Sustainable Industries Performance Indicator Framework

Project Background & Goal

Sound decision-making depends on our ability to measure our performance, allowing us to learn and adapt from our successes (and failures). Performance indicators help us to measure our performance in a systematic, consistent, and rigorous way.

Industry Canada’s Sustainable Technologies and Service Industries Branch worked to develop a sustainable industries performance indicators framework. The framework brings together and adapts business and community sustainability indicators (e.g. eco-efficiency; SmartGrowth; corporate sustainability indicators) so that they can be applied to geographically bounded areas with intense light, medium, and/or heavy industrial activity, such as industrial or business parks.

The sustainable industries performance indicators framework has been developed, with a focus on indicators that would allow for the comparison of industrial sites in any region or even nationally. The framework comprises 72 indicators in the following categories:

• Overall Production / Financial (4)
• Energy (14)
• Materials (7)
• Water – Potable, Non-Potable, Storm, Wastewater (8)
• Land Use and Transportation Infrastructure (13)
• Corporate and Municipal Governance (11)
• Eco-Industrial Networking Specific (10)
• Community (5)

The framework includes a list of data needed to calculate the indicator, as well as potential sources for the data. Only indicators for which data would be practically available were included.

Download the Final Sustainable Industry Performance Indicator Framework Report