Sustainability

An open participatory conceptual framework to support State of the
Environment and Sustainability Reportsq
Tomás B. Ramos a, *, Ivone P. Martins b
, Ana Paula Martinho c, d
, Calbert H. Douglas e
,
Marco Painho f
, Sandra Caeiro a, c
a
CENSE, Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, Departamento de Ciências e Engenharia do Ambiente, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus da Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
b
Biodiversity Group, European Environment Agency, Kongens Nytorv 6, 1050 Copenhagen K, Denmark
c
Departamento de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Aberta, R. Escola Politecnica, n
141, 1269-001 Lisboa, Portugal
d
UIED, Research Unit on Education and Development, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus da Caparica, 2829-516
Caparica, Portugal
e
School of Environment Life Sciences, College of Science and Technology, University of Salford, Greater Manchester M5 4WT, United Kingdom
f
ISEGI-NOVA, Instituto Superior de Estatística e Gestão da Informação, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus de Campolide, 1070-312 Lisboa, Portugal
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 2 February 2013
Received in revised form
29 August 2013
Accepted 29 August 2013
Available online 6 September 2013
Keywords:
Reporting framework
Communication
State of the environment
Sustainable development
Stakeholder’s engagement
Public participation
a b s t r a c t
It is fundamental to monitor, evaluate and report the state of the environment at global and local levels, to
better implement sustainable development principles and practices. The State of the Environment and
Sustainability Reports should be written in an understandable and accessible way for stakeholders and also
be developed from the beginning with its involvement and participation. Despite several initiatives that
refer public engagement in State of the Environment and Sustainability Reports, from the national to the
corporate levels, usually the participatory approaches are restricted to consultations of key actors. They do
not explore the role that could be played by stakeholders as part of the report staff, from designing to
production and reviewing. The aim of this research is to develop a conceptual framework to support open
participatory, interactive and adaptive State of the Environment and Sustainability Reports, where the
stakeholders’ involvement (non-experts and experts) will effectively contribute to the design, data gath-
ering and evaluations produced in the reports. The proposed open participatory approach will support the
design and implementation of a collaborative report. The stakeholders’ assessment of the State of the
Environment and Sustainability Reports can also be used as an indirect way for formal results evaluation,
allowing for cross-validation. The paper analyses and explores two practices of regular and formal State of
the Environment reports: the “European Environment e State and Outlook (transnational scale) and the
“Portuguese State of the Environment Report” (national scale). In both reporting initiatives, the partici-
patory approaches in the design and production of the reports are weak or inexistent and many times
merely formal. A set of steps and procedures, embedded in a formal framework, is proposed for adoption in
the both initiatives. The proposed framework should be implemented through gradually and prioritised
steps to mitigate practical difficulties, due to the complexity of institutional reporting processes. The open
participatory State of the Environment and Sustainability Report will represent a joint commitment among
stakeholders for active reporting development with new information and knowledge. Rethinking tradi-
tional reporting and related participatory approaches can move the State of the Environment and Sus-
tainability Reports to a new stage of evolution: a continuous updating of information. In this process, data
and information will come from formal and informal sources and, stakeholders can scrutinize each other’s
participation and increase the overall content and quality of the collaborative disclosures.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
It is essential to periodically monitor and evaluate the state of
the environment, the socio-economic systems, and their institu-
tional framework to achieve sustainable development. This re-
quires an interdisciplinary approach, integrating the natural and
q The views and opinions expressed in this article are shared by the authors and
do not reflect an official position of the European Environment Agency.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ351 212948397; fax: þ351 212948554.
E-mail addresses: tabr@fct.unl.pt (T.B. Ramos), Ivone.PereiraMartins@
eea.europa.eu (I.P. Martins), aptm@uab.pt (A.P. Martinho), C.H.Douglas@
salford.ac.uk (C.H. Douglas), painho@isegi.unl.pt (M. Painho), scaeiro@uab.pt
(S. Caeiro).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Cleaner Production
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro
0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.08.038
Journal of Cleaner Production 64 (2014) 158e172

social sciences, in order to provide early-warning indicators, as well
as timely identification of probable sources of stress. This infor-
mation is provided by the State of the Environment and Sustain-
ability (SoES) reports at the global, sub-global and national levels
(Rapport and Singh, 2006). SoES reports are a key instrument in
supporting the design, implementation and evaluation of envi-
ronmental policy. They also allow the monitoring of development
policies and strategies for environmental integration in economic
sectors.
The achievement of the aims of these reports requires a con-
ceptual framework within which the assessment is carried out. This
framework must take into account a multitude of non-linear causal
links from human activities, through environmental pressures,
states and impacts, to political responses to the perceived problem
(EEA, 1999c). SoES reports should then enhance communication to
the public and policy makers to make the necessary connections
between human activity, the state of the environment, and human
well-being (Rapport and Singh, 2006).
Published studies covering official environmental reporting are
quite scarce when compared to corporate environmental annual
reports. The latter follow several guidelines, such as the Global
Reporting Initiatives Guidelines (GRI, 2013), the ISO 14031 (ISO,
1999) and ISO 14063 (ISO, 2006) standards (see a review about
sustainability reporting guidelines in Lozano and Huisingh, 2011;
Lozano, 2013). However, there is recognition that government ac-
tion and leadership is the most important driver in the adoption of
sustainability reporting (Lynch, 2010). For the case of State of
Environmental Reports, intergovernmental organizations have
been publishing several guidelines in the last decades, mainly
focussing the national-country level, like for example the European
Environment Agency (EEA) (e.g. EEA,1999a; EEA,1999b; EEA, 2000;
EEA, 2005a), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD, 1991, 1993 and 2003), the United Nations
Environmental Program (UNEP/DEIA, 1996; UNEP/SustainAbility,
1997), among many others.
Governmental and intergovernmental agencies have been
acknowledging the benefits of involving stakeholders, including
citizens in their environmental decision making processes. These
include processes related with planning, management, assessment
and reporting. This acceptance has been driven by citizens who
demand a greater role in shaping the decisions that affect their
well-being (Charnley and Engelbert, 2005) and recognised by
environmental policies and respective legal instruments. As
defined by Freeman (1984), stakeholders are those who are affected
by the choices and actions that decision makers take, and who has
the power to influence their outcome.
Several distinct world-wide examples have shown that active
public engagement in environmental policymaking processes,
including citizen-based monitoring, is increasing, is effective and
successful (Diemonta et al., 2011; Geibler et al., 2010; Jankowski,
2009; Reed, 2008; Hunsberger et al., 2005). Danielsen et al.
(2010), highlight that involving local stakeholders in monitoring
increases the speed of decision-making to tackle environmental
challenges at operational levels of resource management. Never-
theless several factors can affect this effectiveness, if not properly
conducted (Luyet et al., 2012). Stakeholders theory and appropriate
analysis methods should be taken in to account for participatory
research and practices, following the fundamentals and recom-
mendations stated by Freeman (1984) and Reed et al. (2009), the
later in the particular context of environmental management and
decision making processes.
According to the Global Reporting Initiative directed primarily
towards business, the multi-stakeholder process allows partici-
pants to articulate their principal concerns with regard to sus-
tainability performance and incorporate emerging new issues.
Participation facilitates a broadly based societal dialogue and
indirectly contributes to the policy agenda (Brown et al., 2009).
Stakeholder involvement is considered as a part of the social
dimension within the sustainability reports (Lozano and Huising,
2011).
Although corporate sustainability reporting with stakeholders
engagement is a growing good practice (see for example Lozano,
2013), EEA (2000) stresses that for the national or transnational
levels, the State of the Environment (SoE)1
Reports are usually not
supported by a collaborative stakeholders-based approach, with
volunteer contributions, for data selection, gathering and assess-
ment. This EEA work mainly divides the SoE reports according to
their foremost potential users or target-audience (policy makers,
media, general public and environmental stakeholders) leading to
different report formats, such as a background report, a summary
report, a web version, and an educational package. It is also stressed
in EEA (2000), that SoE reports still differ widely from one country to
another in their structure and content, depending on the national
environmental values and priorities, social-cultural, economic and
governance-institutional conditions, such as traditions, environ-
mental policies and goals, cultural heritage or political systems.
Also, the EEA (1999b) stressed that the purpose of SoE reports is
‘to support decision making through the provision of credible
environmental information’. UNEP/DEIA (1996) underlines the key
good characteristics of these reports. However, none of those as-
pects included any reference to stakeholders’ engagement for
reporting. Similarly, the recommendations for institutional ar-
rangements for SoE reports, stated by EEA (1999c), does not give
any particular importance to community-based approaches. An
exception is made in the acknowledgement of the existence of the
network of institutions, beyond the public agencies, and their role
in the production of SoE reports. More recently this situation is
starting to change. The preparation of a few global and regional
reports, has clearly considered involvement of different stake-
holders, although still with a low degree of empowerment and only
engaged in a specific stage or theme of the report. Examples include
agencies and NGO’s, such as: i) the Millennium Ecosystem Assess-
ment (MEA, 2005); ii) the Assessment of Assessments of the State of
the Marine Environment (UNEO/IOC-UNESCO, 2009); iii) the fifth
Global Environment Outlook (UNEP, 2011) or the Global Biodiver-
sity Outlook 3 (SCBD, 2010); iv) the EEA SOE report 2010 (EEA,
2010); and v) the Europe’s environment e An Assessment of As-
sessments (EE-AoA) report (so called the Astana Report) in support
of the 2011 ’Environment for Europe’ Ministerial Conference in
Astana, (EEA, 2011).
Despite the developed works on environmental and sustain-
ability reporting previously mentioned, in particular for corporate
level, there is a dearth of research on conceptual frameworks,
methods and practices that deal with open and community joint
reports at national or transnational levels. In fact, the reality
context for state reporting of countries or regions, including
stakeholder analysis and practices, are quite different compared to
the limited boundaries of corporate organizations. Therefore, active
public participation and collaboration with stakeholders in the
design and production of SoES reports is still missing and remains
mainly an underexplored issue. The adjustment of existing
participatory techniques for new challenging contexts of SoES
reporting processes should be further explored and investigated.
Stakeholder’s role should go beyond the checking and comment on
1
For the national-country level, the literature often mentions only the envi-
ronment dimension to identify this kind of reports: “State of the Environment
Report”. Despite this, the report contents could include social and economic as-
pects, besides environment.
T.B. Ramos et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 64 (2014) 158e172 159

these processes, but become part of “volunteer reporting staff”,
contributing to design, data gathering and evaluation. It is expected
that the same success obtained from stakeholders engagement in
several environmental decision making processes, could also
happen in the field of SoES reporting.
The main aim of this research is to propose a conceptual
framework to support open participatory, interactive and adaptive
SoES reports, where the stakeholders’ involvement (non-experts
and experts) will effectively contribute to the assessments included
in the reports. In this paper we concentrate on the processes used
to create the reports rather than on their content. After the pre-
sentation of the framework, a set of steps and procedures is pro-
posed for adoption in two selected initiatives, national (Portugal)
and transnational scales (European), and the usefulness and
applicability to the reality discussed.
2. Methodological approach for the open participatory
conceptual framework to SoES reporting
A conceptual framework to support an open participatory,
interactive and adaptive SoES reports is proposed. It aims at
improving the quality and communication of these reporting pro-
cesses and documents. One of the main assumptions of this
approach is that stakeholders’ engagement (non-experts, experts,
including lays, general citizens, public and private organizations,
non-governmental organizations, universities, media and research
institutions) could effectively contribute to the assessment pro-
duced in these formal reports, usually managed and prepared by
public agencies. Therefore, stakeholder’s role is a central dimension
of this framework and it is mainly grounded in the rationale, ty-
pology and methods for stakeholder’s analysis and recommenda-
tions detailed by Reed (2008) and Reed et al. (2009). An open
participatory approach produces a collaborative report, similar to a
“wiki development”, with referees, which will be in charge of data
quality control, managing and assuring a credible report.
This approach is designed on the assumption that we could have
two types of monitoring, evaluation and communication initiatives
to support the SoES reports: formal, which is mainly lead by the
public agencies and reflect mandatory or official procedures to obtain
SoES reports, and the informal, mainly represented by voluntary, ad-
hoc, non-regular, or private initiatives (facts and figures, views, ideas,
desires, needs and/or perceptions about their territories), conducted
by different types of stakeholders and purposes, and that were not
developed to specifically respond to SoES report needs.
The proposed approach is structured in three main dimensions,
which support the Open Participatory SoES report (see Figs.1 and 2):
Reporting scheme, phases and procedures e defines the gen-
eral reporting process;
Informal SoES reporting inputs: initiatives and tools e estab-
lishes the type of methods or procedures that can used to
obtain informal data;
Internal reporting structure and spatial scope e identifies
possible tracks for the internal structure and organization of
the report.
Each one of these dimensions will be characterized in the
following Sections (2.1e2.3), giving the support to the main prin-
ciples, components, flows and relations within the framework.
2.1. Reporting scheme, phases and procedures
The production of a SoES report encompasses several steps
starting from the definition of objectives and scope to the final
publication and follow-up (Fig. 1). The steps are managed and
conducted by technical staff from governmental agencies, often-
times with the support of private or academic-research institutions.
It is proposed that stakeholders act, support and collaborate going
past their previous role as a key target-audience or user. As many
other community-based approaches, the reporting framework
Open
Participatory
SoES Report
1. Planning
and
Conceptualization
2. Implementation
and
Communication
3. Operation and
Action
4. Reviewing and
Updating
Formal data
collection,
processing
and treatment
Management
and design:
objectives and
policies
scoping
Outcomes
interpretation,
and
institutional
responses
Overall utility,
accuracy,
validity,
feasibility,
improving and
updating
Stakeholders
engagement
Stakeholders
engagement
Stakeholders
engagement
Stakeholders
engagement
Participative-
adaptive
management
and
governance
Informal new
data
collection,
assessment
and cross-
validation
Participative
actions and
informal
measures
Collaborative
surveillance,
revision and
updating
Formal data and information Informal data and information
Fig. 1. Open participatory SoES Report cycle e main steps, flows and characteristics.
T.B. Ramos et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 64 (2014) 158e172160

proposed in this paper is based upon the participation of interested
parties in a collaborative and adaptive development of the desired
product e the open participatory SoES report. This will be reflected
in the stakeholders engagement in the various life cycle phases of a
report publication and review. The stakeholders add, adapt and
improve each report step through informal initiatives (Fig. 1). Both
formal and informal data should be fully integrated in one single
cycle that overlaps the different phases of the SoES report, leading
to an open participatory framework.
Therefore, this suggested framework assumes that informal
actions of environmental and sustainability data selection, collec-
tion or evaluation, conducted by stakeholders, can cover the
different phases of the reporting life cycle, complementing the
formal data and information flows (Fig. 1):
Phase 1 Planning and Conceptualization: define report con-
tents and structure; identify authors and editors; prepare outline of
each chapter.
Open participatory procedure e adopt a participative-adaptive
management and governance, contributing to define the SoES
report scope and design, selecting prioritizing issues, through an
adaptive/flexible governance model for reporting.
Phase 2 Implementation and Communication: include the
whole process of data collection (data gathered from different types
of sources, including field and repositories), processing, treatment
and assessment, which will result in drafting the different report
sections, followed by the final edition and publication.
Open participatory procedure e integrate informal data collec-
tion, and use assessment cross validation, through:
- Providing new data or information collection, allowing new
assessment conducted by the stakeholders themselves or
co-supported by the report technical staff; this new data
collection can include citizen science activities and
collection of lay, local and traditional knowledge. Also,
monitoring outcomes of research projects, technical reports
and environmental assessment and control initiatives
conducted by private companies on their facilities sur-
rounding areas. This can be achieved within, for example,
sustainability reporting or environmental assessment
follow-up.
- Making analysis or assessment of the formal thematic issues
covered by the assessment provided by the report, according to
their knowledge background and perceptions (e.g. through an
easy qualitative scale of positive and negative trends for each of
the main thematic issues analysed). The stakeholders’ assess-
ments of the state of environment and sustainability can also
be used as an indirect way of formal results evaluation allowing
a cross-validation process.
Phase 3 Operation and Action: identify the report outcomes
interpretation and responses by the target-audience or users,
including the different society and policy actors. This stage assumes
that reports should induce post-reactions through operations and
actions to respond to the environmental and sustainability weak-
nesses or strengths reported.
Open participatory procedure e participate in actions and
informal measures, through:
- Proposing responses and measures to improve the environ-
mental conditions communicated by the SoES report, namely
through household behaviours changes and practices, more
community involvement in volunteer monitoring and
Formal SoES Report
(technical and
systematic approach)
Informal SoES
Report inputs
(voluntary or private)
Initiatives
Household/individual data
acquisition and evaluation
Community voluntary data
collection and assessments
NGO projects
Corporate data collection,
assessment and reporting
Education and academic
research projects
Tools for informal data
integration
Collaborative data uploads
Crowd sourcing
Social networks
Mailing list
Participative workshops
Focus groups meetings
Brainstorming
Mind maps
PRA
PPGIS
Interviews
Questionnaires
Self-assessment checklists
Participatory modeling and
scenarios
.
Open Participatory
SoES Report
(stakeholders-based
approach)
Reporting Geographic Unit
and Temporal Context
Fig. 2. The development track of an open participatory SoES Report.

surveillance actions or putting their territorial knowledge and
sensitivity for solving geographically specific issues.
Phase 4 Follow-up Updating and Reviewing: produce the re-
view and update of the report content and development process.
Open participatory procedure e adopt collaborative surveillance,
revision and updating, through:
- Adding insights to produce a collaborative surveillance of the
report development process, namely the revision and updating
of the SoES report contents and of the entire process of
reporting, allowing the continuous improvement of the
reporting cycle. This collaborative surveillance also foresees the
integration of the aspects of outreach and awareness raising. As
Wells (2003) stresses, SoES reports exist, and are being planned
or prepared, but are the intended audiences known? Are the
reports recognized for their many value-added benefits during
preparation, and are they being used effectively when
completed? Those are important questions that the users
should evaluate.
The two first phases of the formal reporting cycle were partially
identified by EEA (1999a, b) when analysing the institutional ar-
rangements for the state of the environment reporting and to some
extent analysed by OECD (1991 and 1993), but without any special
focus on the stakeholder engagement in the different stages of
reporting.
The points raised by USEPA (1995) for their conceptual frame-
work for an environmental information system, could also be
adapted for the current proposed reporting approach, to justify
why it is needed, namely: i) link existing environment and sus-
tainability related data to policy, management and stakeholders
needs; ii) integrate data sets on a geographic basis to support
ecosystem-based decision-making and community engagement;
iii) identify duplication and gaps in existing information collection
and assessment efforts; iv) strive to integrate the scientific, legal/
regulatory, and philosophical and community-based paradigms
that underlie information generation and use; and v) provide a
motivation for the development of new data and indicators to fill
gaps.
2.2. Informal SoES reporting inputs: initiatives and tools
As pointed out earlier, in order to produce an open participatory
SoES report, the formal and traditional SoES report, usually already
in place, should incorporate the contributions from non-regular
voluntary and private initiatives. Regarding the informal data
sources and flows, these actions could range from individual or
households to global level, and could include householder’s data
acquisition, from citizen science projects, community voluntary
data collection, environmental NGO projects, corporate data
collection, assessment and reporting, education and academic
research projects (Fig. 2). Web technology can help the incorpora-
tion of this data and information.
To drive the integration of stakeholder’s contributions from the
different voluntary initiatives into the report, several tools could be
used, as synthesized in Fig. 2: i) computer systems for collaborative
data uploads e raw treated and analysed data e and mailing lists
for data exchange; ii) participative workshops, focus groups,
brainstorming meetings and mind maps (e.g. to define report ob-
jectives and scope); iii) more technical and computer demanding
tools like crowd sourcing including social networks, wikis, visual-
ization techniques such as drawing and mapping and Public
Participation using Geographic Information System (PPGIS) or
participatory modelling and scenarios; iv) data input through
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools for lay and traditional
knowledge data input and gathering; v) interviews and question-
naires surveys or self-assessment checklists (e.g. to identify envi-
ronmental pressures and/or to produce state evaluations). The use
of each type of contribution and tools for informal data integration
should be decided for each particular reporting cycle phase, ac-
cording to the appropriateness for each specific report situation
and degree of involvement provided by each participatory tool or
technique (see the review presented by Reed et al., 2009; Luyet
et al., 2012).
CA (2000) highlighted the importance of participative tools
within environmental reporting and Hughey et al. (2004) stress
that surveys to stakeholders are a useful tool for linking perceptions
data into SoE reporting. It also helps identify policy issues where
perceptions do not match other scientific evidence or management
initiatives. These different tools for informal data integration have
been proved to be effective within environmental decision making
processes, such as for data gathering from: participative work-
shops, focus groups and brainstorming (e.g. Hove, 2000; Gregory
and Wellman, 2001; Fagerström et al., 2003; Charnley and
Engelbert, 2005); PPGIS (e.g. Jankowski, 2009; Anderson et al.,
2009; Green, 2010); participatory modelling and scenarios
(Fagerström et al., 2003; Whitfield and Reed, 2012), PRA (e.g.
Fagerström et al., 2003), community networks (e.g. Whitelaw et al.,
2003), game theory (Lozano, 2011), and interviews and question-
naire surveys (e.g. Gregory and Wellman, 2001; Fagerström et al.,
2003; Charnleya and Engelbert, 2005; Hunsberger et al., 2005;
Diemont et al., 2011). The main findings of the above mentioned-
authors (from climate change global issues to more local ones
like conservation, planning, management or impact assessment)
can support adaptions and specific applications for SoES reports. In
particular, with the emergence of crowd sourcing methodologies
and social networks it is now expected that citizens and organi-
zations may be able to check the data for completion and quality as
well as to contribute with information themselves in a process that
has been called in the geographic information systems world e
Voluntary Geographic Information (VGI) (Goodchild, 2007). Crowd
sourcing offers the opportunity to do more than simply provide a
neat oneline interface to human reasoning and judgement. It offers
the opportunity to discover effective problem solving strategies
(Corney et al., 2010). In these processes data and information can be
provided from very diverse sources and consequently can be
scrutinized by all the members of the interested community
including the traditional official information providers.
2.3. Internal reporting structure and spatial scope
Regardless of the report contents or scope, several different
approaches could be used to structure and organize the final Open
Participatory SoES reports, such as by thematic domain or by the
main dimensions of sustainability, by type of raw data or data
producer, by causality chains frameworks (e.g. pressure-state-
response) among others available in the literature (e.g. UNEP/
DEIA, 1996; EEA, 1999c; OECD, 1991; 1993; 2003; Rapport and
Singh, 2006; or see the review on indicator frameworks pre-
sented by Ramos et al. (2004)).
Reporting data should be tailored to each Reporting Geographic
Unit (RGU) and temporal context, covering transnational, national,
regional or local scope (Fig. 2). An RGU can include ecosystems (e.g.
estuaries, mangroves, grasslands), administrative units (e.g. mu-
nicipalities, regions, countries or multinational organizations) and
analytic spatial scales (e.g. defined by technical criteria, such as
homogeneous areas of population density), adopted independently
or combined. Since reports cannot disclose everything within a
given territory and theme, the mentioned collaborative scoping

report priorities to identify the most appropriate thematic envi-
ronmental and sustainability issues and respective indicators,
should be conducted with stakeholders aiming different RGU.
Therefore, stakeholder’s information needs per RGU must also be a
central element in this process.
The formal and informal data can include various kinds of
quantitative and qualitative information, such as spatially refer-
enced data, statistics, model outputs, but should be mainly
centered on the use of indicators and indices.
The technical staff to assure the standardization between formal
and informal outputs and to evaluate the robustness and quality of
the informal contributions should coordinate a peer review
process.
3. European and national levels reporting
Europe has been a good example where practices of SoE reports
have been conducted periodically in the last two decades within
the European Environmental Agency policy and activities. Within
European countries, Portugal has also a long experience in
reporting yearly SoE reports due to the mandatory national envi-
ronmental law published 25 years ago (Law n. 11/87 of 7th April).
Also, the Portuguese reporting experience includes a pioneer
multimedia interactive kit developed with the information of the
report to improve the access and availably of the report to the
public and several other attempts to rethink the existing reporting
approaches (several proposals presented in APA, 2008). Due to
these reasons these two initiatives, at a national (Portugal) and
transnational (European), were selected and characterized (in sub-
chapter 3.2 and 3.3) to evaluate the applicability and usefulness of
the proposed framework (main steps and procedures explained in
sub-chapter 3.3).
3.1. The European Environment e State and Outlook Report
3.1.1. Objective and scope
The “European Environment e State and Outlook Report” (SOE)
is the EEA’s flagship product and the only mandatory according to
the EEA founding Regulation of 1990. The scope of such a publi-
cation fulfils the need to “publish a report on the state of, trends in
and prospects for the environment every five years, supplemented
by indicator reports focussing upon specific issues” (Art2, vi).
Until today four European SOE reports have been produced by
the EEA with a five-year periodicity. They represent different steps
of maturity within environmental policy developments, data and
information handling and publication technology and, corre-
spondingly, differ in their structure and conceptual model that, as
in national cases, has been evolving since the first SOE report
prepared by OECD as early as 1979 and the guidelines for SOE
reporting products as issued by OECD in support of the Environ-
ment policy reviews (OECD, 1991). The countries themselves based
on guidelines prepared by EEA and discussed and accepted by the
countries prepared all country assessments.
To define the scope and scale of the European SOE report,
reference has to be made to the scope and scale of the EEA as a
network organisation based on a new paradigm of European or-
ganisations that emerged at the end of the 80’s. The European
Environment Information and Observation Network (EIONET)2
and
its supporting cluster of countries and institutions, parallels the
EEA. The EIONET aims to provide timely and quality-assured data,
information and expertise for assessing the state of the environ-
ment in Europe and the pressures acting upon it and is supported
by an extensive information technology infrastructure (referred to
as e-Eionet). This partnership is crucial to the EEA in supporting the
collection and organisation of data and the development and
dissemination of information. This information serves directly to
support environmental policymaking and assessment, and indi-
rectly environmental management processes, and public partici-
pation and awareness at national, European and global levels. This
forms the basis of integrated environmental assessments and
knowledge as a main output from the EEA activity, of which the SOE
report series is one of the most visible products.
As discussed above, the four SOE report series produced so far
have evolved in content and format. However its governance is still
based on the use of EIONET as the main provider of data and in-
formation and as a platform for extended consultation among
partners. The main lines of each of the SOE reports can be sum-
marised in Table 1.
3.1.2. Public participation process
None of the published SOE reports had a direct public input (see
Table 1). The participatory process includes the countries and
supra-national organisations. Nevertheless in the last 2010 report,
some of the indicators are supported by citizen collaboration: one
specific case is the Birds Indicator, both a Streamlining European
2010 Biodiversity Indicators (SEBI) 2010 (EEA, 2009) and Core Set of
Indicators produced by a global NGO e Birdlife e (and its regional
European hub) that guarantees the collection, aggregation and
quality checking and constitutes a platform for integration of citi-
zen science. The use of the SOE report portal in 2010 enhanced the
degree and quality of NGO, country and citizen participation, as
well as the further inclusion of comments and materials.
3.2. The Portuguese State of the Environment Report
3.2.1. Objectives and scope
The main objective of the Portuguese SoE report is to assess and
communicate the state of the environment in the country. The SoE
report is an informative tool important for support the definition,
execution and assessment of environmental policy, allowing the
monitoring of policies and strategies of environmental integration
in economic activity sectors (APA, 2008). In accordance with what
is established in the environmental law, every year a State of the
Environment Report in Portugal is presented to the parliament. The
Ministry responsible for environmental issues publishes this report.
From 1987 the SoE report has developed from extensive,
detailed and non-standardized reports, to more intelligible and
synthetic models (Table 2). The use of indicators in environmental
reports has improved the effectiveness of these instruments, and
contributed to their overall performance. This is true in particular,
for communication and engagement of stakeholders and also
allowing a systematic and comparative reading of SoE report from
previous years. The indicators system has been used in SoE report
since 1996, integrated into the full version of SoE report, with a
wide range of indicators and in the SoE pocket book format pub-
lished with just the more meaningful indicators for policy makers
and general public (headline indicators3
). The main lines of the
several Portuguese SoE reports published until present can be
summarised in Table 2.2
The EIONET is a partnership network of the EEA and its member and cooper-
ating countries. It consists of the EEA itself, six European Topic Centres (ETCs) and a
network of around 1000 experts from 39 countries in over 350 national environ-
ment agencies and other bodies dealing with environmental information. These are
the National Focal Points (NFPs) and the National Reference Centres (NRCs).
3
The headline indicators are a sub-domain of the indicator core set destined to
communicate with decision-makers and the general public, and to report often.

Table 1
Information about the four European SoE Report (Based on EEA, 1995, 1999d, 2005b and 2010).
Year Structure and conceptual model Communication Public participation Thematic scope and further information
Environment in the
European Union
1995
-Indicator sets organized in Pressures, Human ac-
tivities and Problems;
-Targets and themes of the 5EAP.
-Report divided in five parts:
Part I e executive summary;
Part II e introduction and structure of the report;
Part III e societal developments and driving forces;
Part IV e environmental themes and topics;
Part V e integration economy and environment.
-Report published in printing
format.
-No direct public input.
-The target and themes were con-
ducted through a number of
consultants.
-The report was reviewed by the
Scientific Committee of the Agency
and technical comments were
received from the Commission.
-The 12 environmental themes are: Climate change, ozone
depletion, acidification, air pollution and quality; waste
management, urban issues, inland water resources, coastal
zones and marine water, risk management, soil quality,
nature and biodiversity.
-This SoE report contributed to the midterm review of the
Fifth Environmental Action Programme (5EAP), completed
by the end of 1996.
-The format of the report, the timing and the process by
which it was developed and executed, was decided in
cooperation with the Commission (than DG XI).
-Data were provided by the Statistical Office of the Euro-
pean Communities (Eurostat), the World Bank, United Na-
tions Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE),
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA),
Coordination Center for Effects at RIVM (UNECE) and the
European Commission (DG XI).
Environment in the
European Union
at the turn of the
century 1999
-Indicators set along the DPSIR framework (Driving
forces, Pressures, State; Impacts, Responses e
RIVM, 1995), for describing the relations between
the origins and consequences of environmental
problems, and to understand their dynamics,
-The development of the report was supported by
the first structured data collection done within the
EIONET through the Priority Dataflows assessing
progress in 12 thematic areas.
format and some parts available
on-line.
-No direct public input.
-The report preparation was sup-
ported by a wide consultation pro-
cess among EIONET partners (NFP
and NRC).
-The 12 environmental problems are: greenhouse gases and
climate change, ozone-depleting substances, dispersion of
hazardous substances, transboundary air pollution, water
stress, soil degradation, waste generation and management,
natural and technological hazards, genetically modified
organisms, human health issues, changes and loss of
biodiversity.
-The adoption of the DSPIR introduced a clear structure into
the Report while allowing for interlinkages between ele-
ments of the causal chain.
The European
environment e
State and
Outlook 2005
-A modular approach is used;
-A EEA Core Set of Indicators previously established
was used for the European assessment and also in
country profiles.
The modular approach was introduced within the
mains volume divided in:
Part A e Integrated assessment;
Part B e Core set of indicators;
Part C e Country analysis;
Part D - Bibliography.
format and available on-line.
-Translation in all languages for
part B. For Part A the translation
was made upon requested into
8 languages.
-This report had a launch event
at the European Parliament to
secure the necessary outreach
to the EU institutions and was
followed by country launches
until mid 2006 securing the link
to the national audiences.
-No direct public input
-Parts A to C had its own EIONET
consultation (NFP and NRC), the
same occurring with each of the
complementary reports. The com-
plementary reports were developed
with the support of Advisory Boards
supporting the integration and
validation of information from
outside the EEA systems.
-The selected themes are: Understanding climate change;
Mitigating climate change; Adapting to climate change;
Biodiversity; Land use; Soil; Marine and coastal environ-
ment; Water resources: quantity and flows; Freshwater
quality; Air pollution; Urban environment; Consumption
and the environment; Material resources and waste.
-A number of complementary reports were independently
prepared and published but supported the SoE report
analysis. These reports were prepared on environment and
Health, European environment Outlooks, Transport and
Environment, Vulnerability and adaptation to climate
change, Sustainable Use of Natural Resources, Household
consumption and environment, agriculture and environ-
ment, Urban sprawl in Europe, Progress towards halting the
loss of biodiversity by 2010, Effectiveness of urban waste
water treatment policies, effectiveness of packaging man-
agement systems and Market Based Instruments for Envi-
ronmental Policy in Europe.
The European
environment -
State and
outlook 2010
-The structure consists of four core elements:
Synthesis
Part A - provides a long-term explorative, cross-
cutting assessment of key global mega-trends that
might have implications for the European
environmental policy context, and our ability to
manage natural resources in a sustainable manner;
Part B - provides Europe-wide assessments of key
environmental themes that integrate economic and
social driving forces, scan the global impacts of
format and available on-line.
-A web platform was used to
both manage the different ver-
sions of different components
of the report as well as to facil-
itate the consultation processes.
-This SoE 2010 portal is
currently a repository of rele-
vant information, constituted a
planning tool for report
-No direct public input
-Each of the 3 parts of the report
had a EIONET consultation(NFP and
NRC), while the Synthesis and part
A were also discussed with the EEA
Management Board and Scientific
Committee.
-The synthesis provides a short assessment primarily based
on issues raised in Parts A, B and C and complemented by
key findings from other EEA activities, most notably those
related to the precautionary principle and green economy.
T.B.Ramosetal./JournalofCleanerProduction64(2014)158e172164

The Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) ensures collection,
processing and analysis of environmental information and annually
coordinates the elaboration of the SoE report. APA has the support
of an institutional network of focal points to exchange information
on the environment, and who provide, update and validate specific
topics.
The choice and treatment of the themes was intended not only
to reflect areas with policy relevance, especially those that are
explicit in policy documents, but also potential priority areas for
action by decision makers. Whenever possible the data series are
reported by the end of each year under review. The report also
includes the performance of Portugal within the European Union
context (APA, 2008).
In the context of the Portuguese SoE report, the length and
complexity associated with the production/availability of data, as
well as insufficient or inadequate spatial and temporal coverage of
some of the monitoring networks, has contributed to a less than
ideal performance in assessing and reporting of the environment in
Portugal. Nevertheless it has been a very useful tool to gather and
evaluate the environment performance in the country.
3.2.2. Public participation process
No public participation has been conducted in the Portuguese
SoE report production process (Table 2) apart from that of the na-
tional focal points network (RPF), and the yearly public seminar
conducted to disseminate the final version of the SoE report, con-
ducted in the more recent years. In 2008, work conducted by the
New University of Lisbon and the APA (APA, 2008) on the impact
evaluation of the 20 years of publishing SoE reports, proposed a
new methodological framework for the upcoming reports, which
shows proposals for improvement and more commitment in new
ways of reporting, including for stakeholders engagement.
3.3. Main steps and procedures for the development of open
participatory reports in the two European reporting practices
The reporting cases presented above are a practical example of
how SoES reports were not designed and used as an open and
dynamic participative instrument. Nevertheless the analysis of
both reporting schemes shows a clear evolution in the use of in-
dicator sets, structuring through causality chain models, and
consultation and participatory approaches (see Tables 1 and 2).
They also show the scope for improvement into more participatory
approaches and positive signals to use citizen science and lay, local
and traditional knowledge. Stratification according to content and
geographical scope is still required/desirable and preferably orga-
nized according to the scale and scope of the SoES report.
Therefore, based on the reporting analysis at transnational
(European) and national (Portugal) scales, the main steps and
procedures were identified and proposed (Table 3). These are
aimed at obtaining future open participatory report processes, ac-
cording to the conceptual framework presented in Section 2 (syn-
thetized in Figs. 1 and 2). Table 3 synthesizes concrete clues and
practical examples of how to foster public participation to structure
and implement Open Participatory SoES reporting. Informal ini-
tiatives, types of stakeholders involved and tools for informal data
integration to be used in each Open Participatory SoES report phase
are presented to produce the respective outputs/outcomes in the
report.
As pointed out in Table 3, intermediate platforms for gathering/
validating and quality checking/peer review of data may be needed
and organized before this type of data and information is integrated
into the final assessments. Citizen data generally requires a process
of filtration and validation. In this respect a new EEA project Eye-
on-Earth (EEA, 2012) is under testing and its usefulness to
Europeantrendsandcontributetoanevaluationof
policyobjectives.
PartCprovidescountry-levelassessmentsofthe
environmentalsituationinindividualcountries,
analysing6commonissuesanddescribingeach
country’suniquesituation,embeddedinaprocess
thatfollowstheSharedEnvironmentalInformation
Systemsprinciples.
contributors;contentgenerator
aswellasaninternaland
externalcommunicationtool
forsharinginformation.The
portalisaccessibleforusers
withCIRCAorEIONETaccounts.
Severalsectionsoftheweb
portalarerestrictedtoauthen-
ticatedusersonly.

Table 2
Information about the annual Portuguese SoE report (information until 2005 was partially based on APA, 2008).
Year Structure and conceptual model Communication Public participation Thematic scope and further information
Reports from 1987
to 1993
- No use of indicators.
- The reports described the environmental state
and trends, identifying the main causes for the
pressures and policy responses that can
remediate environmental degradation.
- Report published in printing format. - No direct public input. - The main environmental selected themes on these reports
were: air quality, water, soils, nature and biodiversity, waste,
noise, risk. Land use management was also included in these
first report series. The 1993 report also included forest, agri-
culture, tourism, transport, industries and energy.
- From 1989 to 1993 also published complementary annual
reports about environmental quality.
Reports from 1994
to 1997
- No use of indicators.
- Based on PSR framework (OECD (1993)
(exception only in 1997).
- Report published in printing format.
- In 1994 a multimedia interactive kit
was developed with the information
of the report to improve the access
and availably of the report to the
public.
- No direct public input.
- The institutional focal point
network (rede de pontos focais
- RPF) was gradually estab-
lished during the second half
of the 90’s for data gathering
and consultation.
- The main environmental selected themes on these reports
noise, risk, climate change, tools for environmental
management.
- From 1996 to 1997 indicators were starting to be used but in
an ad-hoc way. Only in 1998 it was formally assumed to use
indicators as the main methodological approach for reporting.
Reports from 1998
to 1999
- Use of indicators. Based on PSR framework
(OECD (1993).
- Report published in printing format.
- In 1999 also available on the web in
pdf format.
network was used for data
gathering and consultation.
noise, risk, climate change, tools for environmental manage-
ment, ozone layer, environmental impact assessment, public
participation, investment and expenses in environment,
environmental education, environmental inspection, agricul-
ture, tourism, transport, industries and energy.
- From 1998 onwards the SoE report analyses the environ-
mental integration in the sectors of economic activity and
their policies (e.g. transport, energy, agriculture), in addition
to a focused vision a reference environment, more traditional
and simplistic.
Reports from 2000
to 2003
- Use of indicators but without any causal-chain
framework (PSR, DPSIR or other).
- More concise format and structured in head-
line indicators.
- Report published in printing format
and pdf available on the web.
noise, climate change and forest.
- In the 2003 report more themes were included: tools for
environmental management, ozone layer, environmental
impact assessment, public participation, investment and ex-
penses in environment, environmental education, environ-
mental inspection, agriculture, tourism, transport, fishing and
industries and energy.
Reports from 2004
to 2006
- Use of indicators.
- Showed a synthetic form, but based on topic
sheets for each headline indicators.
- Based on DPSIR framework.
- Development of a pocket book with
headline indicators in printed format
and available on-line.
- In 2004, 2005 the pocket book was
translated to English.
were: air quality, water, land use management, nature and
biodiversity, waste, noise, climate change and risk.
- The theme tools of environmental management was also
considered in the reports but integrated in a chapter of general
characterization.
- The 2006 report has a special chapter focused on a selected
environmental theme, that is analysed in more detail.
Report of 2007 - This report although based on the use of in-
dicators was designed in a format that is more
extensive than those published in the three
previous years, both in diversity of the sub-
jects discussed, as the deepening of the sub-
jects. (headline indicators are not used in
these long report versions).
- The report is divided in three main areas:
Pressures, State and Tools for environmental
policy, management and awareness raising.
- Based on DPSIR framework.
- Development of Pocket book with
headline indicators in printed format
and available on-line, but only in
Portuguese.
- The main environmental selected themes on the report were:
Pressures: agriculture, tourism, transport, fishing, industries
and energy.
State: air quality, water, nature and biodiversity, waste, noise,
climate change, ozone layer, chemicals.
Tools: environmental management, environmental impact
assessment, public participation, investment in environment,
environmental education, environmental inspection.

support the next SOE report 2015 will be further explored. Also the
platform established in support of SOE report 2010 is being used for
a more continuous upload of updated information while the EEA
Data Centers are repository of the most update data sets in support
of policy implementation and evaluation, in compliance with the
Shared Environment Information System (SEIS).
At global, European and Portuguese level there are already some
community voluntary monitoring initiatives (e.g. the Coastwatch
Europe or the globally bird data collected by Birdlife International,
at European level, or at local level, the water voluntary program for
the Portuguese Southern region of Algarve), that can be starting
point initiatives to be engaged and build up an open participatory
SoES report. Also, the use of more recent tools like visualization
techniques such as PPGIS or participatory modelling and scenario
analysis are already being successfully used worldwide. Several
good examples in Portugal of the use of these tools are within water
resources management plans or sustainability research projects
that actively involve stakeholders (e.g. Painho et al., 2011) and
could provide the necessary support to this collaborative type of
SoES report.
Regarding the application designed in Table 3, the institutions in
charge of those reports should undertake several further steps if
they really decide to implement this proposed approach. Therefore,
an important practical step in future work will be to apply the
framework developed to specific actors, institutions, data and in-
formation. For this purpose in next stages the use of this framework
should be complemented by practical actions and procedures, in
order to build the proper management and operational structure to
support an Open Participatory SoES report, following this research
approach. Nevertheless, the extent to which public national au-
thorities implement participatory elements in their reporting
duties depends on legal national and transnational regulations.
Progress can more easily be achieved for a more participatory so-
ciety if parliaments include participatory approaches in legal reg-
ulations on reporting procedures.
4. Discussion and evolutionary stages of adherence between
the framework and the reality
It is assumed in this research that public participation and
collaboration with stakeholders (joining expert and non-expert
inputs) in the design and production of SoES reports can
contribute to the improvement of the quality of these documents
and respective processes. However, as stressed by Reed (2008), the
quality of decisions made through stakeholder participation is
strongly dependant on the nature of the process leading to them,
but there is growing evidence that, if well designed, these
perceived risks may be well worth taking. Also the choice of the
methods will depend on the purpose of the stakeholder analysis,
and the skills and resources of the investigating team (Reed et al.,
2009).
Nevertheless, stakeholder participation processes, in particular
in new challenging contexts such as putting in practice the
framework to produce an Open participatory SoES report, still need
research to overcome some limitations, like ways of participant’s
engagement, conflicts between different stakeholders, data reli-
ability and accuracy provided by volunteers, distinction between
proper and superficial participation that mask results, spatial scale
of commitment and involvement and implementation time. There
are pragmatic claims that need to be more rigorously tested,
including the capacity for participation to increase the adoption
and diffusion of innovations that better meet local needs, and the
capacity for participation to transform adversarial relationships
between stakeholders. Even though, if correctly conducted, moni-
tored and validated, the stakeholder participation can be effective
Reportsfrom2008
to2011
Thesereportsshowedasyntheticformat,but
basedontopicsheetsforeachheadline
indicators(30indicators).
-BasedonDPSIRframework.
-Reportpublishedinprintingformat
andpdfavailableontheweb.
-DevelopmentofPocketbookwith
headlineindicatorsinprintedformat
andavailableon-line.
-From2009,thepocketbookwas
translatedtoEnglish.
-From2011itwasavailabletheNa-
tionalSystemofenvironmentalin-
formationthatallowdatafromthe
reportsavailableonrealtime.
-Theavailableelectronicfilesofthe
2011reportcontainlinkswithdata
files(inspreadsheetformat).
-Nodirectpublicinput.
-Theinstitutionalfocalpoint
networkwasusedfordata
gatheringandconsultation.
-Themainenvironmentalselectedthemesonthesereports
were:airquality,water,landusemanagement,natureand
biodiversity,waste,noise,climatechangeandrisk.
-Thethemetoolsofenvironmentalmanagementwasalso
consideredinthereportsbutintegratedinachapterofgeneral
characterization.
-Allthereportshaveaspecialchapterfocusedonaselected
environmentaltheme,thatisanalysedinmoredetail.

Table 3
Main steps and procedures to obtain transnational and/or national open participatory State of Environment and Sustainability (SoES) Reports.
Open participatory reporting
cycle phases
Informal inputs and processes Final outputs/outcomes
Initiatives Type of stakeholders to be
involved
Main tools
Participative-adaptive
management and
governance for report
planning and
conceptualization
Initial stakeholder’s involvement to plan
and design the Open Participatory SoES
report, deciding the main objectives, spatial
and temporal scope, structure, selecting
adapting and prioritizing thematic issues
and indicators, and clarifying the roles and
commitments for the different parts
involved.
NGOs and local/regional
communities;
representatives;
Academia and research
institutions;
Business sector;
Local- regional-national
governments or agencies (in
particular EEA for Europe or
APA for Portugal);
Established institutional
networks (e.g. EIONET at
European level or Rede de
Pontos Focais e RPF e for
Portugal, Network of Focal
Points).
Sectoral thematic meetings/focus groups,
brainstorming;
Participative workshops/mind maps;
Web questionnaires interviews surveys
and/or mailing lists to exchange data and
information;
Social networks to strength initial
stakeholders engagement, trust and
commitment;
Wikis to adaptive building of shared vi-
sions, and desires, aspirations for the
report objectives, scope and priorities.
Report objectives, scope (e.g. pocket book
versus long detailed report) and outline
constructed through informal and formal
contributions, supported on adaptive man-
agement and participative techniques.
Formal and informal data
collection, processing,
treatment, assessment and
cross-validation for report
implementation and
communication
Establishment of platform to collect, pro-
cess and integrate the data, information and
evaluations provided by the different
informal initiatives, such as: community
voluntary data collection and assessments;
NGO projects; corporate data collection,
assessment and reporting; academic
research projects; educational projects;
technical reports from consultancy firms;
household/individual data acquisition and
evaluation; stakeholders’ own assessment
of state of environment and sustainability
indicators. The type of volunteer program
implemented by the United States Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency for stream
monitoring (EPA, 1997) or estuary
monitoring (EPA, 2006) or the Community
based ecosystem monitoring activities in
Canada (Whitelaw et al., 2003) are
examples of initiatives that could feed this
kind of process and followed as examples
that could be used in context such as the
Portuguese or the European.
All type of stakeholders,
from decision makers to lay
and local and traditional
citizens, including all the
above mentioned in the
previous reporting phase.
Volunteer data and information uploads
(e.g. using RPF institution portals existing
in Portugal and EINOET institutional
portals at European level to receive up-
loads of information reports, raw data or
other type of informal contributions,
collected, processed or analysed by
stakeholders);
Web questionnaires interviews surveys
and/or mailing lists (by subject area) to
exchange data, information or
announcements;
Participative workshops, focus groups,
brainstorming and mind maps to collect,
process or evaluate new collaborative
data and information provided;
PPGIS, participatory modelling and/or
scenario analysis to collect data and/or
evaluate specific environmental situa-
tions, such as an environmental planning
conflict within a natural protected area,
an industrial pollution incident or a nat-
ural disaster;
Social networks to strength stakeholder’s
participation role, as members of the
report staff and also to exchange data
and information;
Wikis to adaptive building of shared data
and information, selecting, processing
and interpreting/evaluating;
PRA to cut the barriers between urban
and rural participation, strengthening
the rural stakeholders involvement in
this kind of process, usually faraway from
this realities and communities.
A merge between the non-regular data and
official data will be produced. At most, both
formal and informal data will be fully
integrated in one single report. To conduct
or supervise the outcome an independent
institution, different than the one in charge
of the SoES reporting system should be
involved, thus assuring independent
external validation. This can be considered
a fundamental step towards guaranteeing
the reporting quality, robustness and
credibility of the Open Participatory SoES
report.

Participative actions and
informal measures for report
operation and action
Traditionally, the European and Portuguese
SoE reports are not designed to receive
subsequent external “responses” or mea-
sures that give feedback to the environ-
mental and sustainability weaknesses or
problems reported. Therefore this stage
assumes that the reports should induce
post- reaction through participative opera-
tions and actions. Stakeholders should be
involved to analyse the main report out-
comes and impacts, supported by mecha-
nisms to collect, process and analyse their
proposals.
from decision makers to lay
and local and traditional
citizens, including all the
above mentioned in the
first reporting phase.
Self-proposal sheets by subject reported
area and/or by indicator, included as ap-
pendix of the reports and available on the
institutional portals;
brainstorming and mind maps to collect,
process or evaluate recommendations
and actions;
Web questionnaires and/or mailing lists
(by subject area) to exchange reaction
data and information;
reactions, and also to exchange ideas and
information for responses;
Wikis to adaptive building of shared re-
sponses and actions proposed.
Collaborative outcomes interpretation,
validation and reaction. Beyond possible
formal institutional responses to the envi-
ronmental and sustainability problems
identified by the report, they will be com-
plemented with participative actions and
informal measures proposed by the
engaged stakeholders, supported by tradi-
tional and local knowledge background and
perceptions. These stakeholders reactions
through recommendations and specific
measures will seek to improve sustainabil-
ity levels.
Collaborative surveillance and
follow-up for report review
and update
A stakeholder’s collaborative meta-
evaluation process should be conducted
to complement the revision and update,
producing an evaluation of the reports
and their contents, including the
respective indicators. It is an evaluation
of the strengths and weaknesses of the
reports, and draws conclusions about its
overall quality. The approach proposed by
Ramos and Caeiro (2010) could be adapted
and followed, in particular for the indicators
related components.
from decision makers to
lays and local and tradi-
tional citizens, including all
the above mentioned in the
first reporting phase.
Self-assessment checklists by subject re-
ported area and/or by indicator, included
as appendix of the reports and available
on the institutional portals;
brainstorming and mind maps to identify
the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities
and threats;
Web questionnaires, interviews and/or
mailing lists (by subject area) to ex-
change revision data and information;
reactions, and also to exchange infor-
mation about the performance of the
reports and the needs for change;
Wikis to adaptive building of shared
proposals for improvement.
Collaborative surveillance, revision and
updating to obtain overall reporting utility,
accuracy, validity, feasibility, improving and
updating. The reviewed reports should
reflect continuous improvement in accu-
racy and reliability, but also in their social
value, including simplicity, ease of inter-
pretation and ability to show trends over
time and early warnings. This process will
contribute to assure the usefulness in
communicating and reporting to a wide
audience.

and a valuable resource. Luyet et al. (2012) summarize several
principles for successful participation like a fair, equal, and trans-
parent participative process, the integration of local and scientific
knowledge, the establishment of rules in advance, an early
involvement of stakeholders, the integration of all stakeholders, the
presence of experienced moderators, and adequate resources,
including time. The multiple stakeholders’ types should indeed be
taken into account (primary, secondary, social and non-social
stakeholders), although considering that it is difficult to recognise
and differentiate stakeholders and meet the expectations of all
stakeholder groups simultaneously (Lozano, 2011).
New technologies as the proposed in this framework (see Fig. 2
and Table 3), including geographic information systems and the
Internet, are enabling web based platforms for information sharing
and gathering (Jankowski, 2009; Green, 2010), enabling the desired
stakeholders’ inputs. Top-down reports, where experts report in-
formation that they think public should know, are being supple-
mented and even replaced by information portals that allow the
public to select the data that they are interested (Keating, 2001;
Ramos, 2004), and allowing for uploading and integration of
voluntary data and information. Nevertheless, some authors such
as Anderson et al. (2009) and Green (2010) have emphasised that
although exhibiting some advantage, these more demanding in-
formation and communication technologies applications are still
faced with pending challenges that need further research. Exam-
ples of such as limitations comprise data quality, use and sharing
policies and need of an important degree of expertise.
The potential applicability of the developed framework
approach was traced for the European context (national and
transnational scales) where a lot of experience in Environmental
and sustainability reporting already exists and where stakeholder’s
engagement and tools to allow participation in environmental
processes is a growing reality. In the emerging countries Brazil,
China, India and Russia, or other countries in Latin America and
Africa, although those practices are younger, state of environment
and sustainability reporting can be developed to include since the
beginning an open participatory reporting approach, such as the
conceptual framework proposed in this work. Good examples of
existent and successful public participation process within envi-
ronmental process do exist in these countries (see for example
Magalhães et al., 2007; Tschakert et al, 2007; Fargerström et al.,
2003). Nevertheless, the earlier explained limitations and cautions
should be taken in to account to assure that participation in SoES
reporting processes will be well conducted and fulfil its purpose.
The proposed approach of open participatory SoES reports will
allow increasing opportunities to discuss how reports should be
able to integrate and respond to new challenges and non-
traditional aspects of sustainability, such as the ones stressed by
Ramos (2009), like sustainability ethics, cultural and general non-
material values, goal and target uncertainty, the blurred distinc-
tion between peacetime and wartime, collaborative learning and
participative democracy, new governance paradigms and
economic-financial models. The open participatory SoES reports
should also encompass the three dimensions of sustainability, not
separately but in an integrated and inter-linked manner. Also and,
importantly, the time dimension should be taken in to account
where long-term changes towards sustainability are evaluated, like
global warming, ecological disruption and societal equity issues
(Lozano and Huisingh, 2011; Lozano, 2012). Within all these aspects
stakeholders’ perception and engagement are a fundamental input
of information.
Next step of this research is the effective application of the
framework to the next SoE report in Portugal, in collaboration with
the National Environment Agency, which has shown interest in this
approach. For that purpose the main steps and procedures
described in sub-chapters 2.1 and 3.3 will be evaluated, tested and
implemented, using the initiatives, type of stakeholders to be
involved and main tools detailed in Table 3. A set by step pro-
gressive procedure should be conducted to increase the spirit of
collaboration to better engage with stakeholders, first among peers,
then with other groups, in other organisations engaging in the
same activity, in organisations of different activities as described by
Lozano (2011), and finally lay and general citizens. In addition, and
as previously highlighted and as argued by Reed et al. (2009), an
adequate stakeholder analysis should also be taken into account to
evaluate the resources required, level of stakeholder participation,
strengths and weaknesses of each of the methods of participation
to be used and the necessary key methodological steps for the
stakeholder participation process.
5. Conclusions
Most state of the environment and sustainability reports lack
end user involvement. Major drawbacks from the existing ap-
proaches are that oftentimes, and in spite of all the investment put
in the compilation of SoES reports, stakeholders feel that either the
information is not usable nor complete or sometimes obsolete (by
the time it reaches the user). One way to overcome these short-
comings is to introduce open participatory approaches, namely on a
regulatory basis, that may use all the resources available in the
society. Such a participatory framework where active stakeholder
engagement is integrated since the beginning of the report process
was proposed in this paper, while at the same time explaining the
steps and procedures for its implementation. The participatory
approach assumes the collaborative contribution of stakeholders in
the whole process, since report design to data collection, process-
ing, analysis and communication, and the follow-up updating and
reviewing. Stakeholder’s roles in this method move beyond the
simple checking and passive consultation of reports, to act as
committed report co-authors.
Two SoE reporting schemes at transnational (Europe) and na-
tional level (Portugal) were analysed as a practical example of how
the SoES reports could be designed and used as an open and dy-
namic participative instrument, in their different phases of the
reporting cycle. In both of the reporting practices many progresses
have been observed during the last decade mainly relating to the
availability of the report itself. However participatory frameworks
in the production of both reports are incipient, weak or inexistent
and many times merely formal.
Report data acquisition is now possible not only through tradi-
tional official data gathering stations (which will remain very
important) but also by using crowd sourcing mechanisms which
allow citizens and organizations to play and fulfil their role in so-
ciety by contributing with their own knowledge. If the participatory
process is sufficiently open, all stakeholders can scrutinize each
other’s participation and thus increase the overall quality of the
information. The use of location technology such as GPS and GIS,
wikis and social networks, as enabling crowed sourcing technolo-
gies, put together with participatory methodologies, will allow a
more transparent and efficient participation. These methodologies
may also move the SoES reports to a new paradigm: from period-
ically based to (almost) real time. Many of these technologies have
proven efficient in collection data and citizens opinions. However
most of the known cases refer to involvement in solution of local
scale problems. Whether these or other methods are able to
directly mobilize and motivate the public towards the participation
in larger scale processes such as the engagement in global or na-
tional SoES reports is still an unexplored topic of research. Also
other challenges for open participatory reports will be how to
integrate stakeholders contributes from different scales (local/

regional to national and transnational). Resource requirements
associated to these methodologies should also be investigated, as
they may be perceived as constrains in their application.
Practical difficulties on the application of this approach can also
arise in their implementation, due to the complexity of institutional
reporting processes. Prioritising the implementation of the pro-
posed framework, implementing through gradually steps could
mitigate some of those difficulties. Nevertheless, this research
could act as a driving force for changing the traditional life cycle
phases of reports, supporting the public agencies in charge with a
tool that could be tailored and worked for future tests and practical
applications. Future uses of the framework can be important to
provide a different and deeper engagement of the Portuguese and
European stakeholders, including governments, companies,
academia, non-governmental organizations and citizens in general,
improving the transparency, usefulness and credibility of SoES re-
ports. In addition, it will represent a new joint commitment among
stakeholders for SoES active reporting development, allowing
better characterization of the environment and sustainability fig-
ures with new information and knowledge. Beyond this research, a
user’s roadmap or guidance procedures can also be produced to
explain the methodology in greater detail for practitioners.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude for the
constructive comments provided by the anonymous reviewers and
the subject editor.
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