Archived: Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy 2015 to 2016 report, Environment and Climate Change Canada, chapter 5
Section 5: Sustainable Development Management System
Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Sustainable Development Vision
ECCC’s sustainable development vision is to improve Canadians’ standard of living by conserving the environment, protecting human health, using resources efficiently, and advancing long-term economic competitiveness.
Departmental Sustainable Development Practices
The concept of sustainable development rests at the core of the Department’s mandate and is an intrinsic part of the planning, decision making, and execution of departmental programming and initiatives. The Department must use flexible yet robust processes when considering the social, economic and environmental dimensions of its strategy, policy and program delivery to Canadians. In addition, along with other federal government departments, ECCC continues to incorporate environmentally sustainable best practices within its internal policies and operations.
Governance
ECCC’s planning and decision-making processes, as part of an established corporate governance structure, provide both formal and informal opportunities for considering issues, setting priorities and rendering decisions or making recommendations when necessary.
Sustainable Development Champion
The Assistant Deputy Minister of ECCC’s Strategic Policy Branch and Regional Directors General Offices is the Sustainable Development Champion, providing overall leadership for departmental responsibilities related to sustainable development. That includes heading the Sustainable Development Office which supports a whole-of-government approach to the implementation of the Federal Sustainable Development Act. In 2015-16, the Champion:
- Maintained effective partnerships with the 26 federal departments and agencies in the Financial Administration Act as well as the 11 departments and agencies that participated voluntarily in the FSDS in implementing the Federal Sustainable Development Act;
- Tabled the 2015 Progress Report of the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy to report on the implementation of the 2013-16 FSDS;
- Developed a draft 2016-2019 FSDS in collaboration with other federal departments and agencies, in a more accessible electronic format, that articulates an SD vision for Canada, increases transparency and accountability, improves targets and indicators, acknowledges the role of the Sustainable Development Goals, recognizes the contributions of partners and incorporates contributions from 37 federal departments and agencies ;
- Launched a consultation approach to engage a broad range of external FSDS partners and stakeholder organizations and solicit their feedback on and input to the draft 2016-2019 FSDS that expands the use of modern technology, improves and broadens the reach to the Canadian public, and implements a more iterative feedback process to obtain input throughout the consultation period;
- Provided leadership for the Department on strategic environmental assessment (SEA); and,
- Provided additional and updated environmental sustainability indicators through the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI) program, to convey the state of Canada’s environment in a straightforward and transparent manner and provide data and information to track Canada’s performance on key environmental issues (including climate change and air quality, water quality and availability, and protecting nature).
The Executive Management Committee
The Executive Management Committee (EMC), chaired by the Deputy Minister, is the collective senior executive body of the Department, where decisions are made by the Deputy Minister on various issues through consensus building. Sustainable development issues, along with implementation of the Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy, are monitored and reported to EMC on an ongoing basis.
Policy Forum
The Policy Forum, chaired by the Deputy Minister, is a focal point for engaging managers, scientists and subject matter experts from across ECCC to discuss policy files and potential policy responses to environmental challenges. These discussions inform departmental decision making on various issues including sustainable development.
Intergovernmental Collaboration and Stakeholder Engagement
ECCC's sustainable development decisions and actions require collaboration, partnership and information exchanges with key partners and stakeholders, including other levels of government, Indigenous peoples, industry, environmental non-governmental organizations, and Canadian citizens. ECCC aims to foster positive, long-term relationships with these key constituencies in all of its activities.
For example, relationships with provincial and territorial partners are advanced through bilateral agreements, as well as through multilateral participation in the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. In addition, the Department consults and engages with Indigenous peoples and stakeholders to deliver on core priorities such as protecting and conserving air, water, wildlife and natural areas.
Decision-Making Tools
Strategic Environmental Assessment
As required by the Cabinet Directive on the Environmental Assessment of Policy, Plan and Program Proposals, ECCC - as well as all federal departments and agencies - is expected to consider the potential positive and negative environmental impacts of its policy, plan and program proposals submitted to the Minister or Cabinet for approval.
This assessment process, known as Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) assures the public and stakeholders that decisions are made in full awareness of potential environmental impacts and opportunities for greater sustainability. SEA is one of the main mechanisms for supporting decision-making that is more environmentally sustainable by identifying and proposing measures to mitigate negative impacts such as impacts on habitat or air quality. Similarly, SEA also supports the identification of opportunities to enhance positive environmental effects (e.g., through such measures as collaboration, improved communication, and public consultation).
SEA informs the public of the impacts of new initiatives through the requirement to post public statement of environmental effects when an SEA has been completed. This includes reporting on both potential impacts and contributions to the FSDS goals and targets.
See Section 6 for more information on ECCC’s progress in applying SEA.
Regulatory Impact Analysis Statements
ECCC uses regulatory impact analysis statements (RIAS) to summarize the expected impacts of the regulatory initiatives that address each of the requirements of the federal government’s regulatory policy, namely the Cabinet Directive on Regulatory Management. The use of RIAS has long been recognized as an international best practice, and RIAS have been used in Canada for over 20 years.
RIAS provide a comprehensive, non-technical synthesis of information that enables various audiences to understand the environmental issue being regulated, as well as the federal government’s objectives, and the costs and benefits of a regulatory initiative. RIAS also indicate who will be affected, who was consulted in developing the regulatory initiative, and how the federal government will evaluate and measure the performance of the regulatory initiative against its stated objectives. RIAS function as a key decision-making tool by estimating and raising awareness of the environmental, economic and societal impact of ECCC’s regulatory initiatives, and they enable the federal government to explain to the public the need for each regulatory initiative and its associated trade-off.
In 2015-16, ECCC worked on or completed more than 25 RIAS on different regulatory initiatives related to transportation, energy, air quality, industrial sectors, chemical management, and species at risk in line with the Department’s sustainable development mandate. Specifically, these RIAS examined: the Multi-Sector Air Pollutants Regulations; Small Sparks Ignition engines; GHG regulations; amendments to Metal Mining Effluent Regulations; Mercury; Spill Treatment Agents; Microbeads; prohibition of certain toxic substances; Administrative Monetary Penalties; the listing of species under the Species at Risk Act; the protection of species on federal lands under the Species at Risk Act; and the conservation of Migratory Birds.
Ongoing Environmental Monitoring
ECCC provides regular indicator updates (data and information) through the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI) program. CESI is the primary vehicle for measuring the progress of the FSDSFootnote 7 and Canada’s performance on key environmental sustainability issues. The environmental indicators are based on objective and comprehensive information and convey environmental trends in a straightforward and transparent manner.
CESI indicators are prepared by ECCC with the support of other federal government departments--such as Health Canada, Statistics Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada--and provincial and territorial government departments. Designed to be relevant to government environmental policy priorities, the indicators rely on rigorous methodology and high-quality data from a variety of sources including surveys, monitoring networks, and other research initiatives.
National, regional, local and international trends are readily accessible to all Canadians on the CESI website, which includes graphics, explanatory text, interactive maps and downloadable data. Each indicator is accompanied by a technical explanation of how it is calculated and links to related socio-economic issues and information.
In 2015-16, CESI published 26 indicators, covering key environmental issues such as climate change, air pollution, and water and nature protection.
Audit and Evaluation
The Department’s activities in support of the FSDS will be included as part of the evaluation of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Sustainability Reporting and Indicators Program, for which the evaluation work was conducted in 2015-16, and will be completed in 2016-17. The evaluation addresses issues relating to relevance and performance in compliance with the Treasury Board’s Policy on Evaluation (2009).
ECCC also conducts internal audits based on an annual risk-based planning exercise. In this context, the Department may examine the Federal or Departmental Sustainable Development Strategies.
In addition, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development (CESD) is required to regularly assess the fairness of the information contained in the government’s progress report on implementation of the FSDS, as well as monitor and report on individual departments’ progress in implementing their own sustainable development strategies. The CESD is planning to report on these activities in the fall of 2016.
In addition, the CESD is required under the Federal Sustainable Development Act to review whether the targets and implementation strategies in the draft Federal Sustainable Development Strategy can be assessed. The CESD’s comments on the draft 2016-2019 FSDS and the Government’s Response are available on their website.
ECCC regularly monitors and reports on the status of management commitments made in response to previous audit and evaluation recommendations, including those of the CESD. Doing so provides the senior management in the Department with timely information on how well the Department is addressing issues or opportunities raised in previous audits and evaluations, including any that would pertain to the FSDS.
Internal Operations and Practices
ECCC has and continues to take steps to integrate sustainable development into its internal policies and operations. For instance, as part of its performance management program, which is designed to promote a culture of high performance among employees, contributions to greening government operations may be considered in assessing performance of certain occupation groups (e.g., Economics and Social Science group) relative to a core competency of “Integrity and Respect”. Guidance has been made available to managers on expected behaviours for demonstrating responsible use of government assets and resources. Another example is the establishment of and support for Green Teams, a network of volunteer employees who devote time to "greening" the Department through various activities and campaigns.