Defining criteria and indicators for a sustainability label of local public services

• Autor(a) principal: Domingues, Ana Rita
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Pires, Sara Moreno, Caeiro, Sandra, Ramos, Tomás B.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/11141
• topic: Sustainability label; European Union Ecolabel; Global reporting initiative; Indicators; Public service; Communication; ODS::09:Indústria, Inovação e Infraestruturas; ODS::11:Cidades e Comunidades Sustentáveis; ODS::12:Produção e Consumo Sustentáveis

The assessment of sustainability of public services is an important issue, especially at local level, takeninto account the central role of local governments as a major public employer and provider of a diversity ofservices. Local governments are close to citizens and are moving faster than other public sector levels withregard to the integration of sustainability principles in their operations and strategies. A sustainabilitylabel to communicate public service performance enables to disclose information directly to serviceusers. However, there is a dearth of research about labels addressing specific sustainability criteria forlocal services. The main aim of this research was the development of a conceptual framework to definea sustainability label, as a tool to assess and communicate sustainability of local public services. Theapproach was developed taking into account criteria of the European Union Ecolabel and indicators ofthe Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. The ecolabel is a relatively well-known voluntary instrumentin Europe and has the potential for application in public service activities and operations, but only assessthe environmental component of sustainability. The Global Reporting Initiative, in particular the SectorSupplement for Public Agencies, was then used to integrate the other sustainability components. Thirty-six (36) criteria and respective indicators were adapted for the proposed sustainability label conceptualframework. A Portuguese local public service was used as an exploratory case study to test the proposedconceptual model into practice. The overall results demonstrate that few criteria were accomplished inthis local public service, stressing that new practices and public policies need to be adopted to invertthe current trend, especially through the application of assessment systems. This exploratory case studyresearch has shown how useful can be a sustainability label to support local governments in evaluatingand communicating the sustainability performance of their public services. This case could drive andsupport other government levels, including central and regional public administration, in adopting andexploring public service labels and their associated performance approaches.