Archive:A coordinated European approach is needed for Destatis

Published in Sigma - The Bulletin of European Statistics, 2010/02

Germany has had a national sustainability strategy in place since 2002 and progress is monitored every two years by indicators mostly produced by the German Federal Statistical Office, Destatis. ‘Largely, the German Indicator Report on Sustainable Development matches several recommendations of the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission, but more work needs to be done, particularly on issues such as measuring quality of life,’ said Albert Braakmann, Head of Destatis’ National Income, Sector Accounts and Labour Market Division, to Sigma.

Albert Braakmann, Head of National Income, Sector Accounts, Labour Market Division at the German Statistical Office.

Introduction

According to Mr Braakmann, the Stiglitz Report initiated an important discussion on how to further develop official statistics to create a sustainable and relevant basis for analyses.

‘The Stiglitz Report looks ahead and makes recommendations on how social, economic and environmental issues should be reported statistically to enable official statistics to retain their credibility and provide a basis for political action,’ he said.

‘The Report draws attention to the fact that economic factors do not fully explain social progress and that statistics need to focus more strongly on quality of life, in all its various aspects,’ Mr Braakmann continued.

‘It also stresses that information about sustainability and the environment is an essential part of modern statistics.’

Room for improvement

As far as implementing the proposals of the Stiglitz Commission, Destatis has already made considerable progress when it comes to creating an environmental accounting system. The data and indicators are, for example, used to monitor Germany’s sustainability strategy.

‘Reporting with indicators that are integrated in environmental accounting helps to improve the way in which potential political measures are assessed and therefore also subsequently monitored,’ said Mr Braakmann.

As far as improving economic indicators, Destatis is working on calculating the distribution of income by type of household. The office is also planning another time use survey, which was last conducted in 2001/2002.

When it comes to measuring quality of life, German statisticians are working on an inventory of data available concerning the seven aspects of quality of life recommended by the Report, of both a subjective and an objective nature.

The main challenge is to specify the quality of life indicators at technical level and then to consider how various information might reasonably be aggregated. At the same time, questions of data availability and how any data gaps might be filled need to be taken into consideration.

‘Although a large amount of data is available in some cases, we consider that there is considerable room for further development,’ said Mr Braakmann.

Pioneering work

Further Eurostat information

Publications

Database

Sustainable development indicators, see:

Indicators

Dedicated section

Other information

GDP and Beyond: Measuring progress in a changing world (Commission Communication COM final 433/2009)