and social
  Performance
• Indicators renewable energy use, water
  health, soil health, green products, air
  emissions, revenue

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Whats happening?

• Sustainability Moving from gleam to mainstream.
  BP, HP, GE, Seventh Generation, Whole Foods
• Environment--from financial burden to strategic
  advantage
• Not peripheral, integrated with other goals,
  concerns, and activities
• Groundswell of movement on campuses
• Campus-wide programs Rice U., UCB, Cornell,
  Harvard
• Conferences UC system, Ball State, EPA
• Organizations AASHE, UCSD, ULSF, C2E2, NWF
  Campus Ecology
• Indicators projects CSUC, UCB, Penn State,
  Evergreen

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Why?

• The high cost of low price
• Natures services
• Social problems crime, unemployment, people
  disaffected
• Ecosystem health
• Community health.
• Business opportunity
• Avoidable resource costs
• Long-term strategy vs. short-term results. How
  long will you be in business?

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Needs

• What indicates good sustainable performance?
• How do you know whats significant?
• How do you know if youre doing better or worse?
• Whats possible to do?
• Need Indicators of Sustainable Performance
• Need Goals

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TNS System Conditions for Sustainability

• Only ecologically-based material can build up in
  the earths living systems (heavy metals,
  formerly biological fossil fuels)
• Synthetic materials (plastics, organic chemicals,
  etc.) must not build up in living systems.
• The productivity and diversity of Nature must not
  be lost over time.
• Resources must be used efficiently and equitably
  meet human needs.
• paraphrase of The Natural Step

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Step 1 Starting the Process

• Conduct multi-stakeholder charrette
• Administrators, staff, decision-makers, community
  members
• Cover TBL topics
• Environmental issues
• Economic concerns
• Day-to-day living needs
• ID whats important

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INDICATORS EXERCISE

• Whats meaningful?
• Priorities?
• How do you measure progress for these meaningful
  priorities?

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Whats meaningful?

• What indicates positive qualities?
• Robust Financials
• Employee Health
• Ecological Health
• Lowered environmental impacts--materials, energy,
  water use
• Lowered wastes and emissions (non-products)
• Community quality-of-life
• Improved economy, improved habitat

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Step 2 Selecting Indicators

• Identify indicators
• positive outcomes
• economic, environmental, and social
• Identify measurable (metric) to track performance
  along indicator
• measurable quantity
• foundation for tracking and driving better
  performance

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Whats measurable?
Indicator Metrics
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Campus Assessments
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Campus Assessments

• Indicators are markers that say This is the
  direction we need to go. To be truly
  sustainable, for example, we need to use only
  renewable sources of power.
• We recognize that this cannot be achieved
  overnight, but it must remain our long-term goal
  if we are to set an example for the citizens of
  California and the nation.
• - Mark Stemen and Jim Pushnik. CSU Chico

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Indicators Examples
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Indicators Examples
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Business
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Business
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Business
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Step 3 Indicator Framework

• Scope out
• where information is,
• who has it, and
• how to get it
• Determine whos responsible
• Engage decision-makers for the real work
  afterwards
• indicators inform policies and investments
• integrate in day-to-day activities

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Step 4 Facilitate Indicator Tracking and Analysis

• Streamline data collection
• Make data analysis easy and quickly accessible
• Enable performance evaluation in a variety of
  contexts (absolute, comparative, normalized)
• Make it meaningful and valuable to an array of
  stakeholders

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Making the invisible visible

• Web-based tools
• Quick access to data
• Customizable analysis Resource productivity
  trends, key ratios, key comparisons

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Resource Flows

• Energy
• Materials
• Products and non-products
• Financial
• Social issues
• Civic measures
• Transportation
• Any time series data

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How do you use to make better decisions?

• Look at the trends over time. Inconsistencies?
  Anomalies?

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How do you know which are significant?

• Look at cross-cutting indicators affecting
  several areas Product/non-product, , GHG, etc.
• Look at key functional areas of greatest activity
• Depends on priorities

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Productivity Trends (Key ratios)

• Desirable outcome Undesirable outcome
• Product Resource

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Benchmarks
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Benchmarks

• Compare campuses
• Compare communities and regions
• Compare businesses
• Drive better policies, process innovations and
  continuous improvement

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Key Indicator Greenhouse Gases

• Chart progress
• Track changing energy sources
• Identify culprits
• Prioritize action plans

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Data ? Information ? Insight

• Turn data overload into effective decisions
• To do this, use
• Pattern
• Trend
• Context
• To generate
• Actionable insights

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Summary

• Engage multi-stakeholder teams
• Define indicators
• Track down, and qualify, data that supports
  indicators
• Streamline data collection, validation, and
  analysis through interactive, web-based decision
  support systems
• Train teams to effectively use the system
• Benchmark performance, identify leverage points,
  places to investigate for improvement

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Natural Logic
Making sustainability a strategic driver of
exceptional environmental performance

• Strategy and Planning
• Executive coaching and workshops
• Sustainable economic development
• Natural Step framework

• Design and Innovation
• Green / high-performance buildings
• LEED training, process management
• Place-based Design and Regeneration

• Metrics and Reporting
• Business Metabolics benchmarking software
• Key Performance Indicators development
• CSR Sustainability Reporting

• Operations and Efficiency
• Integrated EcoAudits site assessments for
  process efficiency
• Environmental Management Systems

http//www.natlogic.com 1-877-NATLOGIC
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Benchmarks
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A critical first step is to ease the pain of data
management
Replace binders and spreadsheets with a useful
Web-based tool

• Automated data collection and re-fresh
• Intuitive interface and analytical tools
• Ease of use inspires proactive use

• Manual data collection/formatting
• Ad hoc/incomplete analyses
• Difficulty deters proactive management
• Slow and expensive