Sustainable Development Strategy 2007-2010
Assessment of the Sustainable Development Strategy 2004-2007
To prepare for our new strategy, we assessed our performance in implementing the targets of our last strategy, which covers the period from April 1, 2004, to March 31, 2007. We also conducted a self-assessment and reviewed lessons learned.
Performance highlights
The Sustainable Development Strategy 2007-2010 put forward four goals focused on environmental excellence in operations, sustainable service delivery, employee engagement, and modern systems for sustainable development. The first two goals aimed to reduce the environmental impacts of our operations and service delivery. The last two goals aimed to engage employees and develop new systems to increase performance and capture data on sustainable development. The last two goals were vehicles for achieving the first two goals.
With the combined efforts of our SD Network and employees, we completed most of the commitments in our 2004-2007 strategy. For the first goal to achieve environmental excellence in operations, we used our Environmental Management System (EMS) to manage eight environmental management programs. We established a transit pass program for CRA employees in the National Capital Region, and developed a national commuter and business travel strategy. In each year of the strategy, we reduced our internal use of paper, bringing us closer to achieving our reduction target. We included environmental criteria in all national contractual arrangements (i.e., strategic sourcing contracts) and in several requests for proposals. Finally, we expect to meet our solid waste diversion target of 60%, based on preliminary data, to be confirmed by audits in 2007.
For the second goal, we furthered our commitment to offer sustainable service delivery. We increased the availability of electronic services to the public and reduced the paper burden on taxpayers. For example, participation in electronic filing for individual (T1) returns has grown each year since 2001. Our efforts to increase electronic services were noticed by the public, 47% of whom agreed that the CRA did a good job promoting its paper-saving options to taxpayers[Footnote 3]. We defined sustainability criteria for partnership arrangements to be included in the 2007 version of the Developer's Guide for Collaborative Written Arrangements. Finally, we piloted a sustainable business travel course with internal auditors.
For the third goal to engage employees, we improved our communications and achieved greater commitment and buy-in from managers and employees. We promoted three national events annually—Earth Day, Environment Week, and Waste Reduction Week. We redeveloped our paper use, solid waste, and sustainable development Web sites into one all-inclusive site for employees and managers. We developed a Sustainable Development Innovation Fund for employees, and launched it in 2006. We integrated sustainable development into the Management/Gestion (MG) training course, and all new MG managers were trained on sustainable development in the workplace. Also, we exceeded our leadership target for our Executive Cadre (EC) and MGs to include commitments to sustainable development in their performance agreements.
For the fourth goal to use modern systems, we completed our framework for managing sustainable development and moved to a fully electronic reporting system. We further integrated sustainable development into our Corporate Business Plan. We were successful in developing sustainability criteria for programs, policies, plans and partnerships. We also used the criteria in several key corporate guidance documents, such as the new Project Management Framework, Guidance on Policy Writing manual, and various operational policies, such as the Travel Policy.
Assessments and lessons learned
We began our assessment by reviewing the operating environment during our 2004-2007 strategy. During this period, there was considerable organizational change in our branches and regions, which caused administrative difficulties in planning and reporting on the sustainable development program. In some cases, however, the re-organization presented new opportunities for integrating sustainable development into new programs and plans.
Next, we reviewed the recommendations and follow-up actions from the 2003 internal audit on sustainable development, and conducted a self-assessment. We looked for areas of strength to build upon, and areas of weakness for improvement.
The 2004-2007 strategy had many strengths. It had a strong logic model that linked activities to long-term outcomes. It had a strong performance reporting system in place, which will be updated to keep pace with the maturing sustainable development program. We also sustained much-needed senior management support and maintained a well-functioning SD Steering Committee with SD Champions at the Assistant Commissioner level.
We identified some key areas for improvement, such as the need to strengthen the SD Network and SD committees[Footnote 4]. It is important that all the members of the network be fully engaged and trained, since our performance is directly affected by their work. We need to conduct deeper consultations with our branches and regions to identify opportunities to further integrate sustainable development into our business. Finally, we need to increase the pace of integrating sustainability criteria into CRA programs, policies, plans, and partnerships.
As part of our self-assessment, we mapped our progress from the December 1997 strategy to the present, on 14 issues and/or areas of impact at the CRA: office paper, solid waste management, fleet management, green procurement, halocarbons, hazardous materials, building energy, employee business travel, employee commuting from home to work, leadership from managers for sustainable development, employee engagement in sustainable development, strengthening the framework for sustainable development, taxpayer/business communications and publications, and a CRA report card for sustainable development. We assessed the full scope of each issue and determined future plans. To do this assessment, we used a tool called a maturity globe, which enabled us to identify the level of completion of our issues as either 1) ad hoc, 2) baseline, 3) manage, 4) innovate, or 5) optimize. We determined that the status of all of our issues fell between the first three maturity levels, and that none of our issues had achieved a truly innovative or optimized state. This mapping exercise also demonstrated how sustainable development is a long-term commitment and that we must stay the course. For more information on our achievements since 1997, see Appendix 3.
Next, we assessed the effectiveness of our communications activities by surveying three groups: employees, the SD Network, and the public.
In terms of internal communications, we made great strides in engaging employees. A national survey revealed that 7 out of 10 employees felt they had some familiarity with sustainable development. A survey of the members of the SD Network revealed a 76% satisfaction rate with the SD Division's services in helping them to implement action plans for sustainable development.
As a result of our products, services, and general communications to the public, we achieved a relatively positive public image for sustainable development. Based on a public opinion survey[Footnote 5], 42% of the public believed that the CRA is committed to pursuing sustainable development through environmentally responsible operations and service delivery. We also learned that we could still do more to communicate to the public, since 79% of the public believed that the CRA should do more to inform them about its sustainable development initiatives.
In summary, we found that our 2004-2007 strategy was sound and served to advance the CRA's sustainable development agenda, and that there were three keys factors to our success with the strategy. Firstly, we had a good framework in place. Secondly, senior management supported the strategy. Thirdly, we stayed focused on, and followed through with, our action plan, bringing us closer to achieving our long-term outcomes. In addition, where we identified areas of improvement, we addressed them in the 2007-2010 strategy.
Please visit the sustainable development page on the CRA Web site for more information on its annual performance on sustainable development: www.cra.gc.ca/sds
Footnotes
- [Footnote 3]
- The statistic was taken from the EKOS' Rethinking Government 2005 (Wave 3) syndicated study.
- [Footnote 4]
- The SD Network includes representatives from all branches and regions of the CRA. The SD committees support the work of the SD Network.
- [Footnote 5]
- The statistic was taken from the EKOS' Rethinking Government 2005 (Wave 3) syndicated study.
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