Environment

The Conference Board’s overarching goal is to measure quality of life for Canada and its peers. But a country must not only demonstrate a high quality of life—it must also demonstrate that its high quality of life is sustainable.

There is growing recognition that gross domestic product (GDP) produced at the expense of the global environment, and at the expense of scarce and finite physical resources, overstates the net contribution of that economic growth to our prosperity. Canadians understand that protecting the environment from further damage is not a problem for tomorrow, but a challenge for today. Without serious attention to environmental sustainability, Canada puts its society and its quality of life at risk

Fifteen indicators are used to assess environmental performance across six dimensions:

• air quality
• waste
• water quality and quantity
• biodiversity and conservation
• natural resources management
• climate change and energy efficiency

These six dimensions were selected based on the common environmental and natural resources policy themes identified in a review of respected national and international environmental reports.

Canada ranks 15^th out of 17 peer countries and scores a “C” grade on its environmental performance report card. Canada’s poor record in several areas—including climate change, smog, and waste generation—drags down its comparative performance. Only Australia and the U.S. rank below Canada.

Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Switzerland get “A” grades, showing clear leadership in environmental performance.

The radar diagram below is a snapshot of Canada’s environmental performance (and the 17-country average performance) relative to that of the best-performing peer country—the outer ring—for each of the 15 environment indicators. The chart has 15 axes—one for each indicator—that radiate out from the centre. A score of 0 represents the worst performance. A score of 100 represents the best.

Compared with the 17-county average, Canada’s performance is above average on seven indicators:

• use of forest resources
• low-emitting electricity production
• Water Quality Index
• urban particulate matter (PM₁₀) concentration
• urban nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) concentration
• threatened species
• energy intensity

Canada’s performance is below average on eight indicators:

• forest cover change
• urban sulphur dioxide (SO₂) concentration
• Marine Trophic Index
• greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
• water consumption
• organic farming
• volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions
• municipal waste generation

Use the pull-down menu to compare Canada’s performance with that of any of its peers.

Canada ranks below the best-performing country on all of the environmental indicators. Canada receives its only “A” grade for use of forest resources. Canada earns “D” grades on six indicators: VOC emissions, municipal waste generation, water consumption, organic farming, the Marine Trophic Index, and GHG emissions.

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They matter. The three countries that rank lowest in the overall ranking are the U.S., Australia, and Canada. Not only are they among the most resource-intensive economies in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), but they are also the three largest countries in terms of land area. They all rank poorly on water consumption, waste generation, organic farming, Marine Trophic Index, and certain elements of air quality.

It’s difficult to target a single cause of their poor environmental performance. But resource extraction and processing industries often use a lot of water and may contribute to greater stresses on local air quality. A lower-than-average reliance on organic farming in the three countries may also reflect greater reliance on large-scale mechanized farming. Further, greater distances mean greater amounts of energy are required to transport people and to move goods to where they will be consumed, leading to greater GHG emissions.

Geography and industrial structure are hurdles to overcome—through technology, innovation, efficiency, and behavioural changes—in improving Canada's environmental performance.

To understand more about how Canada can integrate economic growth and environmental sustainability:

Sustainability: A Winning Merger of Growth and the Environment, Ottawa: The Conference Board of Canada, 2006.

Although Canada scores relatively well on urban NO₂ concentration and urban SO₂ concentration, earning a “B” grade for each indicator, policy makers still need to address high levels of air pollution in major Canadian cities. Air quality affects human health, ecosystems, and buildings—often with far-reaching economic and social consequences. Human exposure to air pollution is high in urban areas where economic activities and road traffic are concentrated.

Increasing air quality concerns are urban particulate concentrations, toxic air pollutants, and acute ground-level ozone pollution. Canada ranks 7^th out of the 17 peer countries for urban PM₁₀ concentration, and earns a “B” grade. But Canada is the worst performer for VOC emissions. VOCs—produced from vehicle emissions and chemical manufacturing—combine with nitrogen oxides to produce smog and ground-level ozone, resulting in a number of health impacts.

The main challenge for Canada is to further reduce urban and regional air pollutants through pollution control policies, technological progress, energy savings, and sustainable transportation policies.¹

Municipal waste contributes to environmental problems such as habitat destruction, surface and groundwater pollution, and other forms of air, soil, and water contamination. Canada earns a “D” for municipal waste generated per capita and ranks last among its peers. In 2005, Canada generated 791 kilograms of municipal waste per capita, well above the 17-country average of 610 kg per capita. Compared with Japan, the top-performing country for this indicator, Canada generated almost double the municipal waste per capita.

Of the 12 million tonnes of waste generated by Canadian households in 2002, 9.5 million tonnes went to landfills or incinerators. The rest was diverted through recycling, reuse, or composting.² Landfilling is the most common way to dispose of waste in Canada. But landfills emit methane (a GHG that contributes to climate change), and the leachate from landfills causes groundwater and surface water contamination. Therefore, reducing the damage to the environment of municipal waste generation in Canada requires minimizing waste, increasing waste recycling and recovery, and disposing of any remaining waste in an environmentally benign manner.

The amount of municipal waste generated in a country is related to the rate of urbanization, the types and patterns of consumption, household revenue, and lifestyle choices. In Canada and across the OECD, real GDP and average household disposable income have been steadily increasing since the 1980s, leading to increasing household consumption rates. Canada cannot keep growing its economy at the expense of the environment. Encouraging sustainable consumption patterns will continue to be a challenge.

The health and well-being of ecosystems depends heavily on the quality and quantity of water resources. Water is essential for agriculture, livestock production, fisheries and aquaculture, municipalities, and industry. Water quality can be negatively affected by water pollution (eutrophication,³ acidification, toxic contamination) on human health, on ecosystems, and on the cost of treating drinking water. The Water Quality Index—which measures dissolved oxygen, pH, conductivity, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus—is used as indicator of eutrophication, nutrient pollution, acidification, and salinization.

Canada ranks 6^th out of 17 peer countries and earns a “B” for water quality. The Nordic countries rank ahead of Canada and earn “A”s. Canada’s water quality is at risk from industrial effluent, agricultural runoff and municipal sewage. Although waste-water treatment plants have helped to improve water quality, municipal waste-water discharges are still one of the largest sources of pollution in Canadian waters. As a result, eutrophication is a serious water quality issue for the Prairie provinces, southern Ontario, and southern Quebec. The increase in toxic algal blooms in Canadian lakes and coastal water is also a risk to human health. And the drinking water guideline for nitrate has been exceeded in groundwater across Canada.

Water consumption is also a key environmental issue; it relates to low river flows, water shortages, salinization of freshwater bodies in coastal areas, human health problems, loss of wetlands, desertification, and reduced food production. Sustainable water management is required to maintain adequate water supplies for people and ecosystems.

Water consumption is measured using gross freshwater abstractions—or withdrawals—per capita as an indicator. Canada receives a “D” for water consumption—Canada’s water withdrawals are more than double the 16-country average. Canada uses more than nine times the amount of water per capita than the U.K., which receives an “A.” Only the U.S. ranks behind Canada on this indicator.

Biodiversity and the habitat and ecosystem services⁴ that biodiversity provides are increasingly recognized as an important component of sustainable development. Protected areas have grown in most OECD countries; however, pressures on biodiversity and threats to global ecosystems and their species are increasing. Consequently, many natural ecosystems have been degraded, limiting the ecosystem services they provide.

Canada scores a “B” on threatened species as a percentage of total known species in the country. Canada’s vast uninhabited forests, wetlands, and tundra regions support a wide range of plant and animal life and will continue to be protected by sheer remoteness. However, the quest for natural resources is increasing in intensity, and developers are looking farther afield for opportunities.

Forests provide habitat for wildlife, clean air, carbon sequestration, clean water, and flood control. Canada’s forest cover is key to biodiversity, as it provides habitat for two-thirds of Canada’s wildlife. Canada rates a “B” on the forest cover change indicator, which measures the percentage gain or decline in forest cover from 2000 to 2005. Countries such as Ireland, Italy, Denmark, and the U.K., expanded their forest coverage over the same period and earned “A”s. Canada’s “B” reflects its ability to maintain (but not increase) its forest cover. It does, however, perform better than Australia and Japan, both of which lost forest cover from 2000 to 2005.

The fact that Canada’s forest land inventory has remained constant since 1990 indicates that land use within the forest is not changing. Canada’s ability to maintain its forest cover—despite having the most extensive forestry harvests of its peer group—is largely because of the extensive licensing system that oversees the forest industry and because of the industry’s own efforts to ensure good practices through forest certification.

Canada’s stable forest land inventory also bodes well for habitat preservation, as long as forestry policy ensures the protection of wildlife. Although aggregate numbers indicate healthy biodiversity, the impact of urban sprawl and agricultural land and forest use on wildlife habitat needs to be monitored at a regional level. Protective measures and policy vigilance are particularly important in places where specific species are threatened.

Productive natural resources such as forests, soil (for agriculture), fresh water, and fisheries are crucial to Canada’s economic activity. Unsustainable agriculture practices can contribute to soil nutrient depletion, erosion, and water pollution. Fisheries are also being depleted because of unsustainable industrial fishing practices and a lack of a global regulatory framework to support sustainable fishing.

Area under organic farming as a percentage of total agricultural land is the indicator used to measure sustainable agriculture. According to the OECD, organic farming avoids the use of artificial fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides, and uses organic manure and organic methods of crop rotation.⁵ Canada earns a “D” because organic agricultural land represents only 0.9 per cent of Canada’s total agricultural land. In comparison, European countries such as Austria and Switzerland have a 13 per cent and 12 per cent organic share in total agricultural area, respectively. These scores earn them “A”s. Organic farming is gaining momentum in Canada.

Canada is one of the best performers for the intensity of use of forest resources. It gets an “A” for performance on this indicator. Only Japan ranks ahead of Canada, with a lower percentage of timber cut relative to forest growth. In Canada, 90 per cent of the forest area harvested is clear-cut, and most timber harvesting in Canada occurs in primary or old-growth forests. However, Canada has the world’s largest area of forest certified to third-party sustainable forest certification. Sustainability certification means harvesting at a rate that is at or below the rate of re-growth and replacement, suggesting that the harvest can continue over the long term.

The Marine Trophic Index⁶ serves as a proxy measure for overfishing. By examining the change in the Marine Trophic Index over time, we can measure the degree to which a county is altering the fish stocks in the marine ecosystem. Canada’s fish resources have been declining since the 1970s. More recently, Canada receives a “D” because of a decline in the Marine Trophic Index over 2000 to 2005. Belgium is the only OECD country to receive an “A” for improving its Marine Trophic Index, although five other countries also achieve a positive index for this period. Only Australia, Germany, and Italy rank behind Canada on this indicator.

Finding adequate and comparable measures for climate change poses a significant challenge. It is not possible to obtain a reasonable national indicator of the effects of global climate change because it is a major global issue that requires a policy response from Canada and the other peer countries. A proxy indicator has thus been used: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per capita.

Canada, one of the world’s largest GHG emitters, earns a “D” for its GHG emissions per capita. In 2005, Canada’s GHG emissions were 22.6 tonnes per capita—almost double the 17-country average of 12.4 tonnes per capita. Canada’s GHG emissions per capita have increased, rising from 17.1 tonnes per person in 1990 to 22.6 tonnes per person in 2005.

The primary reason for the increase is growth in such exports as petroleum, natural gas, and forest products. While these commodities are exported, the GHG emissions resulting from their production are not. Between 1990 and 2005, emissions related to exports increased by more than 55 per cent, while Canada’s population grew by less than 15 per cent. Most of our mining, forest, and oil sands products are exported to other countries—which receive implicit CO₂ benefits from the highly CO₂-intensive production in Canada. Although Canada’s total GHG emissions represent only 2 per cent of worldwide GHG emissions, there is significant room for improvement through increased energy efficiency and the use of lower-emitting technologies.

Increasing renewable energy’s share of total energy consumption should be a policy goal for climate change mitigation in Canada. Renewable sources of energy—wind, tidal, solar, biomass, hydroelectric, and geothermal—produce low amounts of GHG emissions. In 2006, almost 75 per cent of Canada’s electricity was produced from low-emitting sources (renewable, plus nuclear). Because of Canada’s expansive hydro resources, Canada does well on this indicator and receives a “B” for performance. Canada could do more, however, to increase its share of low-emitting electricity production in total electricity production. For example, almost all of Norway’s electricity is generated from renewable hydroelectric sources, earning Norway an “A.”

A change in total energy consumption (measured in millions of tonnes of oil equivalent, or toe) per unit of GDP over a specified time period can be used as an indicator for energy efficiency and progress on climate change. Canada receives a “B” for decreasing its energy intensity over 2000 to 2005, ranking 6^th out of 17 peer countries. In 2005, however, Canada still used 0.27 toe per US$1,000 of GDP, significantly more than the OECD average of 0.18 toe per US$1,000 of GDP. Ireland earns an “A” for decreasing its energy intensity and is the best performer on this indicator, followed by Sweden, the U.K., and the United States.

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Canada’s environmental performance has improved for several of the environment indicators and deteriorated for others. Historical data were available for 10 of the 15 environment indicators, spanning five of the six environment dimensions. The Conference Board ranks the change in performance on each environment indicator as “better,” “worse,” or “no change” (rather than A-B-C-D) and uses absolute performance (rather than relative performance, as in other main report card categories).

Canada’s environment performance improved for the air quality indicators and for some of the natural resources management and climate change and energy-efficiency indicators. But progress on these issues has been hindered by increases in municipal waste generation and GHG emissions per capita and a declining Marine Trophic Index.

The overall air quality in Canadian cities has generally improved since the early 1990s, and Canada’s performance on the air quality indicators is also getting better. Annual average NO₂ emissions per capita fell by 15 per cent between 1990 and 2005. Over the same period, SO₂ emissions per capita dropped by 44 per cent, while VOC emissions per capita fell by 31 per cent and urban PM₁₀ concentrations fell by 24 per cent. But compared with the top-performing countries—such as Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands—Canada’s reductions in VOC emissions per capita are modest. Similarly, Canada’s progress on reducing urban PM₁₀ concentration lags the top-performing countries.

The amount of municipal waste generated per capita in Canada has been steadily increasing since 1980. Between 1990 and 2005, Canadians increased their municipal waste per capita by 24 per cent. Although the quantity of municipal waste generated per capita has been rising since 1980 across the OECD, the amount of municipal waste generated in Canada has been well above the OECD average.

Likewise, Canada’s GHG emissions per capita have been steadily increasing since 1990; they were 32 per cent above 1990 levels in 2005. Since the 1970s, however, Canada has decreased its energy intensity. Over 2000 to 2005 alone, Canada’s energy intensity decreased by 1.7 per cent per year.

Canada’s historical performance on the natural resource management indicators shows progress is being made to reduce the intensity of use of forest resources. A declining Marine Trophic Index, however, suggests that Canada’s fish resources are still diminishing and that unsustainable fishing practices prevail.

¹ Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Key Environmental Indicators 2007 (Paris: OECD, 2007).

² Statistics Canada, Human Activity and the Environment, Annual Statistics 2005, Solid Waste in Canada (Ottawa: Minster of Industry, 2005), p. 9

³ Eutrophication is an increase in chemical nutrients in water that encourages the excessive growth and decay of plants, leading to a lower oxygen supply for fish and other animals.

⁴ Ecosystem services refer to the purification of air and water; detoxification and decomposition of wastes; regulation of climate; regeneration of soil fertility; storage, release, and distribution of carbon; cycling of nutrients; and transfer of energy.

⁵ OECD, “Glossary of Statistical Terms,” November 16, 2001, [online, cited August 19, 2008].

⁶ Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, “Environmental Performance Index: Marine Trophic Index,” [online, cited August 19, 2008].