This paper describes various management tools and indicators for sustainable development and provides some lessons drawn from Norwegian experiences. It summarises experiences with natural resource accounting and the debate on how far one should go in synthesising and summarising the information contained in them into a single aggregate measure such as “Green GDP.” It also briefly describes Norway's efforts to establish a set of indicators on sustainable development.
The paper recommends that, regardless of the information collected and organised to support decision-making processes, the final outcome should always be judged in terms of its impacts on policy processes. Thus, the authors warn against large-scale development of information systems, without due regard to the final utilisation of the output.
Related Case Studies
This publication gives an overview of Statistic Norway's work of compiling national statistics on natural resources and environmental issues, and developing methods and models for analysing trends in the extraction and use of natural resources and changes in the state of the environment. In particular, the study focuses on relationships between these factors and other socio-economic developments.
The report Nordic Best Practices presents fifteen initiatives on the themes of Sustainable Buildings and Construction and Sustainable Food Systems. They are presented in a manner designed to facilitate a comparison of their respective strengths, key results, and novelty as well as to draw lessons learned of each particular case.
This case study summarizes the results of a review of the policy-related users and uses of the environmental accounts compiled in a select group of developed countries.
This report presents a state-of-the-art contribution of information to decision-makers in Laos who have an interest in achieving sustainable growth consistent with the 2019 National Green Growth Strategy.