Evaluating the Social Impacts of Change in a Sustainable Future

Professor Ronald McQuaidEmployment Research Institute

Napier UniversityEdinburgh, Scotland

WASD conference, Brighton27-29 August 2008

Sustainable Development

• Three Pillars of Sustainability– Environmental – Economic– Social

Environmental and Economic Sustainability

Environmental – Well established but areas of disagreement

Economic - Reasonably well developed, but still very general and not exact:e.g. Cost Benefit Analysis

Project AppraisalPrivate v Social costs, discount rates, weak

substitutability etc. Concerned often with economic growth

Sustainability indicators have predominantly focused on environmental issues and small scale

Overview

• What is Social Sustainability?

• Why is there interest in SSD?

- EU policy context

• Developing and measuring SSD

Social Sustainability• No agreed definition: a society that has social

justice, is persistent and thrives …..• “Development (and/or growth) that is compatible

with harmonious evolution of civil society, fostering an environment conductive to the

compatible cohabitation of culturally and socially diverse groups while at the same time

encouraging social integration, with improvements in the quality of life for all

segments of the population.” Polese and Stren (2000, 15-16)

Social Sustainability• Some characteristics and issues:

– Quality of life issues– Equality and social justice – Fair distribution of benefits and costs– Access to social resources to allow them to

participate fully in society – Individuals have opportunity to reach full

potential and overcome disadvantage– Promotes diversity while being inclusive

Social Sustainability (cont.)

– Promotes good governance– Multi-generational timescale– Primarily implemented and measured at the

local community level – Importantly it is multi-dimensional (difficult/

impossible to get a single measure such as monetarisation measure)

SSD is about:

– Social impacts of SD policies

– Social input and involvement

i.e. SIA is not just the inclusion of the social impacts of Sustainable Development policies

It is also about how policies are developed and implemented and who influences these

European Union Policy Background 1

• Background : UN Agenda 21

• The Lisbon Strategy (introduces social dimension, especially related to work) 2000 (re-launched 2005)

• Gothenburg Strategy 2001

Lisbon Strategy pillars (2000/5):• An economic pillar preparing the ground for the

transition to a competitive, dynamic, knowledge-based economy. Emphasis is placed on the need to adapt constantly to changes in the information society and to boost research and development.

• A social pillar designed to modernise the European social model by investing in human resources and combating social exclusion. The Member States are expected to invest in education and training, and to conduct an active policy for employment, making it easier to move to a knowledge economy.

• An environmental pillar, added at the Gothenburg European Council meeting, which draws attention to the fact that economic growth must be decoupled from the use of natural resources.

European Union Policy Background 2

European Union Sustainable Development Strategy 2006

• Climate change and clean energy • Sustainable transport • Sustainable consumption & production• Conservation and management of natural resources• Public Health • Social inclusion, demography and migration • Global poverty and sustainable development challenges

Sustainable Development Strategy Para 56 (2007)

• Sustainable development is a fundamental objective of the European Union…It agrees that the objectives and priorities under the seven key challenges …

• The strategy uses a baseline of statistics for the year 2000 against which to measure progress and Eurostat produces monitoring reports

European Union Policy Background 3

• Social Agenda 2005-2010The EU's goals include sustained economic growth, more and better jobs and greater social cohesion. Balance with SDS?

• European Employment Strategy (first in 1997) and the Luxembourg Process“open method of co-ordination” - multi-lateral surveillance, based on annual reporting and comparable monitoring indicators, so best performers in the EU identified and learned from, plus improved exchanges of information between Member States

Developing and measuring SSD

• Governance (public participation, social inclusion, and public attitudes)

• Employment (at the local community level)

• Community Development (local social benefits derived from community participation in commercial activities and policy)

• Health and Well-being (physical health & emotional sense of enjoying and achieving in life)

• Culture and Heritage

Impact Categories/Issues (cont.)

Cross-cutting all issues: distribution of social benefits

and costs participation of affected people in

decisions equality social justice

Governance(public participation, social inclusion, and public attitudes) Questions include, how does the policy:• impact on the involvement of groups and

stakeholders to participate in governance?• impact on social institutions or public institutions

and administrations in their ability and responsibilities to governance?

• impact on a group or the individual’s access to the legal justice system?

• impact on the public being informed about issues within their community?

• impact on the privacy of individuals and households?

Modelling Social Impacts

• EU (2006) Report identified 27 different methodologies and techniques

• Identify the social impacts of a policy, who is affected and the timescale – Causal Model – Qualitative Assessment – Impact Matrix – Measuring factors such as wellbeing?

Modelling Social Impacts 2

• Many sustainability assessments take a ‘triple bottom line’ – start with environment and add on economic and social impacts

• Problem - perceives three as independent from each other (gains or losses from each can be exchanged to achieve the optimal policy). Falls short of the holistic approach of multi-dimensional policy assessment

Balance Sheet Approach

• There is no common matrix by which all social impact issues can be measured!– History of ignoring issues that could not be

quantified numerically or monetarised

List all benefits/gains v. all costs/losses– Consider distributional effects, equality and

social justice – Weighting of measures

Indicators e.g. Rio Earth Summit 1992 indicators, Colantonio (2007) etc.

Social1. Access to resources2. Community needs ( e.g. are communities able to articulate their

needs?)3. Conflicts mitigation4. Cultural promotion5. Education6. Elderly and aging7. Enabling knowledge management (including access to E-

knowledge)8. Freedom9. Gender equity10. Happiness11. Health12. Identity of the community/civic pride13. Image transformation and neighbourhood perceptions

IndicatorsSocial cont.

14. Integration of newcomers (especially foreign in-migrants) and residents

15. Leadership16. Justice and equality17. Leisure and sport facilities18. Less able people19. Population change20. Poverty eradication21. Quality of Life22. Security and Crime23. Skills development24. Social diversity and multiculturalism25. Well being

IndicatorsSocio-Institutional26. Capacity Building27. Participation and empowerment28. Trust, voluntary organisations and local networks (also know as SocialCapital)Socio-economic29. Economic security30. Employment31. Informal activities/economy32. Partnership and collaborationSocio-environmental33. Inclusive design34. Infrastructures35. Environmental Health36. Housing (quality and tenure mix)37. Transport38. Spatial/environmental inequalities

Indicators - criticismsFor example:

• Difficult to measure indicators• Time horizon• Counterfactual – did it make a difference?• Combined effects of lots of indicators Σ>parts

• Context is important - different cultural interpretations of social and different contexts

• But it is easy to criticise and hard to present something better!

ConclusionsThe Social Pillar is the least developed area of

impact assessment- newest (<10-20 years) No systematic model- least developed theoretically due to difficulty in comparing quality issues/impacts with other quality issues & with quantifiable issues/impacts; holistic v reductionalist views etc.- scale of community being analysed dramatically changes the possible matrices and impact issues

Is sustainability the core or is social an ‘add on’ to environment and economic?

The challenge is one of integrating the three pillars.

Thank you

Employment Research InstituteNapier University, Edinburgh

Institute website: http://www2.napier.ac.uk/depts/eri/home.htm

Governance(public participation, social inclusion, and public attitudes) Reasons for community participation in SD• democratic right of the public to be

involved in the process - essential part of equitable societies

• allows communities to voice their needs & desires, throughout the process of policy creation, delivery and ex-post evaluation

• policy effectiveness increased if it incorporates ideas, values and preferences of society and communities directly affected

Example of 1 issue:- Demography

A typology of urban and rural regions with regard to sustainable demographic development

1995-2000 (% of population)

Tot PU SR PR

Per Cent of Population

1 Double positive regions 31,9 35.4 34.3 20.6

2 Growth regions with out-migration 13,6 12.2 15.7 13.0 3 Growth regions with natural decrease 18,0 13.4 19.9 24.2 4 Declining regions with in-migration 9,2 6.9 10.8 11.0 5 Declining regions with natural increase 12,3 14.1 10.6 11.5 6 Double negative regions 15,0 17.8 8.7 19.8

Source. Estimations based on Eurostat data

Employment(employment at the local community level)

How does the policy:• facilitate creation of jobs or the loss of jobs?• impact a specific class of workers or

households?• affect the demand for labour?• impact on the functioning of the labour market?• impact on the type and quality of jobs? • impact on the health, safety and dignity of

workers?

Community Development(local social benefits derived from community

participation in commercial activities and policy) How does the policy:• impact on the level of social capital and

activism by non-governmental groups or individuals?

• impact on social inclusion, social cohesion, and distribution of equity and benefits within society?

• impact on the liveability and sense of community wellbeing?

Health and Well-being(1)(physical health and emotional sense of

enjoying and achieving in life)How does the policy:• impact on the quality of soil, surface water, and

ground water? The quality and sufficiency of drinking water is of special importance. What are the health gains or risks that may occur?

• impact on the occupational health risks that may occur with the development?

Health and Well-being(2)• impact development or change of land use on

recreational uses in the area and the effects on the local community as well as non-local visitation to the area?

• impact development on local infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, waste disposal, sanitation, and emergency response capability? Will there be sufficient capacity?

• impact equitable distribution of the health risks, disadvantages and benefits from development?

What is the desirable distribution of the gains and

losses among social groups?

Culture and heritage (1)

(culture is the total range of activities and ideas of a group of people with shared traditions which are transmitted and

reinforced by members of a group)

(heritage can be explained as all the things, places and ideas passed on from the past which are of special cultural

significance to the life of a community, including both cultural and human-built elements)

Culture and heritage (2)

Does the policy:• impact on cultural or heritage issues in a

community • impact on sites and features• impact on activities, practices, skills and events• impact on meanings, identities, and

representations of importance to the community• Impacts on indigenous peoples

Developing and measuring SSD

• Governance

• Employment

• Community Development

• Health and Well-being

• Culture and Heritage

Diagram: Causal model of impacts – increased timber harvesting

Policy: increase timber harvest

Employment Increase

Wages Increase

Increase in Population

Rents Increase

Low Income Workers Displaced from Housing

Policy/Project Employment/Wages Population Rent

Wages increase (large) *15% average wage increase Likelihood - 50% *Upward wage pressure through out timber sector *Substantial improvement for unemployed as wages are greater than minimum level

Rent increase (small) Likelihood - 30%

Employment increases (large) * Local population employed - 50 jobs *Non-local population employed - 15 jobs (skilled or experienced to manage expansion) Likelihood - 60% All unemployed workers with appropriate skills set are likely to gain full time employment

Population increase (large) Likelihood - 50%

Rent increase (large) Likelihood - 60%

Wages increase (small) *15% average wage increase Likelihood - 50% *Upward wage pressure through out timber sector *Substantial improvement for unemployed as wages are greater than minimum level

Population decrease (small) Likelihood - 10%

Employment increases (small) * Local population employed - 25 jobs *Non-local population employed - 5 jobs (skilled or experienced to manage expansion) Likelihood - 40% Some unemployed workers with appropriate skills set are likely to gain full time employment

Population increase (small) Likelihood - 40%

Rent stable -no change Likelihood - 10%

Chart Combined Qualitative Assessment and Impact Matrix Analysis

Definition of Rural Regions and Typology

• Assessing the pertinence of the OECD classification:– Simple, transparent, takes account of internal patterns within regions,

widely recognised– But major weaknesses include heterogeneity of NUTS 3 regions, ignores

differences in “economic potential” of regions, density thresholds are arbitrary

• 3 alternative options (all incorporating a peripherality index) are presented and assessed, two of these give better discrimination between different types of rural region (assessed by anova test)

Typology according to labour market performance:– Simple transparent disaggregative approach– Separate demography and economic activity/unemployment

typologies– Combined typology – reveals relatively favourable labour

market situation in PU regions, SR and PR more mixed: fewer strong performance regions, more moderately performing regions, and roughly the same proportion of weak regions.

Bottom-line Objective

• Identify the impacts of a potential policy or proposed project

To answer the question:

What can be done to maximise and distribute the social benefits while mitigating the negative impacts/costs to individuals or groups within society?

The sources of unsustainable development are not always the result of greed, ignorance or irrational choices.

Rather, they may be the result of unintentional accumulation of rational, well-intended decisions made by people who are operating within societies whose political and economic systems make it difficult to act in ways that are responsible to all those affected in the present and in the future.

The Economics Pillar is still developing asthe principle of sustainable development is difficult to analyse as it is contrary to certain key assumptions/goals of traditional economics

- weak substitutability- discount rates- economic agents- (sustainable) growth as the main

objective

Impact

Overview

• Society needs to identify its preferred future and then assess, plan and implement strategies that move it significantly towards this.

• It is important that environmental, economic and social sustainability factors are fully incorporated in the choices of direction and in seeking to achieve it.

European Union Policy Background

• The Lisbon 2000 Strategy (introduces social dimension, esp. related to work)

• Gothenburg Strategy 2001

• European Union Sustainable Development Strategy 2006/7

• Social Agenda 2005-2010

• European Employment Strategy (first in 1997) and the Luxembourg Process

Council of the EU

• Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs (EPSCO)

• The Environment Council

Sustainability Impact Assessment Tools (SAIT)

• Currently in development– SENSOR– EFORWOOD– PLUREL – SEAMLESS