Annex 9. Green and greening indicators

Introduction

To adequately address the EU’s requirements on monitoring and evaluation of development results, each action needs to develop a monitoring framework that adequately considers environmental and climate performance, with a focus on outputs to impacts.

With the adoption of the European Green Deal, the term ‘environment’ now encompasses climate mitigation and adaptation, sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources, circular economy, pollution prevention and control and biodiversity conservation, restoration and sustainable use of ecosystem services, among other dimensions.

The EU has committed itself to ambitious green targets which require all sectors to include, wherever possible, green objectives across the entire international cooperation portfolio, and thus going beyond business as usual in many sectors. With green objectives comes the need to integrate green indicators in the monitoring framework.

Indicators: why and by whom?

During the lifetime of an action indicators may serve several purposes. Those involved in the formulation of actions (both at EUDs and HQ) will have to keep this in mind when selecting indicators at the start of the project.

• Indicators are helpful in defining in more concrete terms what the objective or target of an action really means, in particular during formulation when less tangible and measurable concepts are used such as ‘biodiversity’, ‘climate change adaptation’ or ‘sustainable development’.
• Indicators are used to verify if an activity goes in the right direction (towards the objectives) and to measure, and if possible, quantify, achievements in relation to the objective.
• Over the lifetime of the activity indicators will thus have to be updated regularly with new data. Depending on the type of indicators, the frequency of updates can range from continuous monitoring (e.g. on water quality for public water supply) to annual or even less frequent data collection moment (e.g. a satellite survey of deforestation).
• Analyse the evolution and respond to the outcomes of the analysis.
• Monitoring and evaluation information can be used to inform future activities in the same location or sector, and for communication purposes.

The above implies that time spent at the design stage of the M&E framework can be very valuable and increase project impact and added value.

The main entry points for the integration of Green Deal indicators are the programming documents (e.g. MIPs) for high-level development objectives, and Action Documents for development outputs and outcomes.

EU indicators framework

The logframe presents the results that should be generated by an intervention at different time horizons. Result levels (outputs, outcomes and impact) are accompanied by indicators to measure (contribute to) their achievement. Commission services and implementing partners are accessing intervention logframes through OPSYS, as a basis for regular monitoring and reporting.

The Commission has developed a Results Monitoring Framework for EU International Partnerships, including a list of pre-defined core indicators that can be used by all staff and partners in their monitoring activities. These indicators are aligned with the policy priorities of Commission services working in external relations. They draw on indicators developed for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

These are predefined priority indicators encoded in OPSYS which are suggested to the users when creating a logframe. OPSYS provides these indicators to enhance the quality of EU's interventions design and monitoring and facilitate the aggregation of data from series of actions and programmes in order to quantify EU supported achievements. These indicators are centrally overseen by Quality Managers (INTPA/D4, FPI and NEAR) and have common characteristics (Unit of measurement, disaggregation, sources, etc.)

There are two types of core indicators:         

1. Core indicators used for corporate monitoring and reporting such as: all 17 SDG (Tier I), FPI Performance Framework (PF), GERF level 1, GERF level 2, GAP III and IPA PF indicators.
2. Sector-specific core Indicators, with a special category for the Green Deal, subdivided into Climate Change, Energy, Green Economy, Nutrition, Sustainable Cities, Sustainable Aquatic and Agri-Food Systems, Sustainable Transport.

The use of core indicators is highly recommended, as it allows results to be aggregated across interventions and promotes the use of standardized information across European Union-funded interventions in partner countries. INTPA is adding further core indicators (as well as groups) into OPSYS.

Even though this set of indicators is elaborate, it is not complete and not all possible environmental objectives are represented in the system. Furthermore, available indicators may be defined at a scale too broad for the action (e.g. for a whole country, or for an entire sector), while the action focuses on one particular region or activity for which it is relevant to have a closer monitoring. Proper monitoring needs fit-for-purpose indicators, which may need to be customised.

The section below addresses the methodological thinking behind environmental indicators and includes a number of suggested resources on indicators for Green Deal priorities.

Customising environmental indicators

DPSIR framework

DPSIR (drivers, pressures, state, impact, and response model of intervention) is a causal framework used to describe the interactions between society and the environment. Since its formulation in the late 1990s (by OECD and the EEA), it has been widely adopted by international organisations.  It structures indicators related to the environmental problem addressed, with reference to the political objectives and focuses on causal relationships. Indicators can be defined for five aspects of an environmental issue:

• Drivers or driving forces are social, demographic, and economic developments which influence the human activities that have a direct impact on the environment (think of population growth, urban expansion, land-use change).
• Pressure represents the consequence of the driving force, which in turn affects the state of the environment. Pressures can be both human induced (emissions, fuel extraction, solid waste generation), and natural processes (solar radiation, volcanic eruption).
• State describes the physical, chemical and biological condition of the environment. It may refer to natural systems (atmospheric CO₂ concentrations, temperature), socio-economic systems (living conditions of humans, economic situation of an industry), or a combination of both (number of tourists, size of current population).
• Impact refers to how changes in the state of the system affect human well-being. It is often measured in terms of damages to the environment or human health, like poverty, and increased vulnerability to diseases.
• Response refers to actions taken to correct the problems of the previous stages, by adjusting the drivers, reducing the pressure on the system, bringing the system back to its initial state, and mitigating the impacts. It can be associated uniquely with policy action, or to different levels of the society, including groups and/or individuals from the private, government or non-governmental sectors.

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Meaningful indicators

Effective indicators are characterised by SMART attributes (EvalCommunity). SMART indicators are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound indicators that are used in monitoring and evaluation. SMART indicators help to ensure that the indicators chosen are well-defined and can be effectively measured to track progress towards specific goals and objectives. This also applies to individual indicators that relate to environmental and/or climate performance.

Projects propose a monitoring and evaluation system which include sets of indicators. In a green M&E system, indicators should not only reflect the intent of the activities outputs or outcomes that they are associated to (e.g. area of protected forests by the project, as an Output indicator); the set should also comprise indicators at all steps of the vertical logic, from activities to objectives (e.g. area of protected forests by the project as an Output indicator; Carbon sequestration and avoided GHG emissions as an Outcome indicator; Living Planet Index as an Impact indicator).

Individual indicators may not be enough to capture the green dimensions of the action. This can be the case notably for climate change adaptation projects. Adaptation is by definition multidimensional; therefore, a project focus on adaptation will depend on the scale and scope of the action, the sector considered, and how it fits within social and economic existing practices. It is therefore recommended to capture adaptation efforts with a set of context-specific indicators.

When possible, disaggregation of indicators can highlight “hidden” information crucial for determining project performance. Disaggregation criteria should be identified during formulation, including for instance: gender, age, social or socio-economic group, vulnerability status, type of adaptation measures, type of ecosystem, localisation, etc. For instance, the indicator “beneficiaries of protected forest areas, by gender, age and type of forests” may provide information on the socio-economic groups benefitting from the project.

Useful sources of environmental indicators

If OPSYS does not provide an appropriate indicator it is advisable to use international or national systems (statistical systems, national observatories, data managed by universities) and existing sector indicators for which baseline data and regular updates remain available over time.

At country level: In principle, monitoring of results and effects or impacts would be part of the overall framework for measurement of results and performance for a particular policy, programme or action, used by the country or region concerned. An increasing number of countries have result measurement frameworks in place and are now reporting regularly on the state of their environment and sustainability at the national level using indicators. Partner countries are also increasingly adopting green accounting systems.

Wherever possible, country or regional result measurement frameworks should be used and annexed to the relevant policy, programming or Action Documents.

Environmental assessments, Country environmental Profiles and Strategic Environmental Assessments can in some cases provide indicators and baseline values required for formulation and decision-making on actions.

Global environmental conventions such as UNFCCC (climate) or CBD (biodiversity) require regular reporting on predefined indicators (such as greenhouse gas emissions, or percentage of territory with nature conservation status).

More specifically focussed on Green Deal domains the following sources may provide (inspiration for) relevant indicators:

• Climate mitigation:  indicators under Sustainable Development Goal 13 Climate action; IMF has an informative climate change dashboard.
• Climate adaptation: methodology specially designed for climate adaptation indicators using GCCA/GCCA+ projects (2023).
• Circular economy: INTPA developed guidance for action design. It summarises EU policy priorities in the field of circular economy, includes a results chain and a list of sector indicators that serve as examples of measurable indicators associated to each result statement that may be used in Logframe Matrices at project / programme level.
• Biodiversity & ecosystem services: indicators under Sustainable Development Goal 14 Life below water and 15 Life on land. For more targeted indicators the Biodiversity Indicator Partnership (hosted by UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre) provides a wealth of information. 
• Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR): A set of 38 indicators was identified to measure global progress in the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The indicators will measure progress in achieving the global targets of the Sendai Framework and determine global trends in the reduction of risk and losses. These can be scaled back to national or regional levels.
• Pollution prevention and control: the European Environmental Agency provides a number of in-depth topics, including on air, water and soil pollution, which give an overview of the issue at stake, and the associated indicators. It can provide inspiration and further sources to find the right indicators for this wide field. National agencies will also have such kind of monitoring frameworks. 
• Natural resources: Material flows and resource productivity indicators are central to monitoring the changing patterns of resource use as global economies grow. They are essential for monitoring progress towards SDG targets 8.4 ‘Resource Productivity’ and 12.2 ‘Sustainable Use of Natural Resources’. The Global Material Flows Database provides data to help understand and trace the linkages between economic growth and raw material usage.