For those interested in sustainability and using indicators to promote sustainability, take a look at the Hawai'i 2050 website.

Hawai'i 2050 defines sustainability as the following:

Sustainability in Hawai‘i means achieving a quality of life that:

• strikes a balance between economic prosperity, social and community well-being, and environmental stewardship.


• meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.


• respects the culture, character, beauty and history of our state’s island communities.

The group is developing a vision for the state and some guiding principles. They are being informed by several interesting indicators documents and research, including the following:

• Hawaii 2050 Issue Book (pdf) Commissioned by the Hawaii 2050 Sustainability Task Force, the Hawaii 2050 Issue Book provides fact-based research on key sustainability issues. The Issue Book contains the research and conclusions of a group of scholars at the University of Hawaii Center for Sustainability. A summary (pdf) of the Issue Book can also be downloaded.


• UHERO Economic Information Service UHERO's Economic Information Service is a community-sponsored research program of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The EIS provides the Hawaii community with information on economic, demographic, and business trends in the State and the Asia-Pacific region. Under the service, UHERO provides a menu of forecast reports and varying levels of access to the UHERO EIS Online Database.The UHERO EIS Online Database houses up-to-date statistics on the State, county, and key external economies.


• Environmental Indicators State Department of Health The Goals and Indicators program annually releases a report based on data collected by the Department of Health environmental programs. Environmental indicators are used to measure the quality of the environment and/or progress made toward protection of the environment.


• Office of Environmental Quality Control Office of Environmental Quality ControlThe Environmental Report Card - includes environmental indicators, progress reports, grades, essays and agency goals


• Quality of Life in Hawaii Report (2005) (pdf) Aloha United Way A report on the well-being of our state as reflected by key social, health, safety, educational, economic, and environmental measures. These carefully selected community indicators provide a way to monitor trends over time, both statewide and at a county level.


• University of Hawaii Center on the Family A comprehensive collection of data and information on Hawaii’s families, children, and aging population, including Child and Family Indicators, School/Community Profiles, and Hawaii’s Aging.


• Hawaii Kids Count University of Hawaii Center on the Family A database of information describing the status of children in Hawaii. Monitors Hawaii's progress regarding children and families by tracking key indicators over time.


• Health Trends in Hawaii: A Profile of the Health Care System (2006) Hawaii Health Information Corporation A biennial publication providing Hawaii health care data including health care demographics, health status, the health marketplace, health resource availability and health resource utilization and also shows trends over time. Each edition features a special section, this one on children's health. Several new topics include managed care, alternative medicine, health care expenditures, the health care workforce and telemedicine.


• State of Hawaii Data Book Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism, State of HawaiiThe official summary of statistics on the social, economic, and political organization of the State of Hawaii.


• Economic Data and Reports Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism, State of Hawaii Comprehensive state and county data and reports on Hawaii’s economy, including visitor arrivals and expenditures, general fund tax revenue, economic forecasts and projections, and more.

It's a great example of using a broad range of indicators to understand a community and envision its future. Look for the Hawai‘i 2050 Sustainability Plan to be unveiled at the Hawai‘i 2050 Sustainability Summit on September 22, 2007. The summit theme is Nā Lei o Ka ‘Āina, or “The Lei of the Land.”

Here's a press release from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in London.

From the press release:

Sustainable development indicators in your pocket 2007

A free pocket-sized booklet published by Defra today provides an overview of the country’s progress in tackling key economic, social and environmental issues.

The 68 indicators it contains - covering a wide range of topics of everyday concern such as health, housing, jobs, crime, education, and our environment - all affect whether we can live more sustainably in the future. For the first time this edition includes some provisional measures of wellbeing which show how satisfied people are with their lives.

The press release also contains a summary of the statistical information in the booklet and some comparison pie charts.

Free copies of Sustainable development indicators in your pocket 2007 are available from:

Defra Publications
Admail 6000
London, SW1A 2XX
Telephone: 08459 556000
defra@cambertown.com
Quote product codes PB12683 (A6 size) or PB12683A (A4 size)

The publication and associated data will be also presented on the sustainable development website: http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/

I ran across an interesting website today, called Worldometers. The site provides a series of measures which it purports to update in real time (much in the same way sites like the National Debt Clock [get your own here] or the Census' Population Clock do.)

What's interesting is that the measures include a range of interesting information, including deaths caused by smoking, oil consumption, food production, lightning strikes, and a series of other indicators.

It struck me that this could me an interesting tool to use with community indicators, as we look at different data display techniques to tell more compelling stories with data. The numbers are, of course, projections based on current trendlines, but these projections could conceivably be used for a number of different community measures to point out the costs of inaction or the scale of the issue the community faces.

Has anyone had experience adapting these kinds of clocks to local indicators?

In an earlier post we discussed the National Center for Children in Poverty and its factsheet on Measuring Income and Poverty in the United States.

Another useful data resource for measuring poverty is The Poverty Site, which calls itself "The UK site for statistics on poverty and social exclusion." It contains 50 indicators associated with poverty in the United Kingdom, including income, employment, education, health, and crime, and has spearate reports for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and rural England.

The site also reports on the European Union (Laeken) indicators, which it explains are "a core set of poverty and social exclusion indicators which are regularly produced for every EU country on a comparable basis."

You may also be interested in the The World Bank's discussion of poverty indicators, including the Millennium Development Goals (data on the goals available here).

What are the key resources you turn to in order to measure poverty in your community?

From the Public Performance Measurement and Reporting Network:

Dear Members of the Public Performance Measurement and Reporting Network:

We invite proposals for the First Annual Public Performance Measurement and Reporting Network Conference. Proposals may include presentations, cases, workshops, projects, survey data, etc.

The Conference will be held on November 2-3 at The School of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University, Campus at Newark. In particular, we encourage proposals that emphasize innovative approaches to both public performance measurement and reporting.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
o Best Practices: Performance Measurement in Practice
o Strategic Planning and Performance Measurement
o Performance-based Budgeting
o Citizen-based Performance Measurement
o Benchmarking: Comparative Performance Measurement
o Technology and Performance Measurement
o Performance Measurement Reporting: Communicating Results
o Related Topics

Proposals should not exceed 250 words and should be sent to Dr. James Melitski as soon as possible, but no later than September 15th, at james.melitski@marist.edu