The Environment Strategy for Scotland
This Environment Strategy is designed to create an integrated framework for Scotland's environment and climate policies. It aims to support a whole-of-government approach for fulfilling Scotland's role in tackling the global crises of nature loss, climate change and pollution.
5 Monitoring progress towards the outcomes
As we work to deliver our vision and outcomes, tracking and reporting progress will be vital for informing improvements in our approach. We published an Initial Monitoring Framework in 2021, to identify the set of high-level indicators we will use to monitor progress towards each outcome. These indicators were chosen to tell a strategic and accessible story of progress – signposting to more detailed indicators in monitoring frameworks for the individual strategies and plans that sit within the Environment Strategy framework. We have also established a website to report on the status and trends of indicators in the Environment Strategy Monitoring Framework and explain what this tells us about our progress towards each outcome.[23]
The Initial Monitoring Framework highlights some areas where additional work is needed to identify robust measures of progress – in particular, for the outcomes on Scotland’s society, economy and global environmental impact. We intend to review and further develop the Monitoring Framework in order to address these areas. As part of this, we will reflect updates to the Strategy’s outcomes since the initial Framework was published, and consider recommendations for indicators in commissioned research by Stockholm Environment Institute.[24] We will also take account of ongoing and planned work to develop statutory nature restoration targets and circular economy targets.
Lastly, we are building connections between the Environment Strategy Monitoring Framework and other high level government frameworks, to strengthen alignment. For example, a subset of indicators from the Environment Strategy Monitoring Framework have been incorporated in Scotland’s Wellbeing Economy Monitor (see Section 6.4.4, Annex A). When developing the Framework, we also incorporated relevant National Indicators from our National Performance Framework. We will continue to support connections across government as we review the Monitoring Framework.