The environment is one of the main factors that man has focused on protecting for the conservation of life on the planet, establishing parameters, policies and environmental indicators that promote the protection of natural resources. This represents the quantification of the consumption of resources on the planet, let's learn a little more about Environmental Indicators in the following article.
Environmental indicators
Man has been characterized by obtaining the greatest benefit from the natural resources that make up the environment, presenting excessive and uncontrolled consumption in many aspects, causing serious consequences such as soil deterioration, excessive logging, increased gaseous emissions , the contamination of running water, among many others. Therefore, policies and regulations were established for the decisions that are made with respect to nature, thus giving rise to environmental indicators.
An indicator represents a type of qualitative or quantitative information that is made up of a group of data based on opinions, statistics, numbers, facts and measurements; Through them, processes and evaluations can be carried out for decisions in a specific case. They represent a factor taken into account in the different global issues such as economy, politics, social and even environmental.
Environmental indicators correspond to the parameters that are used to refer to the environmental system, taking into account physical, chemical, biological, social and economic factors. Through them you can evaluate all the environmental information of a country or community such as climate, ecosystem, landscapes, among others; They deal with a set of statistics that manage to reflect the conditions in which the environment of a specific sector is found.
Through environmental indicators, the state of the environment, the sustainability of all natural resources and the correlation it has with human activities can be disclosed; Although widely applied, they vary according to the degree of complexity, for this reason they can be classified as quantitative or qualitative environmental indicators, the first is responsible for offering information on some phenomenon, while the second focuses on the observations of the facts.
Features
Environmental indicators encompass a set of information to be used as an instrument, they function in the evaluation of political decisions within the environment, they are even used within institutions and companies to be referents of sustainable development, in addition to collaborating with reducing the impact environmental. The main characteristics that environmental indicators must have are the following:
- Consider data that represents quality and reliability.
- Be simple data to handle and easy to understand.
- Prediction of possible negative evolution within the environment.
- Cost must be correlated with effectiveness.
- Sensitive to different changes.
- Specific information that does not offer any other type of interpretation.
- Offer possible international comparisons.
- Cover the economic and social aspects as an information system related to each other.
Types of Environmental Indicators
Environmental indicators can become quantitative, representing a parameter that evaluates impacts, standardized measures and evaluates project objectives; also highlighting qualitative characteristics based on the perceptions and impressions surveyed. Due to these factors there are three types of environmental indicators:
Type I
They are those indicators that have permanent monitoring, offering up-to-date and complete information.
Type 2
They are indicators that need calculations because their data are partial and come from permanent monitoring, therefore, they need additional information, analysis and interpretation of the results obtained.
Type 3
This type of indicator does not have a mathematical basis and they are not based on available data either, they are considered conceptual; in some cases they can be considered as qualitative.
Examples of Environmental Indicators
By classifying the environmental indicators, it allows locating where the available data is and where improvements in collection are needed. Therefore, some of the most used environmental indicators will be highlighted below:
Sustainable Economic Welfare Index (IBES)
The index of sustainable economic well-being known by its acronym IBES, is an economic indicator, it refers to the sustainability of the well-being of the population; It is the tool used to account for the expenses made by consumers and also the domestic contribution.
This index was created by Herman Daly and John Cobb in the middle of 1989 and 1994, being a numerical value that integrates the specific weight and the economic, environmental and social variables; having as variables the adjusted consumption and the Gini coefficient (referring to socioeconomic inequality). Emphasizing this last factor for reaching a value between 0 and 1, when it is at zero it represents that equality is perfect, while if it is equal to one it refers to it being unequal.
It is considered as a very important alternative indicator to evaluate the sustainable development of a specific territory, it includes the factors of level of education, health of the population, acquisition of goods, among others. Being very applied together with other indices to know the socioeconomic conditions of the nation.
Human Development Index (HDI)
The Human Development Index corresponds to an indicator that is responsible for analyzing human development in a nation taking into account its health, education and economic income. This type of indicator measures all the achievements obtained in the fundamental dimensions that guarantee a long and healthy life expectancy, ranging from the years of schooling for children to university education for adults over 25 years of age.
The HDI was created by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), being an arithmetic mean that uses the normalized indices of the three indicated dimensions (health, education and economy), each one will be evaluated according to the characteristics described below :
- Health, measured from living conditions at birth.
- Education, is responsible for measuring adult literacy by correlating it with basic, secondary, higher and university education.
- Economic acquisition, measured by the gross domestic product per capita (PPP) in US dollars.
Environmental Sustainability Index (ISA)
The environmental sustainability index was created in 2001 by the World Economic Forum, Yale University and Columbia University. It is responsible for carrying out long-term measurements of a large number of variables (approximately 67 in total), being structured in a hierarchical manner on the socioeconomic relationship of a country, including several environmental factors that influence its calculation.
Among the environmental factors evaluated, 22 stand out in total, covering the following topics: waste reduction, application of agrochemicals, polluting gas emissions, water quality, energy efficiency, quantity of aquifers, population increase, perception of corruption , protection of international goods, among others. This type of indicator encompasses the dynamism of society and takes into account environmental management, but must necessarily be related to another environmental parameter for greater accuracy of results.
Environmental Performance Index (EPI)
Considered as an environmental indicator, it represents the acronym EPI for its name in English Environmental Performance Index. It is a method that is responsible for quantifying the performance of the political environmental aspects of a country within a period of time. It was created in 1999 and 2005 by the International Center for Earth Sciences (Yale University) together with the Information Network of the International Center for Earth Sciences (Columbia University). Aimed at publicizing the influence of laws and policies on the environment.
It was created together with the Environmental Sustainability Index (ISA) by both universities. In the case of the ISA, the influence of the socioeconomic environmental sustainability of a country will be revealed, which is why it is considered as a parameter for data collection, while that the EPI focuses on the result of the first indicator, allowing to observe the political comparison and also the scientific influence. In mid-2018, the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) made some changes to variables and weights, including the components of environmental health and vitality of ecosystems within its correlation between indicators.
Global Green Economy Index (GGEI)
Known by its acronym in English Global Green Economy (GGEI), it was created in 2010 when it was published by the environmental consulting company Dual Citizen LLC. It consists of an American consulting firm that published a document that generated great changes in the investments of approximately 80 countries, focused on directing the world economy to sustainable and environmentally friendly processes.
Therefore, the GGEI promotes the global environmental economy to a green economy, based on measuring the performance of political decisions, which can accelerate changes to more environmentally friendly operational processes. All this evaluating four main parameters: climate change, political leadership, investments with efficiency and the environment.
Considering that by promoting the green economy it can be the main solution to the environmental and economic crisis that planet earth is going through, so the indicator exercises qualitative and quantitative practices for countries with greater environmental progress, such as Japan, the Netherlands, Canada , New Zealand, Italy, South Korea, China, Thailand, Switzerland, Norway, Germany, Taiwan, France, Finland, Mexico, Albania, Chile, Colombia, among others.
Ecological Footprint (EF)
Known as the indicator of environmental impact, it was born due to man's request for natural resources in the ecosystems of planet earth, all with the aim of satisfying human needs and the evolution of society. Therefore, this indicator is related to the ability of the land to regenerate all those resources obtained by man, highlighting that there are resources that can be regenerated quickly (crops, pastures, among others) but there are others that take many years. in re-emerging (forests, oil, minerals, among others); taking into account the biological, chemical and physical conditions for this type of indicator.
The main objective of evaluating the Ecological Footprint is to know the impact generated by the actions of man on planet earth, to the point that they influence their way of life and development of society but generating a great deterioration of ecosystems, causing the water pollution, excessive tillage, soil infertility, loss of biodiversity, emissions of polluting gases into the atmosphere, among others. Therefore, the need arises to compare the human practices carried out in each year and each country, in this way the consumption of the resource will be controlled.
Currently, the average ecological footprint is approximately 2,2 hectares worldwide according to the consumption of each human being, while theoretical calculations are that it should be 1,8 hectares; observing that the capacity has been exceeded and the adequate regeneration of the planet is not being allowed. Although when carrying out the study by country the average is much higher, in developed countries such as the United States it is 8,2 hectares, Japan 5 hectares; but underdeveloped countries like Colombia reach 1,9 hectares.
Living Planet Index (LPI)
It corresponds to an indicator that is responsible for measuring the abundance of wild species found on planet earth, focusing on monitoring the diversity of animals such as birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and fish. It was created by the World Wildlife Found International (WWF) organization in 1970.
Through this indicator, it has been possible to identify a strong decrease in animal species from the 1970s to 2010, being approximately 52%, observing the reduction of biodiversity in those temperate regions and in the tropics, it is a direct consequence of the reduction of habitats and the overexploitation of natural resources. This type of indicator tells us that we must establish protection measures for fauna in different ecosystems.
Carbon footprint
The carbon footprint is an index that reflects the amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere per person, organization, city and industry; these emissions generate a direct and indirect effect on the planet. It is also known as the footprint of the man's foot that generates an impact on the earth, it was born with the purpose of combating climate change that originates from the excessive use of fossil fuel and generates gases such as carbon dioxide and methane that deteriorate the layer of ozone.
Through the carbon footprint, the inventory of greenhouse effect emissions can be quantified, based on three types of scope:
- Scope 1 – Direct Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The first scope focuses on direct greenhouse gas emissions, normally those that are linked to the consumption of primary energy and used for distribution. For example, those that come from furnaces, boilers, fugitive emissions from air conditioning, methane emissions from ducts, among others, stand out. They are properties that are controlled by the entities that issue them.
- Scope 2 – Indirect Greenhouse Gas Emissions
These are indirect emissions of greenhouse gases, generated by the indirect consumption of energy in the daily life of human beings. For example, the daily use of electrical energy when plugging in appliances such as microwaves, refrigerators, computers, washing machines, among others; It includes those consumptions coming from homes, offices, stores and even by companies.
- Scope 3 (Other Indirect Emissions)
It encompasses the emissions that come from energy related to the production processes, the example for this case is the extraction and production of materials that are acquired from organizations, transportation of raw materials, work trips with external means of transportation, among others; corresponds to those who are third parties and use the services of other media.
Water footprint
It represents an environmental index that is responsible for quantifying the handling of water, defining the total volume of fresh water that has been used to generate the services that human beings consume every day. Taking into account that it evaluates the water consumed, evaporated or contaminated in an amount of time by individual, communities, companies, country, among others.
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This indicator seeks to know the impact of water resources for the production of goods, including calculations that measure the need for the use and consumption of water from its origin to the final consumer. There are three types of water footprints that are responsible for presenting the origin of the water, highlighted below:
- Green Water Footprint
It refers to those bodies of water that come from the rains, being stored in the soil and accumulating in the surface and underground layers, corresponding to those waters that are available to plants for their continuous development.
- Blue Water Footprint
It corresponds to the water that comes from natural or artificial sources, deals with those infrastructures that are manipulated by man, is related to the proper use of fresh water.
- Gray Water Footprint
It is contaminated water after being handled, it is normally recommended to dilute or neutralize them to meet all the parameters that are highlighted in the regulations of each country.
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