The GPI Forest Headline Indicators for Nova Scotia
Authors: Linda Pannozzo and Ronald Colman
The report assesses whether progress towards sustainability has been made since the release of the 2001 GPI Forest Accounts for Nova Scotia in the following key areas: 1) forest age class distribution and restoration of older forests; 2) forest-dependent flora and fauna species at risk; 3) protected areas as percentage of total provincial land mass; 4) harvest methods; 5) value added per cubic metre of wood harvested; and 6) jobs created per unit of biomass harvested. The report is accompanied by a list of recommendations that flow from the evidence indicating how forest sustainability can be improved.
The GPI forest update is part of a major effort currently under way to update results from nearly 12 years of developmental work to create a Genuine Progress Index for Nova Scotia. That completed GPI will summarize key headline indicators in 20 social, economic, and environmental areas, and is intended to provide the province with a practical tool to measure its progress towards genuinely sustainable prosperity.
The GPI Transportation Accounts: Sustainable Transportation in Halifax Regional Municipality
Authors: Aviva Savelson, MA, Ronald Colman, PhD, and William Martin
This 121-page report (which includes a 10-page executive summary) provides estimates of the economic costs of private vehicle use in HRM, including detailed breakdowns of the direct and indirect costs of driving in HRM. It also shows how many kilometres a year HRM residents drive, how much fuel they consume, and how many tonnes of greenhouse gases and air pollutants they emit. It compares the emissions of SUVs and minivans in HRM with those of cars, and provides a host of other statistics designed to help the Municipality measure its progress towards a more sustainable transportation system.
The detailed GPI indicators, measures, and cost estimates contained in this report are designed for use in implementing HRM's new Municipal Planning Strategy, which intends to create a more sustainable and environmentally friendly transportation system that reduces driving and congestion, encourages walking and bicycling, and supports much greater use of mass transit.
Education Indicators for the Nova Scotia Genuine Progress Index
Authors: Linda Pannozzo, Karen Hayward and Ronald Colman
Assisted by: Vanessa Hayward
"Education Indicators for the Nova Scotia Genuine Progress Index: How Educated Are Nova Scotians?" explores what is meant by an educated populace, how that can be measured, and whether Canadians have the knowledge required to create a healthy, wise, and sustainable society. Ideally, evidence of positive learning outcomes should be seen in desirable societal outcomes such as good health, equity, environmental stewardship, cultural diversity, and social wellbeing.
Specifically, this new GPIAtlantic report includes important information and trends in basic literacy, civic literacy, and ecological literacy, access to education (including student debt and tuition), the independence of university research, and financing of public education. The report also examines the inadequacy of conventional education indicators like graduation and drop-out rates, and the need for new indicators of educational attainment that assess how educated and knowledgeable the populace actually is. A comprehensive list of potential education indicators has been developed to provide examples of the types of indicators that can be used to create a broader and more meaningful assessment of knowledge and learning outcomes in the populace than is presently possible, along with descriptions of some of the best measurement tools currently available in these areas.
The full economic and social costs of tobacco use in Nova Scotia were reported by GPI Atlantic in The Cost of Tobacco in Nova Scotia (2000). This current report uses the latest and most widely accepted research and analytical techniques to update and enhance our knowledge of the
real costs of tobacco use to Nova Scotians. This update is necessary in light of recent research findings, and because new results have become available to provide evidence of the impacts of comprehensive tobacco control strategies in other jurisdictions. Most importantly, tobacco use in
the province has declined significantly since 2000, largely as a result of comprehensive tobacco reduction strategies implemented by the Province of Nova Scotia, so the trends outlined in the 2000 report (based on the most recent 1999 data available at that time) also required updating.
Helping Communities Move Toward Sustainable Development: The Natural Step — A Primer for Atlantic Canada
Authors: Janet Eaton, PhD; and Peter Eaton, PhD
with assistance from Clare Levin
The four Atlantic Provinces, while distinct from each other, together have many unique features which make the Atlantic Canadian region particularly suitable for piloting a proven method of advancing sustainable development. The Natural Step framework offers a unique and practical approach to sustainability, helping communities and businesses become more environmentally and socially responsible one step at a time. The primer examines the particular challenges and strengths of Atlantic Canada, and proposes that the region pilot the adoption of The Natural Step (TNS) framework as a systemic and overarching model to guide communities, governments, businesses, educational institutions, and other organizations in becoming more sustainable.
Released in conjunction with the launch of the Atlantic Canada Sustainability Initiative
The GPI Transportation Accounts: Sustainable Transportation in Nova Scotia
Authors: Aviva Savelson, MA; Ronald Colman, PhD; Todd Litman, MES; Sally Walker, PhD; and Ryan Parmenter, MEDes
with assistance from William Martin, Clare Levin, Gillian Austin, Ben Gallagher, Jenny Gimian, Jaspal Marwah, and Antoni Wysocki
A comprehensive analysis of Nova Scotia's transportation system, including physical indicators and full-cost accounts. This report assess es the sustainability of the transportation system using 20 key indicators and a number of sub-indicators , and examines 15 different cost categories to assess the true cost of passenger road transportation in Nova Scotia . The study also provides recommendations for making transportation more efficient, affordable and sustainable, and examples of transportation best practices.
Energy Issue: Reality Check explores ecological sustainability and renewable energy technologies. A look at conservation measures such as financial incentives for fuel-efficient cars, efficiency measures such as "smart" urban development and the use of waste energy in heating systems. Better measures of progress, including the new Canadian Index of Wellbeing, can help raise the profile of these energy-saving efforts, and place a redesigned energy system at the top of the policy agenda.
Physical and full-cost accounts for Nova Scotia’s stationary energy system. Assesses the sustainability of the energy system using time-trended data and provides examples of energy best practices.
Introducing The Canadian Index of Wellbeing
The CIW won’t come up with the answer to everything, but its aim is still ambitious. And the questions it asks are every bit as important as the answers it offers. It aims to assess whether Canadians are better off or worse off than they used to be—not just materially or based on how fast the economy is growing, but in terms of their overall wellbeing. By doing so, it will become Canada’s core, central measure of progress, and it will relegate the Gross Domestic Product to the function for which it was originally designed and intended: measuring the overall size of the market economy.
Reality Check – Jobs Jobs Jobs Counting Them Wrong and Right
Jobs Jobs Jobs Counting Them Wrong and Right examines how the nature of work has changed dramatically over the past century. Conventional measures of progress chronicle the benefits of these changes such as higher levels of income and greater consumption. Yet, we have been less successful in documenting the human cost of modern work. Canadians trends, outlined in this issue, show a decline in work improvement progress over a 25-year period using a number of key indicators. Reality Check #9 looks at successful experiments in Europe, and examines Canada’s own landmark Donner Commission Report. These experiments and recommendations demonstrate that it is possible to reduce overwork, improve work-family balance, increase free time and vacation time, and reduce unemployment and underemployment.
The purpose of this study is to indicate some public treasury effects of removing wage discrimination against women in the province of New Brunswick. For this purpose, a quantitative estimate of the gender wage gap resulting from discrimination is obtained. This quantitative estimate is then used to estimate the potential effect on the provincial public treasury that would likely occur if a program aimed at removing wage discrimination in the province were introduced. The particular components of the public treasury that are considered include: government tax revenue, health care costs, and government transfers paid to individuals and families. The effect on these public treasury components is then compared with the additional employer payroll cost resulting from higher wages for women under an anti-discriminatory program.
Materials prepared by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Nova Scotia based on the GPI Atlantic physical inactivity report for Halifax Regional Municipality:
Authors: Sally Walker, Ronald Colman, Jeffrey Wilson, Anne Monette, & Gay Harley
A comprehensive, full cost-benefit analysis of the Nova Scotia Solid Waste-Resource Management Strategy, accounting for benefits like avoided greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions; avoided liability costs; extended landfill life; and increased employment. It also accounts for the costs of the bottle deposit-refund, tire recycling, and stewardship programs, and the cost of the extra time needed to sort waste.
Reality Check – Less May Be More
Every day we use vital services that the earth provides us for ’free’. We eat food grown in soil rich in centuries of decaying organic matter. We breathe air that is filtered by plants and trees. The more demands we make on nature-the more food, energy, timber and other resources we consume - the more the economy grows. And when we exceed nature’s capacity to absorb our wates, we grow the economy again by spending money cleaning up the mess. Yet our standard measures of progress misleadingly assume that a growing economy makes us better off and mroe prosperous. This issue of Reality Check looks at better ways to measure those demands on nature - ways that count the true costs of pollution and over-consumption, and that count a reduction in our impact on the environment, rather than an increase, as a sign of genuine progress.
The Cost of Smoking in British Columbia and the Economics of Tobacco Control
Authors: Jennifer Bridge, M.A. and Bill Turpin
Direct and indirect costs of tobacco use for the health care system and productivity in Newfoundland & Labrador. Includes cost-benefit analyses of smoking cessation strategies.
The Ambient Air Quality Accounts for the Nova Scotia Genuine Progress Index
Authors: Anne Monette, MES & Ronald Colman, Ph.D
Assessment of trends in ambient concentrations of carbon monoxide, particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone in Nova Scotia since the 1970s. Assessment of Nova Scotia’s emissions of carbon monoxide, particulate matter, sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds, and the estimated damage costs of those emissions over a 40-year period.
Developing A Community Genuine Progress Index: Materials for Community Development Planners
Volume 2 - Progress Report to the Canadian Population Health Initiative Research Programs, April 2003 to September 2003
Descriptions of results to date, as reported to communities, including PowerPoint presentations, report summaries, a summary of the new web site, descriptions of workshops, and a description of the development of new infrastructure to sustain the project.
Reality Check – The Boon and Bust of Technology
Previous issues of Reality Check have focused on single components of proposed new measures of wellbeing - such as population health, volunteer work, or valuing our forests - that are not captured in our conventional measures of progress. This issue, for the first time, focuses on one of the major values and benefits of more comprehensive measures of progress: Their capacity to demonstrate connections among a wide range of economic, social and environmental variables. In this issue, Reality Check steps back to look at the fishery, and at our industrial food and transportation systems.
Authors: Anne Monette, MES; Ronald Colman, Ph.D; and Jeff Wilson, BES
The environmental impact of consumption patterns, including transportation, residential energy use, and food consumption in Prince Edward Island. Includes 40-year ecological footprint trends, with projections to 2020 and assessments of alternative footprint reduction options.
Reality Check – Counting Uncounted Contributions
This issue focuses on vital services the economy does not count – household and voluntary work. Every day Canadians perform countless hours of valuable services that contribute to quality of life and economic prosperity. These contributions are massive but do not show up in our standand measures of economic progress.
Statistical analysis of economic, social-psychological, health behaviours, lifestyle, and environmental determinants of health; healthy child development; reproductive health; health outcomes; and health system performance in Canada and the Atlantic provinces. Prepared for the Bureau of Women's Health and Gender Analysis, Health Canada.
The Cost of Smoking in New Brunswick & the Economics of Tobacco Control
Authors: Ronald Colman, Robert Rainer and Jeffrey Wilson
Direct and indirect costs of tobacco use for the health care system and productivity in New Brunswick. Includes cost-benefit analyses of smoking cessation strategies.
The Cost of Smoking in Newfoundland & Labrador and the Economics of Tobacco Control
Authors: Ronald Colman, Ph.D and Robert Rainer
Direct and indirect costs of tobacco use for the health care system and productivity in Newfoundland & Labrador. Includes cost-benefit analyses of smoking cessation strategies.
The Economic Impact of Smoke-Free Workplaces: An Assessment for Newfoundland & Labrador
Authors: Ronald Colman, Ph.D
Analysis and projection of economic impacts of second-hand tobacco smoke on health care costs, mortality, productivity, and business sales, especially in the food service, bar, hotel and tourism industries. Statistical and cost data extrapolated from regional, national, and foreign jurisdictions.
Women's Health in Atlantic Canada Volume 1
Social Determinants of Women's Health in Atlantic Canada
Author: Ronald Colman, Ph.D
Statistical and demographic analysis of women's health in the Atlantic provinces, using the social determinants of health as a framework. Prepared for the Atlantic Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health
The Economic Impact of Smoke-Free Workplaces: An Assessment for New Brunswick
Authors: Ronald Colman, Ph.D
Analysis and projection of economic impacts of second-hand tobacco smoke on health care costs, mortality, productivity, and business sales, especially in the food service, bar, hotel and tourism industries. Statistical and cost data extrapolated from regional, national, and foreign jurisdictions.
Authors: Jennifer Scott, MES and Julia Cooper, MSc
Economic valuations of soil quality and productivity including soil organic matter, soil structure, soil erosion and conservation, and soil foodweb health in Nova Scotia. Includes state of the resource and trends data.
The Nova Scotia GPI Agriculture Accounts Part Two: Resource Capacity and Use: The Value of Agricultural Biodiversity
Author: Jennifer Scott, MES
An assessment of the state of biodiversity on farms, using habitat and ecosystem services indicators. Includes data on trends in land use, farm practices, and indicators of habitat quantity and quality in Nova Scotia
Physical inactivity costs the Nova Scotia economy an additional $247 million each year in indirect productivity losses due to premature death and disability. Adding direct and indirect costs, the total economic burden of physical inactivity in Nova Scotia is estimated at $354 million annually.
Authors: Anthony Charles, Heather Boyd, Amanda Lavers and Cheryl Benjamin
Econometric direct and deferred costs valuation of the fisheries resource and marine environment, and implications for resource management, commercial, and environmental practices.
The Economic Impact of Smoke-Free Workplaces: An Assessment for Nova Scotia
Author: Ronald Colman, Ph.D
Analysis and projection of economic impacts of second-hand tobacco smoke on health care costs, mortality, productivity, and business sales, especially in the food service, bar, hotel and tourism industries. Statistical and cost data extrapolated from regional, national, and foreign jurisdictions.
This paper describes the necessity of having new measures for progress on the society level. This discussion is not really new; but it is new that a jurisdiction (Nova Scotia) will soon have a detailed and policy-relevant measure of wellbeing and sustainable development available and ready for actual application in practice, and that a national statistical agency (Statistics Canada) has been interested in and supportive of the work. On the one hand we have the same problem in industry because all traditional accounting systems are obsolete. We are trying to solve this problem with the use of excellence models like the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award or the Balanced Score Card for the deployment process. Some of us know that we need stakeholder approaches instead of simple shareholder-value concepts. Colman is describing the same problem on a society level. The old measure is leading to wrong goals. Growth per se cannot be a value worth living for. The use of a Genuine Progress Index (or the use of a Society Excellence Model) is a measure we owe to our children.
Authors: Sally Walker, Ph.D; Anne Monette, MES and Ronald Colman, Ph.D
Economic viability and capacity of the agricultural sector in Nova Scotia including trends in farm debt, income, costs, and a range of indicators of financial viability.
Authors: Colin Dodds, M.A. and Ronald Colman, Ph.D
Statistical and socio-economic analysis of income distribution trends regionally and over time in Nova Scotia, including inter-provincial and gender comparisons. Accompanied by a 266-page database with income distribution trends for Canadian provinces.
Economic viability and capacity of the agricultural sector in Nova Scotia including trends in farm debt, income, costs, and a range of indicators of financial viability.
Authors: Anne Monette, MES; Ronald Colman, Ph.D; and Jeff Wilson, BES
The environmental impact of consumption patterns, including transportation, residential energy use, and food consumption in Nova Scotia. Includes trends over time, projections to 2020 and assessments of alternative footprint reduction options.
Costing Policy Change: A Case Study in Applying the GPI Cost Of Crime Methodology
Author: Ronald Colman, Ph.D
A Case Study In Applying The GPI Cost Of Crime Methodology To A Hypothetical
Policy Shift from Legalized Cannabis Use to Prohibition of Cannabis as a
Prosecutable Offence
Direct and indirect costs of tobacco use for the health care system and productivity in Nova Scotia. Includes cost-benefit analyses of smoking cessation strategies.
Developing A Community Genuine Progress Index: Materials for Community Development Planners
Volume 1 - Kings County and Glace Bay Pilot Projects, February 1999 to August 2000
Survey tools, methodologies, data collection, and strategies for devising indicators of wellbeing and sustainable development at the community level.
Assessment of water resource values, defensive expenditures, and costs of water quality decline. The case study "Costs and Benefits of Sewage Treatment and Source Reduction for Halifax Harbour" is included as an appendix to this report.
Direct and indirect short and long-term economic impacts of obesity on health costs and economic productivity in Nova Scotia, using relative risk ratios for ten illnesses, and analysis of social causes.
An examination of statistical evidence finding that Atlantic Canadians had higher rates of physical activity than other Canadians in 1985, but lower rates today. A gender analysis finds that this negative trend in Atlantic Canada is entirely due to a dramatic decline in levels of physical activity by men, as female rates of exercise have actually increased. By contrast Canadian men outside the Atlantic region are exercising more.
Abstract: There has been a growing polarization of hours in Canada. More workers are putting in longer hours than ever before, while an equally large number cannot get the hours they need to make ends meet. The latter are frequently classified as "involuntary part-time" workers who cannot find full-time work. Their jobs are frequently temporary and insecure, subject to hiring and firing in response to market demand.
This short analytical piece examines the statistical evidence on "structural underemployment" and the growing gap between "core" and "contingent" workers. It looks at the impact of casual work on income, equity, job security and benefits. Finally, it makes recommendations, -- short-term, medium-term, and long-term -- to overcome some of the adverse impacts of the casualization of labour in Canada. European case studies are examined to suggest potential solutions that can improve the well being of employees in Canada.
Work Time Reduction in the Nova Scotia Civil Service is a response by GPI Atlantic to the announced intention of the new Nova Scotia government to reduce its massive $500 million deficit and $10 billion debt by reducing the size of government. The study draws on a large number of case studies of successful work reduction both in Europe and in North America to suggest that significant savings can accrue by offering a wide range of voluntary work time reduction options to civil servants. It also draws lessons from past failures to deduce what methods work and what do not.
Synthesis Paper prepared for the Made to Measure conference in Halifax, October, 1999, organized by the Maritime Centre of Excellence for Women's Health.
This paper draws on the second GPI report on the value of unpaid housework to examine the implications of the findings for gender equality. The paper examines the gender division of labour in the household, and the effect of the invisibility of unpaid work on gender wage gaps in the market economy and on poverty rates among single mothers and their children. The gender dimensions of other GPI components are also discussed.
Authors: Tony Charles, Ph.D; Larry Hughes, Ph.D; Sally Walker, Ph.D; Ronald Colman, Ph.D; Sara Wilson, M.Sc.F.; Jennifer Scott, MES & Amanda Lavers, B.Sc.
Provides examples to illustrate some of the resource valuation methods used in the Nova Scotia GPI for the fisheries, forests, soils and agriculture, and greenhouse gases components of the GPI.
An introduction to the GPI greenhouse gas accounts that examines the fundamental principles on which the GPI approach to resource use is based and describes the framework of the larger study.
Abstract: More fossil fuel emissions register as economic growth, and are therefore conventionally interpreted as "progress" in the standard market statistics, even though they may be contributing to climate change that will likely imperil the well being of future generations. By constrast, the Genuine Progress Index regards a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as a sign of progress.
This brief introduction to the GPI greenhouse gas account examines the fundamental principles on which the GPI approach to resource use is based and describes the framework of the larger study. It also gives a preliminary assessment of the potential impact of climate change on Nova Scotia, lists some early results, and proposes a framework to evaluate alternative greenhouse gas reduction options.
Address to Inter-Departmental Meeting called by the Association of Nova Scotia Educational Administrators on "Role of Schools and Partners in Community Building," June 17, 1999.
Abstract: The presentation begins with a critical examination of the legacy we are leaving our children in the new millennium, of the "silo" mentality that prevents us from seeing the interconnected nature of reality, and of the structure and nature of schools. It goes on to look at ways in which we can begin to break down our silo structures, to build genuine community, and to make genuine progress towards the society we want our children to inhabit and that is in accord with the common values and vision we share.
It draws on models from some European countries to propose concrete and practical steps forward for this province, and presents illustrative results from several GPI reports.
Authors: Sally Walker, Ph.D.; Ron Hilburn, Ph.D., and Ronald Colman, Ph.D.
Direct and indirect costs of greenhouse gas emissions in the freight transport sector, including cost-benefit analysis of partial shift from road to rail transport.
Direct and indirect costs of crime in Nova Scotia, including public costs, defensive expenditures, victim losses, trends over time, relation to demographic and social variables, and inter-provincial comparisons.