Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics (FDES 2013) 178 (environmental response). The original approach was developed by Statistics Canada in 1979 as a “Structural Framework for the S-RESS”.145 The stress-response approach relates a set of activities that exert stress on the environment (such as waste generation, extraction of natural resources and the production of hazardous substances) to the following data categories: i. Measures of stressors, that is, of human and natural activities which possess the potential to degrade the quality of the natural environment, to affect the health of man, to threaten the survival of species, to place pressures on non-renewable resources, and to cause a deterioration in the quality of human settlements; ii. Measures of stress, that is, of the elements that place pressures on and contribute to the breakdown of the natural and human-made environment such as the emis sion of pollutants; iii. Measures of environmental response, that is, of the observed effects of stress on the natural and human-made environment; iv. Measures of collective and individual response, that is, of human’s reactions to environmental changes such as environmental protection and conservation; and v. Measures of stocks, that is of the stocks of natural resources, human-made struc tures and potentially hazardous substances . B.43. Work on the stress-response framework culminated in the introduction of the S-RESS framework, which was later adapted and modified to be used as a similar sequence of columns in the main matrix of the 1984 FDES. B.44. The 1984 FDES framework was designed to reflect the sequence of action, impact and reaction that could trace the relationships among social and economic activities and natural events, their effects on the environment and the responses to these effects by public organiza tions and individuals. The FDES was used by many countries, and it was made operational in the UNSD’s data collection for environment statistics at the international level. Its basic structure arranged environmental media as rows and placed the sequence adapted from the stress-response in columns, thus positioning topics in the resulting cells of the table. These environment statistics topics were further developed to more disaggregated levels in annexes and separate publications. One important shortcoming of the FDES was that practitioners and users could assume that the relationships among the stages of the sequence were linear. B.45. The PSR framework is another environmental framework that has been used widely since the FDES was developed. The PSR is itself an adaptation of the S-RESS framework, which was the culmination of work on the stress-response framework. The PSR framework recog nized that human activities exert pressures (such as pollution emissions or land use changes) on the environment, which can, in turn, induce changes in the state of the environment (e.g., changes in ambient pollutant levels, habitat diversity and water flows). Society then responds to these changes in pressures or state with environmental and economic policies and pro grammes intended to prevent, reduce or mitigate the pressures and/or environmental damage. The responses form a feedback loop to impose pressure through human activities. In a wider sense, these steps form part of an environmental policy cycle that includes problem perception, policy formulation, and monitoring and policy evaluation.146 B.46. PSR frameworks are useful for classifying and reporting existing data. The indica tors derived from them are functional and well known. However, they cannot reveal which statistical topics or even variables that could be missing. Additionally, while PSR-type frame works tend to focus on the harmful aspects of the human-ecosystem relationship, they do not distinguish between beneficial and harmful stressors and impacts.147 PSR frameworks also tend to suggest, or have been interpreted to suggest, linear relationships in the human activity- 145 Rapport, David and Friend, Anthony (1979). “Towards a Comprehensive Framework for Environment Statistics: a Stress- response Approach”, Ottawa, Statistics Canada. 146 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (1993), Environment Monographs, No. 83, “OECD Core Set of Indicators for Environmental Performance Reviews”. 147 United Nations Statistics Division, Expert Group Meeting on the Revision of the FDES (2010), “Criteria for a Conceptual Framework for Developing Environment Statistics”, Robert Smith and Michael Bordt, Statistics Canada, available from http://unstats.un.org/unsd /environment/fdes /EGM1/EGM-FDES.1.14 -Criteria%20for%20a%20 Conceptual%20Framework%20 for%20Developing%20 Environment%20Statistics%20 -%20Robert%20Smith%20&%20 Michael%20Bordt.pdf (accessed 4 August 2017).
179 Developments since 1984 179 environment interaction. This obstructs the view of more complex relationships in ecosystems and in environment-economy interactions. B.47. The establishment of the United Nations CSD was a critical organizational development which intervened in and influenced the development of these frameworks. Another early indi cator framework for environment statistics—the Driving force-State-Response (DSR) frame work—was developed under the aegis of Agenda 21 as a tool to systematize and represent the interrelationships encompassed by sustainable development. The DSR framework, which was derived from the PSR framework, was arranged according to the Agenda 21 chapters. Indica tors were classified based on their “driving force”, “state” and “response” characteristics, where Driving force represented human activities, processes or patterns that impact on sustainable development; State indicators provide information on the condition of sustainable develop ment; and Response indicators represented societal actions aimed at moving towards sustain able development. B.48. In practice, some countries found the DSR framework inadequate for the social, eco nomic and institutional dimensions of sustainable development because of the length of the suggested working list of indicators and the unavailability of some national indicator sets. Furthermore, the SDIs, organized in the economic, social and environment sections, do not facilitate their needed integration. Thus, they do not present a cohesive picture but rather a series of separate lists. Consequently, the use of the DSR framework was discontinued within the CSD work on SDIs. B.49. As a successor approach, in 2001, the CSD published its “Indicators of Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Methodologies”, codifying the output of its work programme on indicators of sustainable development. This publication provided a detailed description of key sustainable development themes and subthemes, proposing a framework and core set of indicators. The framework offered 15 themes and 38 subthemes to guide national indicator development beyond 2001. Even though this organization was not done strictly along Agenda 21 chapters, its strength was that it managed to better satisfy its original intent by putting more emphasis on policy-oriented topics. B.50. More recently, in 2007, a non-linear matrix-type of structure was adopted by the CSD, where each indicator could be relevant for different dimensions and themes of sustainable development. The division of indicators along the lines of four pillars (social, economic, envi ronmental and institutional) is no longer explicit in the newly revised core set or SDIs. This change emphasizes the multidimensional nature of sustainable development and reflects the importance of integrating its pillars. Consequently, new cross-cutting themes, such as poverty and natural hazards, were introduced and existing cross-cutting themes, such as consumption and production patterns, are better represented. B.51. The DPSIR framework is yet another framework that attempts to organize environmen tal components in logical fashion according to components of driving force, pressure, state, impact and response.148 B.52. Here, Driving force refers to the social, demographic and economic developments in a society and the corresponding changes in lifestyles and overall levels of consumption and pro duction patterns. The major driving forces are population growth and changes in individuals’ needs and activities. They provoke changes in overall levels of production and consumption and, thereby, exert pressure on the environment. This pressure may manifest itself in vari ous ways, including excessive use of natural resources, changes in land use and emissions (of chemicals, waste, radiation and noise) to air, water and land. The Pressure component provides information on emissions, application of chemical and biological agents and the use of land and other resources. The pressures exerted by society’s production and consumption patterns 148 European Environment Agency (2003), Environmental Indicators: Typology and Use in Reporting, Chapter 3.1, available from http://www.iwrms.uni-jena.de /fileadmin/Geoinformatik /projekte/brahmatwinn /Workshops/FEEM/Indicators /EEA_Working_paper_DPSIR.pdf (accessed 4 August 2017)
Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics (FDES 2013) 180 are subsequently transformed via natural processes that may result in changes in the state of the environment. The State component provides information on the level, quality and/or quantity of physical phenomena, biological phenomena and chemical phenomena in a given area at a given point in time. Changes in the state of the environment may have environmental and economic impacts on ecosystems and, eventually, on human health and the economic and social welfare of a society. The Impact component describes the relevance of changes in the state of the environment and the corresponding implications for ecosystems, the economy and human well-being and health. Response refers to the reaction of the government, institutions, groups of people and individuals to undesired impacts on the environment in order to prevent, mitigate, ameliorate or adapt to changes in the environment. For example, responses may seek to change and/or redirect prevailing trends in the consumption and production of goods and services, improve the monitoring and control of pollutants or develop cleaner technologies. B.53. The Global (regional, national) Environment Outlooks (GEOs), led by UNEP, are pro duced using the DPSIR framework for analysis. This process involves stakeholders and collabo rating academic and research centres, which perform the assessment based on a documented methodology. In general, the core indicators data matrix is organized using a theme-issue row structure. The main themes include land, forest, biodiversity, freshwater, atmosphere, coastal and marine areas, disasters and urban areas. B.54. The evolution of these frameworks and their sequences has influenced the production of environmental statistics and indicators over the years at the global and national levels. Their contents, structure and conceptual underpinning, and the experiences of practitioners working with them in real life, have been analysed and have contributed to the revision of the FDES, particularly to the shape of its new structure and the scope of its contents. System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) B.55. In 1987, the report of the Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future, made clear the links between economic and social development and the environment’s capacity. Shortly afterwards, in 1992, the recommendations of the UN Conference on Environment and Devel opment “Earth Summit” in Agenda 21 (UN 1992)149 recommended that countries implement environmental-economic accounts at the earliest date. B.56. In response, the UNSD published the handbook of national accounting—Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (UN 1993),150 commonly referred to as the SEEA. This handbook was issued as an “interim” version of work in progress since the discussion of relevant concepts and methods had not come to a final conclusion. B.57. As a result of the publication of the SEEA handbook, several developing and devel oped countries started experimenting on the compilation of SEEA-based data. The London Group on Environmental Accounting was created in 1994 under the auspices of the United Nations Statistical Commission to provide a forum for practitioners to share their experiences on developing and implementing environmental-economic accounts. Increased discussions on concepts and methods of environmental-economic accounting, accompanied with country experiences led to an increasing convergence of concepts and methods for various modules of the SEEA. B.58. Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting—An Operational Manual (UN 2000)151 was published by UNSD and UNEP based on material prepared by the Nairobi group, a group of experts established in 1995 from national and international agencies and NGOs. This publication reflected the ongoing discussion following the publication of the SEEA in 1993 and provided step-by-step guidance on the implementation of the more practical modules of 149 United Nations “Agenda 21”, United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 3-14 June 1992, available from http:// sustainabledevelopment.un.org /content/documents/Agenda21 .pdf (accessed 4 August 2017). 150 United Nations Statistics Division (1993), Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (interim version), available from http://unstats.un.org/unsd /publication/SeriesF/SeriesF_61E .pdf (accessed 4 August 2017). 151 United Nations Statistics Division (2000). Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting—An Operational Manual, available from http://unstats.un.org/unsd /publication/SeriesF/SeriesF_78E .pdf (accessed 4 August 2017).