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Journal of Cleaner Production 64 (2014) 158e172

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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An open participatory conceptual framework to support State of theEnvironment and Sustainability Reportsq

Tomás B. Ramos a, *, Ivone P. Martins b, Ana Paula Martinho c, d, Calbert H. Douglas e,Marco Painho f, Sandra Caeiro a, c

a CENSE, Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, Departamento de Ciências e Engenharia do Ambiente, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia,Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus da Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugalb Biodiversity Group, European Environment Agency, Kongens Nytorv 6, 1050 Copenhagen K, Denmarkc Departamento de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Aberta, R. Escola Politecnica, n� 141, 1269-001 Lisboa, Portugald UIED, Research Unit on Education and Development, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus da Caparica, 2829-516Caparica, Portugale School of Environment & Life Sciences, College of Science and Technology, University of Salford, Greater Manchester M5 4WT, United Kingdomf ISEGI-NOVA, Instituto Superior de Estatística e Gestão da Informação, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus de Campolide, 1070-312 Lisboa, Portugal

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 2 February 2013Received in revised form29 August 2013Accepted 29 August 2013Available online 6 September 2013

Keywords:Reporting frameworkCommunicationState of the environmentSustainable developmentStakeholder’s engagementPublic participation

q The views and opinions expressed in this article ado not reflect an official position of the European En* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ351 212948397; fax

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (T.B. Rameea.europa.eu (I.P. Martins), [email protected] (A.P.salford.ac.uk (C.H. Douglas), [email protected] ((S. Caeiro).

0959-6526/$ e see front matter � 2013 Elsevier Ltd.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.08.038

a b s t r a c t

It is fundamental tomonitor, evaluate and report the state of the environment at global and local levels, tobetter implement sustainable development principles and practices. The State of the Environment andSustainability Reports should bewritten in an understandable and accessibleway for stakeholders and alsobe developed from the beginning with its involvement and participation. Despite several initiatives thatrefer public engagement in State of the Environment and Sustainability Reports, from the national to thecorporate levels, usually the participatory approaches are restricted to consultations of key actors. They donot explore the role that could be played by stakeholders as part of the report staff, from designing toproduction and reviewing. The aim of this research is to develop a conceptual framework to support openparticipatory, interactive and adaptive State of the Environment and Sustainability Reports, where thestakeholders’ involvement (non-experts and experts) will effectively contribute to the design, data gath-ering and evaluations produced in the reports. The proposed open participatory approach will support thedesign and implementation of a collaborative report. The stakeholders’ assessment of the State of theEnvironment and Sustainability Reports can also be used as an indirect way for formal results evaluation,allowing for cross-validation. The paper analyses and explores two practices of regular and formal State ofthe Environment reports: the “European Environment e State and Outlook (transnational scale) and the“Portuguese State of the Environment Report” (national scale). In both reporting initiatives, the partici-patory approaches in the design and production of the reports are weak or inexistent and many timesmerely formal. A set of steps and procedures, embedded in a formal framework, is proposed for adoption inthe both initiatives. The proposed framework should be implemented through gradually and prioritisedsteps to mitigate practical difficulties, due to the complexity of institutional reporting processes. The openparticipatory State of the Environment and Sustainability Report will represent a joint commitment amongstakeholders for active reporting development with new information and knowledge. Rethinking tradi-tional reporting and related participatory approaches can move the State of the Environment and Sus-tainability Reports to a new stage of evolution: a continuous updating of information. In this process, dataand informationwill come from formal and informal sources and, stakeholders can scrutinize each other’sparticipation and increase the overall content and quality of the collaborative disclosures.

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1. Introduction

It is essential to periodically monitor and evaluate the state ofthe environment, the socio-economic systems, and their institu-tional framework to achieve sustainable development. This re-quires an interdisciplinary approach, integrating the natural and

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1 For the national-country level, the literature often mentions only the envi-ronment dimension to identify this kind of reports: “State of the EnvironmentReport”. Despite this, the report contents could include social and economic as-pects, besides environment.

T.B. Ramos et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 64 (2014) 158e172 159

social sciences, in order to provide early-warning indicators, as wellas timely identification of probable sources of stress. This infor-mation is provided by the State of the Environment and Sustain-ability (SoES) reports at the global, sub-global and national levels(Rapport and Singh, 2006). SoES reports are a key instrument insupporting the design, implementation and evaluation of envi-ronmental policy. They also allow the monitoring of developmentpolicies and strategies for environmental integration in economicsectors.

The achievement of the aims of these reports requires a con-ceptual frameworkwithinwhich the assessment is carried out. Thisframework must take into account a multitude of non-linear causallinks from human activities, through environmental pressures,states and impacts, to political responses to the perceived problem(EEA, 1999c). SoES reports should then enhance communication tothe public and policy makers to make the necessary connectionsbetween human activity, the state of the environment, and humanwell-being (Rapport and Singh, 2006).

Published studies covering official environmental reporting arequite scarce when compared to corporate environmental annualreports. The latter follow several guidelines, such as the GlobalReporting Initiatives Guidelines (GRI, 2013), the ISO 14031 (ISO,1999) and ISO 14063 (ISO, 2006) standards (see a review aboutsustainability reporting guidelines in Lozano and Huisingh, 2011;Lozano, 2013). However, there is recognition that government ac-tion and leadership is the most important driver in the adoption ofsustainability reporting (Lynch, 2010). For the case of State ofEnvironmental Reports, intergovernmental organizations havebeen publishing several guidelines in the last decades, mainlyfocussing the national-country level, like for example the EuropeanEnvironment Agency (EEA) (e.g. EEA,1999a; EEA,1999b; EEA, 2000;EEA, 2005a), the Organization for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD, 1991, 1993 and 2003), the United NationsEnvironmental Program (UNEP/DEIA, 1996; UNEP/SustainAbility,1997), among many others.

Governmental and intergovernmental agencies have beenacknowledging the benefits of involving stakeholders, includingcitizens in their environmental decision making processes. Theseinclude processes related with planning, management, assessmentand reporting. This acceptance has been driven by citizens whodemand a greater role in shaping the decisions that affect theirwell-being (Charnley and Engelbert, 2005) and recognised byenvironmental policies and respective legal instruments. Asdefined by Freeman (1984), stakeholders are thosewho are affectedby the choices and actions that decision makers take, and who hasthe power to influence their outcome.

Several distinct world-wide examples have shown that activepublic engagement in environmental policymaking processes,including citizen-based monitoring, is increasing, is effective andsuccessful (Diemonta et al., 2011; Geibler et al., 2010; Jankowski,2009; Reed, 2008; Hunsberger et al., 2005). Danielsen et al.(2010), highlight that involving local stakeholders in monitoringincreases the speed of decision-making to tackle environmentalchallenges at operational levels of resource management. Never-theless several factors can affect this effectiveness, if not properlyconducted (Luyet et al., 2012). Stakeholders theory and appropriateanalysis methods should be taken in to account for participatoryresearch and practices, following the fundamentals and recom-mendations stated by Freeman (1984) and Reed et al. (2009), thelater in the particular context of environmental management anddecision making processes.

According to the Global Reporting Initiative directed primarilytowards business, the multi-stakeholder process allows partici-pants to articulate their principal concerns with regard to sus-tainability performance and incorporate emerging new issues.

Participation facilitates a broadly based societal dialogue andindirectly contributes to the policy agenda (Brown et al., 2009).Stakeholder involvement is considered as a part of the socialdimension within the sustainability reports (Lozano and Huising,2011).

Although corporate sustainability reporting with stakeholdersengagement is a growing good practice (see for example Lozano,2013), EEA (2000) stresses that for the national or transnationallevels, the State of the Environment (SoE)1 Reports are usually notsupported by a collaborative stakeholders-based approach, withvolunteer contributions, for data selection, gathering and assess-ment. This EEA work mainly divides the SoE reports according totheir foremost potential users or target-audience (policy makers,media, general public and environmental stakeholders) leading todifferent report formats, such as a background report, a summaryreport, aweb version, and an educational package. It is also stressedin EEA (2000), that SoE reports still differwidely fromone country toanother in their structure and content, depending on the nationalenvironmental values and priorities, social-cultural, economic andgovernance-institutional conditions, such as traditions, environ-mental policies and goals, cultural heritage or political systems.

Also, the EEA (1999b) stressed that the purpose of SoE reports is‘to support decision making through the provision of credibleenvironmental information’. UNEP/DEIA (1996) underlines the keygood characteristics of these reports. However, none of those as-pects included any reference to stakeholders’ engagement forreporting. Similarly, the recommendations for institutional ar-rangements for SoE reports, stated by EEA (1999c), does not giveany particular importance to community-based approaches. Anexception is made in the acknowledgement of the existence of thenetwork of institutions, beyond the public agencies, and their rolein the production of SoE reports. More recently this situation isstarting to change. The preparation of a few global and regionalreports, has clearly considered involvement of different stake-holders, although still with a low degree of empowerment and onlyengaged in a specific stage or theme of the report. Examples includeagencies and NGO’s, such as: i) the Millennium Ecosystem Assess-ment (MEA, 2005); ii) the Assessment of Assessments of the State ofthe Marine Environment (UNEO/IOC-UNESCO, 2009); iii) the fifthGlobal Environment Outlook (UNEP, 2011) or the Global Biodiver-sity Outlook 3 (SCBD, 2010); iv) the EEA SOE report 2010 (EEA,2010); and v) the Europe’s environment e An Assessment of As-sessments (EE-AoA) report (so called the Astana Report) in supportof the 2011 ’Environment for Europe’ Ministerial Conference inAstana, (EEA, 2011).

Despite the developed works on environmental and sustain-ability reporting previously mentioned, in particular for corporatelevel, there is a dearth of research on conceptual frameworks,methods and practices that deal with open and community jointreports at national or transnational levels. In fact, the realitycontext for state reporting of countries or regions, includingstakeholder analysis and practices, are quite different compared tothe limited boundaries of corporate organizations. Therefore, activepublic participation and collaboration with stakeholders in thedesign and production of SoES reports is still missing and remainsmainly an underexplored issue. The adjustment of existingparticipatory techniques for new challenging contexts of SoESreporting processes should be further explored and investigated.Stakeholder’s role should go beyond the checking and comment on

Open

Participatory

SoES Report

1. Planning

and

Conceptualization

2. Implementation

and

Communication

3. Operation and

Action

4. Reviewing and

Updating

Formal data collection, processing

and treatment

Management and design:

objectives and policies scoping

Outcomes interpretation,

and institutional responses

Overall utility, accuracy, validity,

feasibility, improving and

updating

Stakeholders

engagement

Stakeh

old

ers

en

gag

em

en

t

Stakeholders

engagement

Stakeh

old

ers

en

gag

em

en

t

Participative-adaptive

management and

governance

Informal new data

collection, assessment and cross-validation

Participative actions and

informal measures

Collaborative surveillance, revision and updating

Formal data and information Informal data and information

Fig. 1. Open participatory SoES Report cycle e main steps, flows and characteristics.

T.B. Ramos et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 64 (2014) 158e172160

these processes, but become part of “volunteer reporting staff”,contributing to design, data gathering and evaluation. It is expectedthat the same success obtained from stakeholders engagement inseveral environmental decision making processes, could alsohappen in the field of SoES reporting.

The main aim of this research is to propose a conceptualframework to support open participatory, interactive and adaptiveSoES reports, where the stakeholders’ involvement (non-expertsand experts) will effectively contribute to the assessments includedin the reports. In this paper we concentrate on the processes usedto create the reports rather than on their content. After the pre-sentation of the framework, a set of steps and procedures is pro-posed for adoption in two selected initiatives, national (Portugal)and transnational scales (European), and the usefulness andapplicability to the reality discussed.

2. Methodological approach for the open participatoryconceptual framework to SoES reporting

A conceptual framework to support an open participatory,interactive and adaptive SoES reports is proposed. It aims atimproving the quality and communication of these reporting pro-cesses and documents. One of the main assumptions of thisapproach is that stakeholders’ engagement (non-experts, experts,including lays, general citizens, public and private organizations,non-governmental organizations, universities, media and researchinstitutions) could effectively contribute to the assessment pro-duced in these formal reports, usually managed and prepared bypublic agencies. Therefore, stakeholder’s role is a central dimensionof this framework and it is mainly grounded in the rationale, ty-pology and methods for stakeholder’s analysis and recommenda-tions detailed by Reed (2008) and Reed et al. (2009). An openparticipatory approach produces a collaborative report, similar to a“wiki development”, with referees, which will be in charge of dataquality control, managing and assuring a credible report.

This approach is designed on the assumption that we could havetwo types of monitoring, evaluation and communication initiativesto support the SoES reports: formal, which is mainly lead by thepublic agencies and reflectmandatoryorofficial procedures to obtainSoES reports, and the informal, mainly represented by voluntary, ad-hoc, non-regular, or private initiatives (facts and figures, views, ideas,desires, needs and/or perceptions about their territories), conductedby different types of stakeholders and purposes, and that were notdeveloped to specifically respond to SoES report needs.

The proposed approach is structured in three main dimensions,which support the Open Participatory SoES report (see Figs.1 and 2):

� Reporting scheme, phases and procedures e defines the gen-eral reporting process;

� Informal SoES reporting inputs: initiatives and tools e estab-lishes the type of methods or procedures that can used toobtain informal data;

� Internal reporting structure and spatial scope e identifiespossible tracks for the internal structure and organization ofthe report.

Each one of these dimensions will be characterized in thefollowing Sections (2.1e2.3), giving the support to the main prin-ciples, components, flows and relations within the framework.

2.1. Reporting scheme, phases and procedures

The production of a SoES report encompasses several stepsstarting from the definition of objectives and scope to the finalpublication and follow-up (Fig. 1). The steps are managed andconducted by technical staff from governmental agencies, often-timeswith the support of private or academic-research institutions.It is proposed that stakeholders act, support and collaborate goingpast their previous role as a key target-audience or user. As manyother community-based approaches, the reporting framework

Formal SoES Report

(technical and systematic approach)

Informal SoES

Report inputs

(voluntary or private)

Initiatives

Household/individual data acquisition and evaluation Community voluntary data collection and assessments NGO projects Corporate data collection, assessment and reporting Education and academic research projects

Tools for informal data

integration

Collaborative data uploads Crowd sourcing Social networks Mailing list Participative workshops Focus groups meetings Brainstorming Mind maps PRA PPGIS Interviews Questionnaires Self-assessment checklists Participatory modeling and scenarios

.

Open Participatory

SoES Report

(stakeholders-based approach)

Reporting Geographic Unit and Temporal Context



Fig. 2. The development track of an open participatory SoES Report.


proposed in this paper is based upon the participation of interestedparties in a collaborative and adaptive development of the desiredproduct e the open participatory SoES report. This will be reflectedin the stakeholders engagement in the various life cycle phases of areport publication and review. The stakeholders add, adapt andimprove each report step through informal initiatives (Fig. 1). Bothformal and informal data should be fully integrated in one singlecycle that overlaps the different phases of the SoES report, leadingto an open participatory framework.

Therefore, this suggested framework assumes that informalactions of environmental and sustainability data selection, collec-tion or evaluation, conducted by stakeholders, can cover thedifferent phases of the reporting life cycle, complementing theformal data and information flows (Fig. 1):

Phase 1 Planning and Conceptualization: define report con-tents and structure; identify authors and editors; prepare outline ofeach chapter.

Open participatory procedure e adopt a participative-adaptivemanagement and governance, contributing to define the SoESreport scope and design, selecting prioritizing issues, through anadaptive/flexible governance model for reporting.

Phase 2 Implementation and Communication: include thewhole process of data collection (data gathered from different typesof sources, including field and repositories), processing, treatmentand assessment, which will result in drafting the different reportsections, followed by the final edition and publication.

Open participatory procedure e integrate informal data collec-tion, and use assessment cross validation, through:

- Providing new data or information collection, allowing newassessment conducted by the stakeholders themselves or

co-supported by the report technical staff; this new datacollection can include citizen science activities andcollection of lay, local and traditional knowledge. Also,monitoring outcomes of research projects, technical reportsand environmental assessment and control initiativesconducted by private companies on their facilities sur-rounding areas. This can be achieved within, for example,sustainability reporting or environmental assessmentfollow-up.

- Making analysis or assessment of the formal thematic issuescovered by the assessment provided by the report, according totheir knowledge background and perceptions (e.g. through aneasy qualitative scale of positive and negative trends for each ofthe main thematic issues analysed). The stakeholders’ assess-ments of the state of environment and sustainability can alsobe used as an indirect way of formal results evaluation allowinga cross-validation process.

Phase 3 Operation and Action: identify the report outcomesinterpretation and responses by the target-audience or users,including the different society and policy actors. This stage assumesthat reports should induce post-reactions through operations andactions to respond to the environmental and sustainability weak-nesses or strengths reported.

Open participatory procedure e participate in actions andinformal measures, through:

- Proposing responses and measures to improve the environ-mental conditions communicated by the SoES report, namelythrough household behaviours changes and practices, morecommunity involvement in volunteer monitoring and


surveillance actions or putting their territorial knowledge andsensitivity for solving geographically specific issues.

Phase 4 Follow-up Updating and Reviewing: produce the re-view and update of the report content and development process.

Open participatory procedure e adopt collaborative surveillance,revision and updating, through:

- Adding insights to produce a collaborative surveillance of thereport development process, namely the revision and updatingof the SoES report contents and of the entire process ofreporting, allowing the continuous improvement of thereporting cycle. This collaborative surveillance also foresees theintegration of the aspects of outreach and awareness raising. AsWells (2003) stresses, SoES reports exist, and are being plannedor prepared, but are the intended audiences known? Are thereports recognized for their many value-added benefits duringpreparation, and are they being used effectively whencompleted? Those are important questions that the usersshould evaluate.

The two first phases of the formal reporting cycle were partiallyidentified by EEA (1999a, b) when analysing the institutional ar-rangements for the state of the environment reporting and to someextent analysed by OECD (1991 and 1993), but without any specialfocus on the stakeholder engagement in the different stages ofreporting.

The points raised by USEPA (1995) for their conceptual frame-work for an environmental information system, could also beadapted for the current proposed reporting approach, to justifywhy it is needed, namely: i) link existing environment and sus-tainability related data to policy, management and stakeholdersneeds; ii) integrate data sets on a geographic basis to supportecosystem-based decision-making and community engagement;iii) identify duplication and gaps in existing information collectionand assessment efforts; iv) strive to integrate the scientific, legal/regulatory, and philosophical and community-based paradigmsthat underlie information generation and use; and v) provide amotivation for the development of new data and indicators to fillgaps.

2.2. Informal SoES reporting inputs: initiatives and tools

As pointed out earlier, in order to produce an open participatorySoES report, the formal and traditional SoES report, usually alreadyin place, should incorporate the contributions from non-regularvoluntary and private initiatives. Regarding the informal datasources and flows, these actions could range from individual orhouseholds to global level, and could include householder’s dataacquisition, from citizen science projects, community voluntarydata collection, environmental NGO projects, corporate datacollection, assessment and reporting, education and academicresearch projects (Fig. 2). Web technology can help the incorpora-tion of this data and information.

To drive the integration of stakeholder’s contributions from thedifferent voluntary initiatives into the report, several tools could beused, as synthesized in Fig. 2: i) computer systems for collaborativedata uploads e raw treated and analysed data e and mailing listsfor data exchange; ii) participative workshops, focus groups,brainstorming meetings and mind maps (e.g. to define report ob-jectives and scope); iii) more technical and computer demandingtools like crowd sourcing including social networks, wikis, visual-ization techniques such as drawing and mapping and PublicParticipation using Geographic Information System (PPGIS) orparticipatory modelling and scenarios; iv) data input through

Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools for lay and traditionalknowledge data input and gathering; v) interviews and question-naires surveys or self-assessment checklists (e.g. to identify envi-ronmental pressures and/or to produce state evaluations). The useof each type of contribution and tools for informal data integrationshould be decided for each particular reporting cycle phase, ac-cording to the appropriateness for each specific report situationand degree of involvement provided by each participatory tool ortechnique (see the review presented by Reed et al., 2009; Luyetet al., 2012).

CA (2000) highlighted the importance of participative toolswithin environmental reporting and Hughey et al. (2004) stressthat surveys to stakeholders are a useful tool for linking perceptionsdata into SoE reporting. It also helps identify policy issues whereperceptions do not match other scientific evidence or managementinitiatives. These different tools for informal data integration havebeen proved to be effective within environmental decision makingprocesses, such as for data gathering from: participative work-shops, focus groups and brainstorming (e.g. Hove, 2000; Gregoryand Wellman, 2001; Fagerström et al., 2003; Charnley andEngelbert, 2005); PPGIS (e.g. Jankowski, 2009; Anderson et al.,2009; Green, 2010); participatory modelling and scenarios(Fagerström et al., 2003; Whitfield and Reed, 2012), PRA (e.g.Fagerström et al., 2003), community networks (e.g. Whitelaw et al.,2003), game theory (Lozano, 2011), and interviews and question-naire surveys (e.g. Gregory and Wellman, 2001; Fagerström et al.,2003; Charnleya and Engelbert, 2005; Hunsberger et al., 2005;Diemont et al., 2011). The main findings of the above mentioned-authors (from climate change global issues to more local oneslike conservation, planning, management or impact assessment)can support adaptions and specific applications for SoES reports. Inparticular, with the emergence of crowd sourcing methodologiesand social networks it is now expected that citizens and organi-zations may be able to check the data for completion and quality aswell as to contribute with information themselves in a process thathas been called in the geographic information systems world e

Voluntary Geographic Information (VGI) (Goodchild, 2007). Crowdsourcing offers the opportunity to do more than simply provide aneat oneline interface to human reasoning and judgement. It offersthe opportunity to discover effective problem solving strategies(Corney et al., 2010). In these processes data and information can beprovided from very diverse sources and consequently can bescrutinized by all the members of the interested communityincluding the traditional official information providers.

2.3. Internal reporting structure and spatial scope

Regardless of the report contents or scope, several differentapproaches could be used to structure and organize the final OpenParticipatory SoES reports, such as by thematic domain or by themain dimensions of sustainability, by type of raw data or dataproducer, by causality chains frameworks (e.g. pressure-state-response) among others available in the literature (e.g. UNEP/DEIA, 1996; EEA, 1999c; OECD, 1991; 1993; 2003; Rapport andSingh, 2006; or see the review on indicator frameworks pre-sented by Ramos et al. (2004)).

Reporting data should be tailored to each Reporting GeographicUnit (RGU) and temporal context, covering transnational, national,regional or local scope (Fig. 2). An RGU can include ecosystems (e.g.estuaries, mangroves, grasslands), administrative units (e.g. mu-nicipalities, regions, countries or multinational organizations) andanalytic spatial scales (e.g. defined by technical criteria, such ashomogeneous areas of population density), adopted independentlyor combined. Since reports cannot disclose everything within agiven territory and theme, the mentioned collaborative scoping


report priorities to identify the most appropriate thematic envi-ronmental and sustainability issues and respective indicators,should be conducted with stakeholders aiming different RGU.Therefore, stakeholder’s information needs per RGU must also be acentral element in this process.

The formal and informal data can include various kinds ofquantitative and qualitative information, such as spatially refer-enced data, statistics, model outputs, but should be mainlycentered on the use of indicators and indices.

The technical staff to assure the standardization between formaland informal outputs and to evaluate the robustness and quality ofthe informal contributions should coordinate a peer reviewprocess.

3. European and national levels reporting

Europe has been a good example where practices of SoE reportshave been conducted periodically in the last two decades withinthe European Environmental Agency policy and activities. WithinEuropean countries, Portugal has also a long experience inreporting yearly SoE reports due to the mandatory national envi-ronmental law published 25 years ago (Law n. 11/87 of 7th April).Also, the Portuguese reporting experience includes a pioneermultimedia interactive kit developed with the information of thereport to improve the access and availably of the report to thepublic and several other attempts to rethink the existing reportingapproaches (several proposals presented in APA, 2008). Due tothese reasons these two initiatives, at a national (Portugal) andtransnational (European), were selected and characterized (in sub-chapter 3.2 and 3.3) to evaluate the applicability and usefulness ofthe proposed framework (main steps and procedures explained insub-chapter 3.3).

3.1. The European Environment e State and Outlook Report

3.1.1. Objective and scopeThe “European Environment e State and Outlook Report” (SOE)

is the EEA’s flagship product and the only mandatory according tothe EEA founding Regulation of 1990. The scope of such a publi-cation fulfils the need to “publish a report on the state of, trends inand prospects for the environment every five years, supplementedby indicator reports focussing upon specific issues” (Art2, vi).

Until today four European SOE reports have been produced bythe EEA with a five-year periodicity. They represent different stepsof maturity within environmental policy developments, data andinformation handling and publication technology and, corre-spondingly, differ in their structure and conceptual model that, asin national cases, has been evolving since the first SOE reportprepared by OECD as early as 1979 and the guidelines for SOEreporting products as issued by OECD in support of the Environ-ment policy reviews (OECD, 1991). The countries themselves basedon guidelines prepared by EEA and discussed and accepted by thecountries prepared all country assessments.

To define the scope and scale of the European SOE report,reference has to be made to the scope and scale of the EEA as anetwork organisation based on a new paradigm of European or-ganisations that emerged at the end of the 80’s. The EuropeanEnvironment Information and Observation Network (EIONET)2 and

2 The EIONET is a partnership network of the EEA and its member and cooper-ating countries. It consists of the EEA itself, six European Topic Centres (ETCs) and anetwork of around 1000 experts from 39 countries in over 350 national environ-ment agencies and other bodies dealing with environmental information. These arethe National Focal Points (NFPs) and the National Reference Centres (NRCs).

its supporting cluster of countries and institutions, parallels theEEA. The EIONET aims to provide timely and quality-assured data,information and expertise for assessing the state of the environ-ment in Europe and the pressures acting upon it and is supportedby an extensive information technology infrastructure (referred toas e-Eionet). This partnership is crucial to the EEA in supporting thecollection and organisation of data and the development anddissemination of information. This information serves directly tosupport environmental policymaking and assessment, and indi-rectly environmental management processes, and public partici-pation and awareness at national, European and global levels. Thisforms the basis of integrated environmental assessments andknowledge as amain output from the EEA activity, of which the SOEreport series is one of the most visible products.

As discussed above, the four SOE report series produced so farhave evolved in content and format. However its governance is stillbased on the use of EIONET as the main provider of data and in-formation and as a platform for extended consultation amongpartners. The main lines of each of the SOE reports can be sum-marised in Table 1.

3.1.2. Public participation processNone of the published SOE reports had a direct public input (see

Table 1). The participatory process includes the countries andsupra-national organisations. Nevertheless in the last 2010 report,some of the indicators are supported by citizen collaboration: onespecific case is the Birds Indicator, both a Streamlining European2010 Biodiversity Indicators (SEBI) 2010 (EEA, 2009) and Core Set ofIndicators produced by a global NGO e Birdlife e (and its regionalEuropean hub) that guarantees the collection, aggregation andquality checking and constitutes a platform for integration of citi-zen science. The use of the SOE report portal in 2010 enhanced thedegree and quality of NGO, country and citizen participation, aswell as the further inclusion of comments and materials.

3.2. The Portuguese State of the Environment Report

3.2.1. Objectives and scopeThe main objective of the Portuguese SoE report is to assess and

communicate the state of the environment in the country. The SoEreport is an informative tool important for support the definition,execution and assessment of environmental policy, allowing themonitoring of policies and strategies of environmental integrationin economic activity sectors (APA, 2008). In accordance with whatis established in the environmental law, every year a State of theEnvironment Report in Portugal is presented to the parliament. TheMinistry responsible for environmental issues publishes this report.

From 1987 the SoE report has developed from extensive,detailed and non-standardized reports, to more intelligible andsynthetic models (Table 2). The use of indicators in environmentalreports has improved the effectiveness of these instruments, andcontributed to their overall performance. This is true in particular,for communication and engagement of stakeholders and alsoallowing a systematic and comparative reading of SoE report fromprevious years. The indicators system has been used in SoE reportsince 1996, integrated into the full version of SoE report, with awide range of indicators and in the SoE pocket book format pub-lished with just the more meaningful indicators for policy makersand general public (headline indicators3). The main lines of theseveral Portuguese SoE reports published until present can besummarised in Table 2.

3 The headline indicators are a sub-domain of the indicator core set destined tocommunicate with decision-makers and the general public, and to report often.

Table 1Information about the four European SoE Report (Based on EEA, 1995, 1999d, 2005b and 2010).

Year Structure and conceptual model Communication Public participation Thematic scope and further information

Environment in theEuropean Union1995

-Indicator sets organized in Pressures, Human ac-tivities and Problems;-Targets and themes of the 5EAP.-Report divided in five parts:Part I e executive summary;Part II e introduction and structure of the report;Part III e societal developments and driving forces;Part IV e environmental themes and topics;Part V e integration economy and environment.

-Report published in printingformat.

-No direct public input.-The target and themes were con-ducted through a number ofconsultants.-The report was reviewed by theScientific Committee of the Agencyand technical comments werereceived from the Commission.

-The 12 environmental themes are: Climate change, ozonedepletion, acidification, air pollution and quality; wastemanagement, urban issues, inland water resources, coastalzones and marine water, risk management, soil quality,nature and biodiversity.-This SoE report contributed to the midterm review of theFifth Environmental Action Programme (5EAP), completedby the end of 1996.-The format of the report, the timing and the process bywhich it was developed and executed, was decided incooperation with the Commission (than DG XI).-Data were provided by the Statistical Office of the Euro-pean Communities (Eurostat), the World Bank, United Na-tions Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE),International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA),Coordination Center for Effects at RIVM (UNECE) and theEuropean Commission (DG XI).

Environment in theEuropean Unionat the turn of thecentury 1999

-Indicators set along the DPSIR framework (Drivingforces, Pressures, State; Impacts, Responses eRIVM, 1995), for describing the relations betweenthe origins and consequences of environmentalproblems, and to understand their dynamics,-The development of the report was supported bythe first structured data collection done within theEIONET through the Priority Dataflows assessingprogress in 12 thematic areas.

-Report published in printingformat and some parts availableon-line.

-No direct public input.-The report preparation was sup-ported by a wide consultation pro-cess among EIONET partners (NFPand NRC).

-The 12 environmental problems are: greenhouse gases andclimate change, ozone-depleting substances, dispersion ofhazardous substances, transboundary air pollution, waterstress, soil degradation, waste generation and management,natural and technological hazards, genetically modifiedorganisms, human health issues, changes and loss ofbiodiversity.-The adoption of the DSPIR introduced a clear structure intothe Report while allowing for interlinkages between ele-ments of the causal chain.

The Europeanenvironment eState andOutlook 2005

-A modular approach is used;-A EEA Core Set of Indicators previously establishedwas used for the European assessment and also incountry profiles.The modular approach was introduced within themains volume divided in:Part A e Integrated assessment;Part B e Core set of indicators;Part C e Country analysis;Part D - Bibliography.

-Report published in printingformat and available on-line.-Translation in all languages forpart B. For Part A the translationwas made upon requested into8 languages.-This report had a launch eventat the European Parliament tosecure the necessary outreachto the EU institutions and wasfollowed by country launchesuntil mid 2006 securing the linkto the national audiences.

-No direct public input-Parts A to C had its own EIONETconsultation (NFP and NRC), thesame occurring with each of thecomplementary reports. The com-plementary reports were developedwith the support of Advisory Boardssupporting the integration andvalidation of information fromoutside the EEA systems.

-The selected themes are: Understanding climate change;Mitigating climate change; Adapting to climate change;Biodiversity; Land use; Soil; Marine and coastal environ-ment; Water resources: quantity and flows; Freshwaterquality; Air pollution; Urban environment; Consumptionand the environment; Material resources and waste.-A number of complementary reports were independentlyprepared and published but supported the SoE reportanalysis. These reports were prepared on environment andHealth, European environment Outlooks, Transport andEnvironment, Vulnerability and adaptation to climatechange, Sustainable Use of Natural Resources, Householdconsumption and environment, agriculture and environ-ment, Urban sprawl in Europe, Progress towards halting theloss of biodiversity by 2010, Effectiveness of urban wastewater treatment policies, effectiveness of packaging man-agement systems and Market Based Instruments for Envi-ronmental Policy in Europe.

The Europeanenvironment -State andoutlook 2010

-The structure consists of four core elements:SynthesisPart A - provides a long-term explorative, cross-cutting assessment of key global mega-trends thatmight have implications for the Europeanenvironmental policy context, and our ability tomanage natural resources in a sustainable manner;Part B - provides Europe-wide assessments of keyenvironmental themes that integrate economic andsocial driving forces, scan the global impacts of

-Report published in printingformat and available on-line.-A web platform was used toboth manage the different ver-sions of different componentsof the report as well as to facil-itate the consultation processes.-This SoE 2010 portal iscurrently a repository of rele-vant information, constituted aplanning tool for report

-No direct public input-Each of the 3 parts of the reporthad a EIONET consultation(NFP andNRC), while the Synthesis and partA were also discussed with the EEAManagement Board and ScientificCommittee.

-The synthesis provides a short assessment primarily basedon issues raised in Parts A, B and C and complemented bykey findings from other EEA activities, most notably thoserelated to the precautionary principle and green economy.

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The Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) ensures collection,processing and analysis of environmental information and annuallycoordinates the elaboration of the SoE report. APA has the supportof an institutional network of focal points to exchange informationon the environment, and who provide, update and validate specifictopics.

The choice and treatment of the themes was intended not onlyto reflect areas with policy relevance, especially those that areexplicit in policy documents, but also potential priority areas foraction by decision makers. Whenever possible the data series arereported by the end of each year under review. The report alsoincludes the performance of Portugal within the European Unioncontext (APA, 2008).

In the context of the Portuguese SoE report, the length andcomplexity associated with the production/availability of data, aswell as insufficient or inadequate spatial and temporal coverage ofsome of the monitoring networks, has contributed to a less thanideal performance in assessing and reporting of the environment inPortugal. Nevertheless it has been a very useful tool to gather andevaluate the environment performance in the country.

3.2.2. Public participation processNo public participation has been conducted in the Portuguese

SoE report production process (Table 2) apart from that of the na-tional focal points network (RPF), and the yearly public seminarconducted to disseminate the final version of the SoE report, con-ducted in the more recent years. In 2008, work conducted by theNew University of Lisbon and the APA (APA, 2008) on the impactevaluation of the 20 years of publishing SoE reports, proposed anew methodological framework for the upcoming reports, whichshows proposals for improvement and more commitment in newways of reporting, including for stakeholders engagement.

3.3. Main steps and procedures for the development of openparticipatory reports in the two European reporting practices

The reporting cases presented above are a practical example ofhow SoES reports were not designed and used as an open anddynamic participative instrument. Nevertheless the analysis ofboth reporting schemes shows a clear evolution in the use of in-dicator sets, structuring through causality chain models, andconsultation and participatory approaches (see Tables 1 and 2).They also show the scope for improvement into more participatoryapproaches and positive signals to use citizen science and lay, localand traditional knowledge. Stratification according to content andgeographical scope is still required/desirable and preferably orga-nized according to the scale and scope of the SoES report.

Therefore, based on the reporting analysis at transnational(European) and national (Portugal) scales, the main steps andprocedures were identified and proposed (Table 3). These areaimed at obtaining future open participatory report processes, ac-cording to the conceptual framework presented in Section 2 (syn-thetized in Figs. 1 and 2). Table 3 synthesizes concrete clues andpractical examples of how to foster public participation to structureand implement Open Participatory SoES reporting. Informal ini-tiatives, types of stakeholders involved and tools for informal dataintegration to be used in each Open Participatory SoES report phaseare presented to produce the respective outputs/outcomes in thereport.

As pointed out in Table 3, intermediate platforms for gathering/validating and quality checking/peer review of data may be neededand organized before this type of data and information is integratedinto the final assessments. Citizen data generally requires a processof filtration and validation. In this respect a new EEA project Eye-on-Earth (EEA, 2012) is under testing and its usefulness to

Table 2Information about the annual Portuguese SoE report (information until 2005 was partially based on APA, 2008).

Year Structure and conceptual model Communication Public participation Thematic scope and further information

Reports from 1987to 1993

- No use of indicators.- The reports described the environmental stateand trends, identifying themain causes for thepressures and policy responses that canremediate environmental degradation.

- Report published in printing format. - No direct public input. - The main environmental selected themes on these reportswere: air quality, water, soils, nature and biodiversity, waste,noise, risk. Land use management was also included in thesefirst report series. The 1993 report also included forest, agri-culture, tourism, transport, industries and energy.

- From 1989 to 1993 also published complementary annualreports about environmental quality.


- No use of indicators.- Based on PSR framework (OECD (1993)(exception only in 1997).

- Report published in printing format.- In 1994 a multimedia interactive kitwas developed with the informationof the report to improve the accessand availably of the report to thepublic.

- No direct public input.- The institutional focal pointnetwork (rede de pontos focais- RPF) was gradually estab-lished during the second halfof the 90’s for data gatheringand consultation.

- The main environmental selected themes on these reportswere: air quality, water, soils, nature and biodiversity, waste,noise, risk, climate change, tools for environmentalmanagement.

- From 1996 to 1997 indicators were starting to be used but inan ad-hoc way. Only in 1998 it was formally assumed to useindicators as the main methodological approach for reporting.


- Use of indicators. Based on PSR framework(OECD (1993).

- Report published in printing format.- In 1999 also available on the web inpdf format.

- No direct public input.- The institutional focal pointnetwork was used for datagathering and consultation.

- The main environmental selected themes on these reportswere: air quality, water, soils, nature and biodiversity, waste,noise, risk, climate change, tools for environmental manage-ment, ozone layer, environmental impact assessment, publicparticipation, investment and expenses in environment,environmental education, environmental inspection, agricul-ture, tourism, transport, industries and energy.

- From 1998 onwards the SoE report analyses the environ-mental integration in the sectors of economic activity andtheir policies (e.g. transport, energy, agriculture), in additionto a focused vision a reference environment, more traditionaland simplistic.


- Use of indicators but without any causal-chainframework (PSR, DPSIR or other).

- More concise format and structured in head-line indicators.

- Report published in printing formatand pdf available on the web.


- The main environmental selected themes on these reportswere: air quality, water, soils, nature and biodiversity, waste,noise, climate change and forest.

- In the 2003 report more themes were included: tools forenvironmental management, ozone layer, environmentalimpact assessment, public participation, investment and ex-penses in environment, environmental education, environ-mental inspection, agriculture, tourism, transport, fishing andindustries and energy.


- Use of indicators.- Showed a synthetic form, but based on topicsheets for each headline indicators.

- Based on DPSIR framework.


- Development of a pocket book withheadline indicators in printed formatand available on-line.

- In 2004, 2005 the pocket book wastranslated to English.


- The main environmental selected themes on these reportswere: air quality, water, land use management, nature andbiodiversity, waste, noise, climate change and risk.

- The theme tools of environmental management was alsoconsidered in the reports but integrated in a chapter of generalcharacterization.

- The 2006 report has a special chapter focused on a selectedenvironmental theme, that is analysed in more detail.

Report of 2007 - This report although based on the use of in-dicators was designed in a format that is moreextensive than those published in the threeprevious years, both in diversity of the sub-jects discussed, as the deepening of the sub-jects. (headline indicators are not used inthese long report versions).

- The report is divided in three main areas:Pressures, State and Tools for environmentalpolicy, management and awareness raising.

- Based on DPSIR framework.


- Development of Pocket book withheadline indicators in printed formatand available on-line, but only inPortuguese.


- The main environmental selected themes on the report were:

Pressures: agriculture, tourism, transport, fishing, industriesand energy.State: air quality, water, nature and biodiversity, waste, noise,climate change, ozone layer, chemicals.Tools: environmental management, environmental impactassessment, public participation, investment in environment,environmental education, environmental inspection.

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support the next SOE report 2015 will be further explored. Also theplatform established in support of SOE report 2010 is being used fora more continuous upload of updated information while the EEAData Centers are repository of the most update data sets in supportof policy implementation and evaluation, in compliance with theShared Environment Information System (SEIS).

At global, European and Portuguese level there are already somecommunity voluntary monitoring initiatives (e.g. the CoastwatchEurope or the globally bird data collected by Birdlife International,at European level, or at local level, the water voluntary program forthe Portuguese Southern region of Algarve), that can be startingpoint initiatives to be engaged and build up an open participatorySoES report. Also, the use of more recent tools like visualizationtechniques such as PPGIS or participatory modelling and scenarioanalysis are already being successfully used worldwide. Severalgood examples in Portugal of the use of these tools arewithinwaterresources management plans or sustainability research projectsthat actively involve stakeholders (e.g. Painho et al., 2011) andcould provide the necessary support to this collaborative type ofSoES report.

Regarding the application designed in Table 3, the institutions incharge of those reports should undertake several further steps ifthey really decide to implement this proposed approach. Therefore,an important practical step in future work will be to apply theframework developed to specific actors, institutions, data and in-formation. For this purpose in next stages the use of this frameworkshould be complemented by practical actions and procedures, inorder to build the proper management and operational structure tosupport an Open Participatory SoES report, following this researchapproach. Nevertheless, the extent to which public national au-thorities implement participatory elements in their reportingduties depends on legal national and transnational regulations.Progress can more easily be achieved for a more participatory so-ciety if parliaments include participatory approaches in legal reg-ulations on reporting procedures.

4. Discussion and evolutionary stages of adherence betweenthe framework and the reality

It is assumed in this research that public participation andcollaboration with stakeholders (joining expert and non-expertinputs) in the design and production of SoES reports cancontribute to the improvement of the quality of these documentsand respective processes. However, as stressed by Reed (2008), thequality of decisions made through stakeholder participation isstrongly dependant on the nature of the process leading to them,but there is growing evidence that, if well designed, theseperceived risks may be well worth taking. Also the choice of themethods will depend on the purpose of the stakeholder analysis,and the skills and resources of the investigating team (Reed et al.,2009).

Nevertheless, stakeholder participation processes, in particularin new challenging contexts such as putting in practice theframework to produce an Open participatory SoES report, still needresearch to overcome some limitations, like ways of participant’sengagement, conflicts between different stakeholders, data reli-ability and accuracy provided by volunteers, distinction betweenproper and superficial participation that mask results, spatial scaleof commitment and involvement and implementation time. Thereare pragmatic claims that need to be more rigorously tested,including the capacity for participation to increase the adoptionand diffusion of innovations that better meet local needs, and thecapacity for participation to transform adversarial relationshipsbetween stakeholders. Even though, if correctly conducted, moni-tored and validated, the stakeholder participation can be effective

Table 3Main steps and procedures to obtain transnational and/or national open participatory State of Environment and Sustainability (SoES) Reports.

Open participatory reportingcycle phases

Informal inputs and processes Final outputs/outcomes

Initiatives Type of stakeholders to beinvolved

Main tools

Participative-adaptivemanagement andgovernance for reportplanning andconceptualization

� Initial stakeholder’s involvement to planand design the Open Participatory SoESreport, deciding the main objectives, spatialand temporal scope, structure, selectingadapting and prioritizing thematic issuesand indicators, and clarifying the roles andcommitments for the different partsinvolved.

� NGOs and local/regionalcommunities;representatives;

� Academia and researchinstitutions;

� Business sector;� Local- regional-national

governments or agencies (inparticular EEA for Europe orAPA for Portugal);

� Established institutionalnetworks (e.g. EIONET atEuropean level or Rede dePontos Focais e RPF e forPortugal, Network of FocalPoints).

� Sectoral thematic meetings/focus groups,brainstorming;

� Participative workshops/mind maps;� Web questionnaires interviews surveys

and/or mailing lists to exchange data andinformation;

� Social networks to strength initialstakeholders engagement, trust andcommitment;

� Wikis to adaptive building of shared vi-sions, and desires, aspirations for thereport objectives, scope and priorities.

� Report objectives, scope (e.g. pocket bookversus long detailed report) and outlineconstructed through informal and formalcontributions, supported on adaptive man-agement and participative techniques.

Formal and informal datacollection, processing,treatment, assessment andcross-validation for reportimplementation andcommunication

� Establishment of platform to collect, pro-cess and integrate the data, information andevaluations provided by the differentinformal initiatives, such as: communityvoluntary data collection and assessments;NGO projects; corporate data collection,assessment and reporting; academicresearch projects; educational projects;technical reports from consultancy firms;household/individual data acquisition andevaluation; stakeholders’ own assessmentof state of environment and sustainabilityindicators. The type of volunteer programimplemented by the United States Envi-ronmental Protection Agency for streammonitoring (EPA, 1997) or estuarymonitoring (EPA, 2006) or the Communitybased ecosystem monitoring activities inCanada (Whitelaw et al., 2003) areexamples of initiatives that could feed thiskind of process and followed as examplesthat could be used in context such as thePortuguese or the European.

� All type of stakeholders,from decision makers to layand local and traditionalcitizens, including all theabove mentioned in theprevious reporting phase.

� Volunteer data and information uploads(e.g. using RPF institution portals existingin Portugal and EINOET institutionalportals at European level to receive up-loads of information reports, raw data orother type of informal contributions,collected, processed or analysed bystakeholders);

� Web questionnaires interviews surveysand/or mailing lists (by subject area) toexchange data, information orannouncements;

� Participative workshops, focus groups,brainstorming and mind maps to collect,process or evaluate new collaborativedata and information provided;

� PPGIS, participatory modelling and/orscenario analysis to collect data and/orevaluate specific environmental situa-tions, such as an environmental planningconflict within a natural protected area,an industrial pollution incident or a nat-ural disaster;

� Social networks to strength stakeholder’sparticipation role, as members of thereport staff and also to exchange dataand information;

� Wikis to adaptive building of shared dataand information, selecting, processingand interpreting/evaluating;

� PRA to cut the barriers between urbanand rural participation, strengtheningthe rural stakeholders involvement inthis kind of process, usually faraway fromthis realities and communities.

� A merge between the non-regular data andofficial data will be produced. At most, bothformal and informal data will be fullyintegrated in one single report. To conductor supervise the outcome an independentinstitution, different than the one in chargeof the SoES reporting system should beinvolved, thus assuring independentexternal validation. This can be considereda fundamental step towards guaranteeingthe reporting quality, robustness andcredibility of the Open Participatory SoESreport.

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Participative actions andinformal measures for reportoperation and action

� Traditionally, the European and PortugueseSoE reports are not designed to receivesubsequent external “responses” or mea-sures that give feedback to the environ-mental and sustainability weaknesses orproblems reported. Therefore this stageassumes that the reports should inducepost- reaction through participative opera-tions and actions. Stakeholders should beinvolved to analyse the main report out-comes and impacts, supported by mecha-nisms to collect, process and analyse theirproposals.

� All type of stakeholders,from decision makers to layand local and traditionalcitizens, including all theabove mentioned in thefirst reporting phase.

� Self-proposal sheets by subject reportedarea and/or by indicator, included as ap-pendix of the reports and available on theinstitutional portals;

� Participative workshops, focus groups,brainstorming and mind maps to collect,process or evaluate recommendationsand actions;

� Web questionnaires and/or mailing lists(by subject area) to exchange reactiondata and information;

� Social networks to strength stakeholder’sreactions, and also to exchange ideas andinformation for responses;

� Wikis to adaptive building of shared re-sponses and actions proposed.

� Collaborative outcomes interpretation,validation and reaction. Beyond possibleformal institutional responses to the envi-ronmental and sustainability problemsidentified by the report, they will be com-plemented with participative actions andinformal measures proposed by theengaged stakeholders, supported by tradi-tional and local knowledge background andperceptions. These stakeholders reactionsthrough recommendations and specificmeasures will seek to improve sustainabil-ity levels.

Collaborative surveillance andfollow-up for report reviewand update

� A stakeholder’s collaborative meta-evaluation process should be conductedto complement the revision and update,producing an evaluation of the reportsand their contents, including therespective indicators. It is an evaluationof the strengths and weaknesses of thereports, and draws conclusions about itsoverall quality. The approach proposed byRamos and Caeiro (2010) could be adaptedand followed, in particular for the indicatorsrelated components.

� All type of stakeholders,from decision makers tolays and local and tradi-tional citizens, including allthe above mentioned in thefirst reporting phase.

� Self-assessment checklists by subject re-ported area and/or by indicator, includedas appendix of the reports and availableon the institutional portals;

� Participative workshops, focus groups,brainstorming and mindmaps to identifythe strengths, weaknesses, opportunitiesand threats;

� Web questionnaires, interviews and/ormailing lists (by subject area) to ex-change revision data and information;

� Social networks to strength stakeholder’sreactions, and also to exchange infor-mation about the performance of thereports and the needs for change;

� Wikis to adaptive building of sharedproposals for improvement.

� Collaborative surveillance, revision andupdating to obtain overall reporting utility,accuracy, validity, feasibility, improving andupdating. The reviewed reports shouldreflect continuous improvement in accu-racy and reliability, but also in their socialvalue, including simplicity, ease of inter-pretation and ability to show trends overtime and early warnings. This process willcontribute to assure the usefulness incommunicating and reporting to a wideaudience.

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and a valuable resource. Luyet et al. (2012) summarize severalprinciples for successful participation like a fair, equal, and trans-parent participative process, the integration of local and scientificknowledge, the establishment of rules in advance, an earlyinvolvement of stakeholders, the integration of all stakeholders, thepresence of experienced moderators, and adequate resources,including time. The multiple stakeholders’ types should indeed betaken into account (primary, secondary, social and non-socialstakeholders), although considering that it is difficult to recogniseand differentiate stakeholders and meet the expectations of allstakeholder groups simultaneously (Lozano, 2011).

New technologies as the proposed in this framework (see Fig. 2and Table 3), including geographic information systems and theInternet, are enabling web based platforms for information sharingand gathering (Jankowski, 2009; Green, 2010), enabling the desiredstakeholders’ inputs. Top-down reports, where experts report in-formation that they think public should know, are being supple-mented and even replaced by information portals that allow thepublic to select the data that they are interested (Keating, 2001;Ramos, 2004), and allowing for uploading and integration ofvoluntary data and information. Nevertheless, some authors suchas Anderson et al. (2009) and Green (2010) have emphasised thatalthough exhibiting some advantage, these more demanding in-formation and communication technologies applications are stillfaced with pending challenges that need further research. Exam-ples of such as limitations comprise data quality, use and sharingpolicies and need of an important degree of expertise.

The potential applicability of the developed frameworkapproach was traced for the European context (national andtransnational scales) where a lot of experience in Environmentaland sustainability reporting already exists and where stakeholder’sengagement and tools to allow participation in environmentalprocesses is a growing reality. In the emerging countries Brazil,China, India and Russia, or other countries in Latin America andAfrica, although those practices are younger, state of environmentand sustainability reporting can be developed to include since thebeginning an open participatory reporting approach, such as theconceptual framework proposed in this work. Good examples ofexistent and successful public participation process within envi-ronmental process do exist in these countries (see for exampleMagalhães et al., 2007; Tschakert et al, 2007; Fargerström et al.,2003). Nevertheless, the earlier explained limitations and cautionsshould be taken in to account to assure that participation in SoESreporting processes will be well conducted and fulfil its purpose.

The proposed approach of open participatory SoES reports willallow increasing opportunities to discuss how reports should beable to integrate and respond to new challenges and non-traditional aspects of sustainability, such as the ones stressed byRamos (2009), like sustainability ethics, cultural and general non-material values, goal and target uncertainty, the blurred distinc-tion between peacetime and wartime, collaborative learning andparticipative democracy, new governance paradigms andeconomic-financial models. The open participatory SoES reportsshould also encompass the three dimensions of sustainability, notseparately but in an integrated and inter-linked manner. Also and,importantly, the time dimension should be taken in to accountwhere long-term changes towards sustainability are evaluated, likeglobal warming, ecological disruption and societal equity issues(Lozano and Huisingh, 2011; Lozano, 2012). Within all these aspectsstakeholders’ perception and engagement are a fundamental inputof information.

Next step of this research is the effective application of theframework to the next SoE report in Portugal, in collaboration withthe National Environment Agency, which has shown interest in thisapproach. For that purpose the main steps and procedures

described in sub-chapters 2.1 and 3.3 will be evaluated, tested andimplemented, using the initiatives, type of stakeholders to beinvolved and main tools detailed in Table 3. A set by step pro-gressive procedure should be conducted to increase the spirit ofcollaboration to better engagewith stakeholders, first among peers,then with other groups, in other organisations engaging in thesame activity, in organisations of different activities as described byLozano (2011), and finally lay and general citizens. In addition, andas previously highlighted and as argued by Reed et al. (2009), anadequate stakeholder analysis should also be taken into account toevaluate the resources required, level of stakeholder participation,strengths and weaknesses of each of the methods of participationto be used and the necessary key methodological steps for thestakeholder participation process.

5. Conclusions

Most state of the environment and sustainability reports lackend user involvement. Major drawbacks from the existing ap-proaches are that oftentimes, and in spite of all the investment putin the compilation of SoES reports, stakeholders feel that either theinformation is not usable nor complete or sometimes obsolete (bythe time it reaches the user). One way to overcome these short-comings is to introduce open participatory approaches, namely on aregulatory basis, that may use all the resources available in thesociety. Such a participatory framework where active stakeholderengagement is integrated since the beginning of the report processwas proposed in this paper, while at the same time explaining thesteps and procedures for its implementation. The participatoryapproach assumes the collaborative contribution of stakeholders inthe whole process, since report design to data collection, process-ing, analysis and communication, and the follow-up updating andreviewing. Stakeholder’s roles in this method move beyond thesimple checking and passive consultation of reports, to act ascommitted report co-authors.

Two SoE reporting schemes at transnational (Europe) and na-tional level (Portugal) were analysed as a practical example of howthe SoES reports could be designed and used as an open and dy-namic participative instrument, in their different phases of thereporting cycle. In both of the reporting practices many progresseshave been observed during the last decade mainly relating to theavailability of the report itself. However participatory frameworksin the production of both reports are incipient, weak or inexistentand many times merely formal.

Report data acquisition is now possible not only through tradi-tional official data gathering stations (which will remain veryimportant) but also by using crowd sourcing mechanisms whichallow citizens and organizations to play and fulfil their role in so-ciety by contributingwith their own knowledge. If the participatoryprocess is sufficiently open, all stakeholders can scrutinize eachother’s participation and thus increase the overall quality of theinformation. The use of location technology such as GPS and GIS,wikis and social networks, as enabling crowed sourcing technolo-gies, put together with participatory methodologies, will allow amore transparent and efficient participation. These methodologiesmay also move the SoES reports to a new paradigm: from period-ically based to (almost) real time. Many of these technologies haveproven efficient in collection data and citizens opinions. Howevermost of the known cases refer to involvement in solution of localscale problems. Whether these or other methods are able todirectly mobilize and motivate the public towards the participationin larger scale processes such as the engagement in global or na-tional SoES reports is still an unexplored topic of research. Alsoother challenges for open participatory reports will be how tointegrate stakeholders contributes from different scales (local/


regional to national and transnational). Resource requirementsassociated to these methodologies should also be investigated, asthey may be perceived as constrains in their application.

Practical difficulties on the application of this approach can alsoarise in their implementation, due to the complexity of institutionalreporting processes. Prioritising the implementation of the pro-posed framework, implementing through gradually steps couldmitigate some of those difficulties. Nevertheless, this researchcould act as a driving force for changing the traditional life cyclephases of reports, supporting the public agencies in charge with atool that could be tailored and worked for future tests and practicalapplications. Future uses of the framework can be important toprovide a different and deeper engagement of the Portuguese andEuropean stakeholders, including governments, companies,academia, non-governmental organizations and citizens in general,improving the transparency, usefulness and credibility of SoES re-ports. In addition, it will represent a new joint commitment amongstakeholders for SoES active reporting development, allowingbetter characterization of the environment and sustainability fig-ures with new information and knowledge. Beyond this research, auser’s roadmap or guidance procedures can also be produced toexplain the methodology in greater detail for practitioners.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude for theconstructive comments provided by the anonymous reviewers andthe subject editor.

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an open participatory conceptual framework to support state of the environment and sustainability...

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european environment

state ofthe environment

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