Scotland’s Environment Strategy (2026) lists integrated actions by which “Scotland’s society is transformed for the better by living sustainably”. It aims to “empower and enable people across Scotland to experience the benefits of shifting towards healthy, sustainable lifestyles”. This “whole of Scotland” approach requires that we understand how well we’re doing in progress towards greater sustainability.
Ten years ago, I proposed an index of sustainable development (SD), published in The Ecologist. The index satisfies the majority (Y/N) of criteria for a good metric under the Bellagio Principles:
- Consider the social/economic and environmental system as a whole, including governance (Y)
- Able to monitor dynamical change, so authorities can make real-time decisions (Y)
- Make clear where/how decisions should be made (N)
- Have appropriate geographical scope (Y)
- Have appropriate time horizons, short to long (Y)
- Use standardised measurements allowing inter-comparability (Y)
- Allow comparison with targets (Y)
- Set baseline from which to monitor progress (Y)
- Use data widely available publicly (Y)
- Use data that are clear, simple, understandable, with good visualisation (Y)
- Reflective of public views and priorities (Y)
- Responsive to change and readily repeatable/reproduceable (Y)
How many of the 137 indicators, tracked by LINK, from the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy Delivery Plan 2024-2030, meet these criteria? This is another plan, like the Environment Strategy, that expects “collective effort” across “the whole of society”. It would certainly benefit from metrics that reflect the Bellagio Principles. The same will be true of the binding targets in the Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2026.
About the SD Index itself – three elements usually figure in national/regional economic strategies: economic growth, unemployment, low-carbon economy. These are ideally suited to formulating a measure of SD – encompassing economic, social and environmental status.
GDP per head is a measure of economic efficiency in producing output for a given population; it reflects productivity and is often a short-hand for standard of living. Raising GDP is a Scottish Government target.
National, or local, unemployment is related to a range of social ills including exclusion, restriction of choice, skills loss, ill health, reduced life expectancy, demotivation, undermining relationships, aggravated inequalities, increased crime, and psychological damage including helplessness, anxiety, and self-doubt. So, unemployment is related to changes in social assets.
Action on climate change is symptomatic of wider concern about environment. The Environmental Performance Index compares countries globally and those that score well on climate also score well on other environmental actions.
So, these expressions of economic efficiency (GDP per head), social inefficiency (%age unemployment) and environmental inefficiency (CO2eq per head) can readily be combined to generate:
Index of SD = GDP per head, divided by %age unemployment and divided by CO2eq emissions per head
(here the result is divided by 1000 and rounded to one decimal place)
You may argue the Index doesn’t explicitly reflect the state of biodiversity or pollution across Scotland, or the proportion of GDP derived from ethical business. You’re right. A consequential challenge is to devise a better index satisfying the Bellagio Principles. Maybe you can?
The Ecologist article showed Scotland’s Index improved by over 3 times from 1998 to 2014, better than UK, USA, Canada, Sweden or Japan. This update suggests Scotland’s Index had, by 2024, improved 6.5 times over the 1998 value.
That 6.5x is due to 25% increase in inflation-adjusted GDP per head, and more than halving of both the unemployment rate and CO2eq emissions per head. All three elements are equally important – another sign of a balanced index.
International comparisons are easy, as the components are routinely reported worldwide. Scotland’s absolute sustainability is not great compared to other administrations. In 2024, Scotland’s Index was 1.5, England was 2.3 (higher GDP, lower CO2eq), Northern Ireland was 1.6 (lower unemployment), and Wales was1.0 (lower GDP, higher CO2eq). Internationally, USA was 1.1, Germany 1.0, Ireland 2.1, and Denmark 4.4 (high GDP, low CO2eq, low unemployment: let’s be Denmark!).
Scotland’s rate of improvement is still encouraging. Over the period 1998 to 2024, USA only improved by 2.2x, England by 3x, while for Germany it was by 6.6x.
Another application of the Index is investigating community-level sustainability, using 2023 data from the UK regional data explorer.
There’s one location matching Denmark: Edinburgh, with an Index of 4.9, due to higher GDP per head and slightly lower CO2eq per head than Denmark, offset partially by higher unemployment. For comparison, London is 4.6 while Greater Manchester is 2.2.
Selected Scottish rankings are:
Edinburgh 4.9
Glasgow 2.6
Perth & Kinross 2.6
Lothian 2.1
Lanarkshire 2.0
Aberdeen 2.0
Aberdeenshire 1.5
Ayrshire 1.4
Orkney 1.3
Dundee 1.3
Highland 1.2
Borders 0.8
Shetland 0.8
Dumfries & Galloway 0.5
Urban areas perform well, while some rural regions less so: likely due to relatively low GDP, combined with possible high CO2eq emissions related to increased personal transport, degrading peatland, and livestock emissions.
Rural areas contribute substantially to renewable energy, which is then shared across the UK grid, and not locally rewarded in the SD Index. They are also significant repositories of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Those ecosystem services will be undermined unless we control carbon emissions and have the financial resources to fund decent environmental management.
So, no metric is perfect. But, it’s important that we have simple ways of communicating messages to civic society on the scale and nature of challenge we face.