Indicators and stakeholder engagement: a Dublin case study

Sustainable development indicators are an important tool in the management of cities and regions, whose use allows the baselining of current performance, the setting of targets and the measurement of progress over time. Large numbers of sustainable development indicator suites are used internationally and further suites have been developed at the individual city and region scale. This can lead to confusion over what measurements should be prioritised. Stakeholder participation in sustainable development practice is well established; however, in order to be successful there is a need to develop a structured process of participation that results in tangible outputs. This work presents a case study of stakeholder engagement aimed at developing a shared vision of sustainable development for the Dublin region. Interviews and workshops were used to develop a sense of co-ownership of the project and integrated top-down indicators suites with bottom-up measures. A set of 38 headline sustainable development indicators was identified that examine all aspects of the city region's development and include all stakeholders in the coordinated movement towards the vision of a more sustainable Dublin. A number of issues were identified throughout the process such as data gaps and a lack of established indicators to measure specific issues relevant at a regional scale. The indicators identified have been integrated into the Dublin region Sustainability Report and will inform future development plans for the region. While this method was tested in the Dublin region, it could easily be utilised by other city regions to identify their own suite of indicators.