Planning for a Sustainable Future:
A Federal Sustainable Development Strategy for Canada
2013–2016 - Consultation Paper

Sustainable Development Office
Environment Canada

February 2013

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Chapter 1: The Government of Canada's Sustainable Development Approach

• Transparency and Sustainable Development
• What We Have Done to Date
• Plan, Do, Check, Improve

Transparency and Sustainable Development

In 2008, the Government of Canada took an important step on the path towards a sustainable future with the passage of the Federal Sustainable Development Act. The Act's purpose is "to provide the legal framework for developing and implementing a Federal Sustainable Development Strategy (FSDS) that will make environmental decision-making more transparent and accountable to Parliament."

Passing the Act signalled a change in how the Government of Canada would fulfill its commitment to sustainable development. The Act requires one comprehensive FSDS representing all of government, with Departmental Sustainable Development Strategies (DSDSs) contributing to its objectives. The first cycle of the FSDS covering the period 2010–2013, was tabled in Parliament on October 6, 2010. It provided three key improvements over previous federal sustainable development approaches:

1. An integrated, whole-of-government picture of actions and results to achieve environmental sustainability;
2. A link between sustainable development planning and reporting and the government's core expenditure planning and reporting system; and
3. Effective measurement, monitoring and reporting in order to track and report on progress to Canadians.

The first cycle also began the process of integrating FSDS goals and targets into strategic environmental assessments (SEAs), enabling the strategy to support decision-makers in becoming aware of the potential impact of federal decision making on the environmental issues that matter most to the Government of Canada and to Canadians.

What We Have Done to Date

Much has been accomplished since tabling the first FSDS in 2010. The FSDSpresents a whole-of-government view of environmental priorities at the federal level, with goals, targets and implementation strategies across 27 departments and agencies. With the tabling of the 2010 FSDS, canadians had for the first time, in one place, comprehensive information on activities across the federal government that contribute to environmental sustainability. This view has helped bring coherence both to Canada's domestic policy and to its engagement with international partners on sustainable development. It has also provided departments and agencies with policy context for their sustainable development and other initiatives.

Much of the success to date in bringing sustainable development issues into the Government's overall decision making comes as a result of incorporating the FSDS into the Government's core expenditure planning and reporting system. This integration began in 2011, when, improving on the three-year cycle of departmental sustainable development reporting, annual Reports on Plans and Priorities and the websites of each federal department and agency were required to incorporate elements of the FSDS. Taken together, these constitute DSDSsunder the Act, and are now reported annually. The FSDS also integrated Clean Air Agenda (CAA) reporting into the annual DSDSs, highlights CAA activities in FSDS progress reporting.

To achieve the government's commitment to effective measurement, monitoring and reporting in order to track and report on progress to Canadians, two FSDS progress reports have been produced. The 2011 FSDS Progress Report focused on progress made on setting up the systems needed to implement the FSDS. It also laid the foundation for future reporting by including indicators that would be used to track progress of the 2010 FSDS.

The 2012 FSDS Progress Report, released concurrently with this cycle of the strategy, highlights the progress of 27 departments and agencies towards the goals and targets set out in the 2010 FSDS. It provides parliamentarians and Canadians with a whole-of-government picture of the contributions of the federal government to environmental sustainability. As the first substantive report on the first cycle of the FSDS, it establishes the starting point and a baseline for future cycles of the FSDS and progress report.

In support of this broader commitment to transparency in environmental decision making, the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI) program is now a permanent feature of environmental reporting. During the first cycle of the FSDS, CESIsignificantly expanded its suite to now include more than 40 indicators that measure progress towards the goals and targets of the FSDS.

 

 

Plan, Do, Check, Improve

The first three-year cycle of the FSDS was grounded in the commitment to identify opportunities to improve subsequent strategies with the aim of making environmental decision making more transparent and accountable to Parliament. A great deal has already been accomplished, and work will continue in this and future cycles of the FSDS.

The three-year cycle of transparency establishes a system of "Plan, Do, Check, Improve" that will drive change over time. Successive strategies will review gaps and reflect policy changes driven by improved transparency.

The second three-year cycle of the FSDS, which covers the period 2013–2016, provides a key opportunity to build on the three key improvements made in the first cycle and continue to improve the transparency and accountability of environmental decision making. To this end, the second cycle takes the following steps:

• Continuing to build the whole-of-government picture of actions and results to achieve environmental sustainability. This involves ensuring that a broader range of relevant activities and organizations are included. For example, the 2013 FSDS includes the government's commitment to strengthen its role as a world-class regulator, put in place a comprehensive environmental monitoring program in the oil sands, and support Canadians in adapting to a changing climate.
  • Continuing improvements in the flexibility of the strategy's presentation will mean that users can more easily find what the government is doing on these and other cross-cutting initiatives.
• Improving linkages between the FSDS and the government's core expenditure planning and reporting system. Federal departments and agencies have made significant progress in aligning their commitments under the FSDS with their respective Program Alignment Architectures, focusing on those activities that directly support expected program activity results. These efforts will facilitate improved integration of sustainable development reporting within annual departmental reporting. They will also improve overall coherence in reporting on federal action to support environmental sustainability.
• Building on the FSDS's strengths in monitoring and reporting progress.
  • Over the course of this cycle, the government will continue to work towards achieving full indicator coverage of the strategy, ensuring that indicators are available to measure progress against all FSDS goals and targets. Indicators are identified in the second cycle alongside their associated goals and targets.
  • While the second cycle maintains the first cycle's focus on environmental sustainability, it also begins to integrate environmental indicators with social and economic aspects. This will provide better context for the Government of Canada's environmental sustainability decision making and priorities (see Chapter 2).

This cycle continues previous efforts to promote the application of FSDS goals and targets in SEAs to inform decision-makers of the potential effects of proposed policies, plans and programs on achieving the government's environmental sustainability priorities. Through the ongoing application of the federal Policy on Green Procurement, combined with enhanced targets to reduce the environmental footprint of government operations (see Annex 4), the second cycle also continues to integrate environmental considerations into decision making on procuring goods and services.

Figure 1 – Sustainable Development Timeline

 

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