Local Environment, Vol. 8, No. 6, 615–626, December 2003

ARTICLE

Devising Local SustainableDevelopment Indicators: fromtechnical issues to bureaucratic stakes.The Greater Lyons experienceCHRISTELLE MOREL JOURNEL, FRANCOIS DUCHENE,THIERRY COANUS & EMMANUEL MARTINAIS

ABSTRACT The paper will draw on the experience of Greater Lyons (France)in the development and implementation of air quality indicators in the frame-work of an environmental monitoring body, created in 1992. The analysis showsa patent discrepancy between the strength of the political support enjoyed by themonitoring body at its creation and its gradual confinement within the adminis-trative structure of Greater Lyons. In fact, developing and using indicatorsraises not only technical issues but also political and bureaucratic stakes. Theexperience provides food for thought as regards the emergence of sustainabledevelopment issues within large and complex structures such as that of GreaterLyons. The paper points out that if indicators are hybrid objects, monitoringbodies, which are supposed to devise and promote them, are hybrid as well:their management, in terms of aims, means and position within the administra-tive body, is at least as important as their so-called ‘technical’ function.

How to measure development is a longstanding question, but it has no doubtbecome more acute since the early 1990s and the increase in popularity ofsustainable development issues, subsequent to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio deJaneiro. Despite considerable criticism, per capita GNP remains the mostcommon means of measuring development. In a special issue of the Revueinternationale des sciences sociales, I. Sachs (1995) reminds us that ‘alongsidethe human development indicator developed by the UNDP, [per capita GNP]finds favour with the media, who are on the lookout for international compari-sons that can rouse the reader’s imagination, as if the drama of developmentwere to be likened to a football championship producing a league table of thetop countries’. However, a number of studies are underway whose aim is toattempt to measure the level of development reached by the different countrieson the planet, a development that today postulates harmonisation of social,economic and environmental objectives. In this framework, how can one help

Christelle Morel Journel, Laboratoire RIVES, Ecole Nationale des Travaux Publics de l’Etat, rueMaurice Audin, F-69120, Vaulx-en-Velin, France. Email: cn.moreljournel@free.fr

1354-9839 Print/1469-6711 Online/03/060615-12 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd.DOI: 10.1080/1354983032000152725

C. Morel Journel et al.

but see that quantitative measurement of development is closely linked to, not tosay indissociable from, its qualitative analysis (McGranahan, 1995), if onlybecause development issues ‘involve administrative and political measures (inthe sense of decisions), the debating and justification of which may be based onmeasuring (in the sense of quantifying), the ends to be met and the measuresused to achieve them’ (Desrosieres, 1992)? From this point of view, and on alarger scale, the construction of indicator sets and their organisation withinmonitoring bodies are not only technical processes but political ones, since theycan be considered as ways of taking a stand on the analysis of a local situation.Downstream, the development and use of indicators may not depend on theirtechnical quality only but on a local context in both its social and territorialdimensions, which include a historical angle. What, then, of the insertion ofindicators and monitoring bodies within municipalities? What are the respectiveroles of political and technical-administrative spheres in the setting up of toolslike these? What does their effective use by technicians or politicians depend on?Are they really tools for action or instead do they play a formal role? Whathappens when the context of their development disappears?

We would like to try to answer these questions by considering the experienceof the Greater Lyons governing body in the construction of indicators andmonitoring bodies. Within the European PASTILLE programme (PromotingAction Through Indicators at Local Level in Europe), the Lyons case studyexamined the construction of indicators for the measurement of air quality in theconurbation of Lyons, while also observing the beginnings of a global policy forsustainable development. The material gathered in the PASTILLE programmecomprised a large number of surveys, studies and administrative correspondence.We also conducted over thirty semi-structured interviews with elected represen-tatives, heads of department and technicians employed by Greater Lyons, fromApril 2000 to February 2002; the quotations below come from these interviews,whose transcripts cover some 900 pages. The Greater Lyons experience seemsto us to be symbolic of the shift from strictly environmental considerations to theglobal, integrated concerns of sustainable development. The shift is not self-evident, since the combined dimensions of the local context in the setting up ofsuch policies, which (like sustainable development) are defined both on and fora global scale, are a determining factor.

After outlining the local context, we would like to return to the birth of themain environmental monitoring body, set up by the Greater Lyons authorities asearly as 1992. The political-administrative structure governing its creation cameto an end in 1995. Today, it remains a constantly evolving tool that is not firmlyestablished in the Greater Lyons governing body. This example therefore enablesus to question the interplay of stakeholders that has developed a structure aroundthis tool and resulted in its relative confinement within the structure of GreaterLyons. At the same time, Greater Lyons has committed itself to a sustainabledevelopment approach, initiated in the framework of ‘Millenaire 3’ (Millennium3), a prospective and strategic reflection on the evolution of the conurbation ofLyons which formally involves the elected representatives and services ofGreater Lyons as well as stakeholders from civil society. This approach meansthat the existing system must be called into question, on the basis of a

616

Devising Local Sustainable Development Indicators

philosophy whose concrete implementation remains extremely vague. In thisframework, resorting to technical tools is a real temptation that could offset thenon-existence of a conception of sustainable development. How, then, canindicators become firmly established in a territorial democratic system, andconsequently what part is played by political decision making?

Greater Lyons: a contextual introduction

The Greater Lyons Urban Area and Governing Body

The population of the Greater Lyons administrative area (which covers 55municipalities) is 1,167,532 (1999). Numerous elements, related both to theeconomic and industrial history of the region (Bonneville, 1997) and to thetopographical and meteorological characteristics of the site, make the Lyons areaparticularly sensitive to atmospheric pollution and industrial hazard: the concen-tration of chemical and petrochemical industries in the ‘Chemical Corridor’(which is the greatest concentration of chemical industries in France after theGreater Paris area), the prevailing winds (southerly and northerly) and the area’sspecific topography, with two hills (Fourviere and Croix-Rousse) in the citycentre, thus influence the quality of the city’s air. Finally, another major sourceof atmospheric pollution is the road traffic specific to the region of Lyons itselfand the heavy through traffic on the Paris to South of France motorway thatcrosses the city. Lyons is, moreover, stigmatised as being ‘the most polluted cityin France’, an image that was built up and disseminated by the media. Thereality is of course more complex, if only because Lyons was one of the firstcities to have a system for the measurement of air quality, which then con-tributed to its bad reputation. Thus the stakes involved in this issue made it evenmore relevant for us to observe the construction process of air quality measure-ment.

As far as Greater Lyons is concerned, we must point out that France iscurrently organised into four territorial levels: state (national), region, departe-ment (county) and commune (municipality). Owing to the very large number ofmunicipalities in France (36,000) the last forty years have witnessed manychanges in law and organisation. In 1966, the government created, in anauthoritarian manner, several ‘Urban Communities’, one of which is the GreaterLyons administration. These ‘super-municipalities’ are funded directly by coun-cil tax (housing, economy and land), and receive an additional national contribu-tion from the central state. In 1982 and 1983, two ‘decentralisation laws’ broughtmany changes to the local stakeholder system. For instance, responsibility for anumber of domains was transferred from municipalities to bodies such asGreater Lyons, including town planning and housing policies, public utilities(roads, transport, parking, cemeteries, fire service, water supply and treatment,waste collection) and, as of 1992, economic development. In 1999, these spheresof competence were reinforced by law, giving super-municipal bodies such asGreater Lyons a monopoly on the local tax on businesses, and the ability toincrease their field of action (although on an optional basis). As a result of thischange, Greater Lyons has chosen to make air quality a legal sphere of

617

C. Morel Journel et al.

competence, which despite its previous interest in this field, was not beforeunder its jurisdiction.

The Greater Lyons council is not elected by universal suffrage. Greater Lyonscouncillors are town councillors, nominated by their own town council, and eachmunicipality is represented proportionally in the Greater Lyons assembly, witha minimum of one representative. Overall, therefore, small municipalities areover-represented, even though, historically speaking, the weight of large munic-ipalities (53 councillors for Lyons, 14 for Villeurbanne, etc.) has given thegreatest power to the Mayor of Lyons, who has been President of Greater Lyonssince the beginning (1969). This, of course, has an effect on the scale ofreference of the elected representatives, which frequently remains at a municipallevel. When it comes to measurements and indicators, the requests made aresometimes ambivalent, and pressure to obtain data at a municipal rather thanconurbational scale is strong.

In 2001, the Socialist Party and its Green and Communist allies won themunicipal elections and thereby leadership of the Greater Lyons governing body.But, practically, the distribution of power between majority (Socialist Party,Green Party, Communist Party, etc.) and opposition (Centrist Party, GaullistParty, etc.) is about 50/50. From this point of view, the 37 vice presidencies ofGreater Lyons are important. The delegations have been organised into seven‘poles’, including one dedicated to the environment, which is headed by the 16thvice president. Each pole comprises a representative from the main politicalparties, in an attempt to achieve a so-called balance of power. The Environmentpole is run by five vice presidents: ‘Environment and Risk Prevention’, ‘WasteCollection and Treatment’, ‘Water Supply and Treatment’, ‘Cleaning’ and‘Sustainable Development and Urban Ecology’, under the authority of a memberof the Green Party. ‘Sustainable Development’ is a new delegation among thevice presidencies, and is 22nd (out of 37) in order of protocol and importance.Air pollution control is still an important issue within the Environment pole,since it attracted the interest of several persons when the position was allocated.

Providing Data on Air Quality: the COPARLY network

For nearly forty years, the conurbation of Lyons has been equipped with sensorsthat measure the atmospheric levels of substances that are harmful for humanactivity. This technical tool is managed today by COPARLY (Committee forControl of Atmospheric Pollution in the Rhone department and the Region ofLyons), a non-profit-making association in charge of the production and thediffusion of air quality measurements in the Lyons region. COPARLY wascreated in the early 1980s, its minimum aim being to gather and harmonise themeasurements collected by the three existing networks, i.e. those of the City ofLyons Health Department and the chemical industries, as well as a smallnetwork linked to a power station located to the southern suburbs, beyond theChemical Corridor. This association is managed by a board of directors com-posed of three colleges (local representatives of the state, the local communitiesconcerned and representatives of the industrialists). A fourth college composedof users associations can be associated to this. In the early 1990s, following

618

Devising Local Sustainable Development Indicators

important pollution warnings, the state intervened and imposed a merging of thethree networks. More recently, COPARLY has entered into close collaborationwith the other measurement networks at a regional scale. Greater Lyons hasgradually asserted itself within this set-up. Its new responsibility for air qualitycould possibly change its relationship with COPARLY by increasing theinfluence of the urban area body through the provision of a greater role forCOPARLY and an increase in funding. Today, then, COPARLY supplies thedata needed by the Greater Lyons environment monitoring body to calculatethe air quality indicators and proposes its own indicators on the issue.

The ‘Observatoire de l’Environnement’: a complex tool seeking legitimacy

The ‘Observatoire de l’Environnement’ was created in the early 1990s andenjoyed strong political support. How, then, can one explain that it is nowrelatively confined within the Greater Lyons governing body? We would like toanalyse its birth and the way in which it functions, in order to show thedifficulties that arise when environmental concerns, which are by definitiontransversal, are permanently placed within the framework of the administrativeand compartmentalised structure of Greater Lyons.

Devising the Environment Monitoring Body: a long process …

The ‘history’ of environmental issues definitely originated during Michel Noir’smandate (1989–1995). For both political and tactical reasons, this young,ambitious Mayor of Lyons and President of Greater Lyons, who was also one ofthe potential candidates for the French presidency, decided that more attentionshould be paid to environmental matters. He felt deeply concerned by the newenvironmental problems and by the issue of sustainable development which wasemerging at the time; besides which, he had attended the Earth Summit in Rio(1992). He also took into account the emergence of environmentalist parties inthe field of politics: the green vote was about 10% in the local elections. Thisbeing so, he brought in as an advisor a young journalist who was close to thegreen networks and president of an important environmental association, whojoined the Mayor’s advisory committee and became a kind of spokesman onenvironmental issues. During our interview, this former advisor underlined theroom for manoeuvre he enjoyed in a position that was very close to Michel Noir,and the audacity shown by the latter, notably when dealing with industrialistsfrom the chemical industry. This was the background to the creation of the‘Mission Ecologie Urbaine’ (Urban Ecology Mission), a small unit supposed toget round the inertia of regular bureaucratic departments—a very commonpractice in the recent history of the French state (Theys, 1991). The managerin charge of this unit, an environmental engineer, had been called upon byMichel Noir at the very start of his mandate to integrate environmental issues inthe policy of the Greater Lyons. As early as January 1990, this person wasassigned responsibility for the issue ‘Environment and Risk’ and appointed todevelop the project that, in 1992, was to become the Urban Ecology Mission. Hewas a close partner for the young journalist and he confirmed the statement

619

C. Morel Journel et al.

as to the flexibility, closeness and efficiency of their relationship with MichelNoir. However, neither of these official representatives was able to secure thestrategic position demanded for the Urban Ecology Mission in the course of theirdealings with the General Secretary of Greater Lyons. In fact, unlike manytechnical domains such as water supply and treatment, waste collection, townplanning, etc., the environment was not strictly speaking a legal sphere ofcompetence for Greater Lyons. As a result, the institutional position of the UrbanEcology Mission within the Greater Lyons organisation chart is not so verytransversal: the Urban Ecology Mission is not linked to a central decision-mak-ing level, but is part of the Urban Development Department. Hence, we can saythat the position of the Mayor is somewhat ambivalent, for beneath the strengthof the discourse lies genuine weakness in terms of influence.

Nevertheless, the Urban Ecology Mission was assigned the preparation of thefirst Urban Ecology Charter (1992–1995), which included the setting up of anew body called at that time ‘OCEGLY’ (Observatoire des changements del’environnement du Grand Lyon; Greater Lyons Monitoring Body for Environ-mental Change). The task of setting up OCEGLY was given to an engineer witha PhD in the technical science of waste collection. On secondment at GreaterLyons, he spent two years working towards the setting up of this body, assistedby a colleague whose assignment was to liaise with the different Greater Lyonsdepartments. Originally, its (difficult) task was: (a) to monitor the state of theenvironment in the Greater Lyons territory; (b) to follow through the pro-gramme of action of the Urban Ecology Charter and to assist in decisionmaking. Two ‘follow-up’ committees were created, one composed of experts,the other of elected representatives. OCEGLY therefore comprises decisionsupport methods for the prioritisation of actions to be undertaken and, morebroadly speaking, a decision-making procedure for the development of anenvironment policy. It defines two main types of systems—urban and environ-mental—to monitor the state of the environment, each of which is thensubdivided. It sets up three assessment modules: a report on the state of theenvironment based on the flow of pollutants and on pressure indicators, anopinion poll of the stakeholders involved in environmental issues (which hasnot been carried out) and a report on the Charter comprising an assessment ofthe relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of actions undertaken. The prioritisa-tion of actions to be undertaken is achieved by coordinating these three modulesusing a four-stage procedure: the natural environments are ranked according tothe evolution of their state and to the sensitivity of the stakeholders; thepolluting urban systems are classified according to their degree of responsibilityin the degradation of each medium; with the help of the Greater Lyons services,the different actions to be instigated are identified for each classified environ-ment; finally, the action to be undertaken is chosen according to a number ofguidelines. It is obviously a complex tool influenced by very strong environ-mental concerns.

The second Charter was ratified in 1997 during Raymond Barre’s mandate.Raymond Barre is an economist and experienced politician at a national andinternational level, and has been Mayor of Lyons and President of Greater Lyons(1995–2001). This second Charter focused on assessment and public infor-

620

Devising Local Sustainable Development Indicators

mation, and reinforced OCEGLY, a name that is no longer used—or evenknown—by technicians or politicians. This body is now usually called the‘Observatoire de l’Environnement’ or more usually ‘Observatoire’.

… But an Uncertain and ‘Floating’ Position

For a number of reasons, the body could be said to be still ‘under construction’today. Besides, certain themes are not part of the original assignments: wastecollection, for example. The current head of the Observatoire speaks of it asbeing in a ‘mixed phase, comprising the setting up of indicators and themonitoring of results from existing indicators’. But according to him the‘philosophy’ has changed radically: the logic behind the initial work on indica-tors was more one of research than of assessment, and this continues to weighdown many projects. This logic of assessment underlies the will to join theRespect project and to develop a partnership with suppliers of data such asCOPARLY. When the PASTILLE project began, the Observatoire had failed tocommunicate effectively with elected representatives (data were too difficult tounderstand for non-specialist users), and to influence the work of other technicaldepartments. The ‘follow-up’ committee composed of elected representatives hasnever materialised. Several elements explain this failure. The Observatoire hadthree different directors (and even had none at all for a whole year). The variedbackgrounds of the coordinators, the evolutions in environmental regulations,and various opportunities such as the European project Respect have producedmany changes for the Observatoire. The initial political support was short-lived,since the environment was not a major priority during M. Barre’s term of office.Moreover, on the air pollution front scientific rigour sometimes appears toconflict with the need for communication.

To understand the current position and role of the Observatoire, we need tocome back to the set-up of the Environment pole, especially to the relationshipbetween its head and the councillor responsible for ‘Sustainable Developmentand Urban Ecology’, who both are the leading representatives of the Observa-toire. Their political commitment, the way they run their careers and theirpolitical and social interests linked to their positions make them very different.From the beginning of the current term of office, they have disagreed over thequestion of air quality. Both want full responsibility for the air pollution issue.This is obviously a problem for the technicians in charge of the Observatoire,especially in the administrative context we described above. Furthermore, facedwith a member of the Green Party who was the first to support environmentalissues in the political field, the leader of the pole seems to emphasise his ownlegitimacy, which, for him, is underpinned by his professional career. He was,in fact, originally a chemical engineer and worked for twenty years as aresearcher with Rhone-Poulenc (now Aventis). In 1980, he gave up research andwas put in charge of environment issues in Rhone-Poulenc plants, where, hesays, he devoted his chemical abilities to communication and training. Thisattitude seems to reinforce the disagreement between the two councillors but itmay also lead to distortion, especially with respect to public information andrelationships with industrialists.

621

C. Morel Journel et al.

These relationships and the difference in involvement of those concerned areof little help to the technicians of the Urban Ecology Mission, who are in needof clarifications and political instructions, especially when it comes to theObservatoire, which lacks directives. Today, it also seems very difficult toobtain clarifications from the councillors on the tasks assigned to the environ-mental monitoring body and the role it should play in measuring and monitor-ing environmental issues. In other words, it is extremely difficult for theObservatoire to be acknowledged as a tool that is central to the policy onenvironmental action, and this role will, we suppose, become increasinglydifficult insofar as the second Ecology Charter, which began in 1997, isnearing its end. This means that in Greater Lyons policies there is now noframework document for environmental issues. It is also true that there areother basic problems to solve in regard to the role of the Observatoire: theposition of the Urban Ecology Mission within the Greater Lyons organisation,as well as sustainable development issues and their place in Greater Lyonspolicies. If truth be told, the actual position of the Urban Ecology Missionwithin the General Delegation for Urban Development is still a controversialissue. Nowadays, some technicians would like to leave the Urban DevelopmentDepartment, while others are afraid of being cut off from urban planning, afield that is a highly effective lever for environmental policies. Be that as itmay, the main issues are the connections and links between the Urban EcologyMission and the possible Sustainable Development Mission. The idea ofchanging the Urban Ecology Mission into a larger Sustainable DevelopmentMission is no longer accepted, since for some stakeholders sustainable devel-opment must not be confused with urban ecology. Maintaining two bodies mayhelp to clearly distinguish sustainable development from urban ecology, whichdeals with environmental issues only. In fact, it seems as if the construction ofa Sustainable Development Mission weakens the positions of both the UrbanEcology Mission and the Observatoire.

For the moment, we would like to stress the discrepancy between theextremely strong political support given to the creation of the Observatoire andits gradual confinement within the structure. There are three reasons for thisconfinement: the construction process for the indicators, which are the basisof the body’s watchdog and assessment role, was neither easy to see noreasy to understand; the Observatoire was disconnected from political priorities,and this is obviously related to the managerial changes observed; thirdly, itwas more or less powerless within the framework of the Urban EcologyMission. In other words, the intrinsic scientific quality of the indicators builtfor the Observatoire does not help, so far as their use and legitimacy areconcerned.

Sustainable Development Issues and Indicators: emergence of a newconsensus within the Greater Lyons structure

The problems involved in sustainable development, which are making a markedappearance in Greater Lyons, are also leading to plans for measurements usingindicator sets. Before we address this question, we would like to analyse the way

622

Devising Local Sustainable Development Indicators

in which these problems took root and are now becoming a focal point in thesphere of action of Greater Lyons. To do so, we will return briefly to theMillennium 3 project that was set up in 1998. We will then consider the verynotion of sustainable development, with reference to our interviews and toseveral studies on the theme that were carried out in the Greater Lyonsgoverning body.

The Influence of the Millennium 3 Process

In 1997, the Millennium 3 process began a prospective brainstorming process,led by the newly created Prospective and Strategy Mission. This mission wasdirectly attached to the General Secretary for Greater Lyons, a position that, aswe have already said, is of strategic interest for the active involvement of thedifferent departments. A symposium was organised to confront the points ofview of experts, elected representatives, scientists, civil servants and citizens.Five discussion groups were created, including an ‘Urban Ecology and Qualityof Life’ group, their task being to draw up a Local Agenda 21 plan from aEuropean perspective, in the framework of the Eurocities network. This, in fact,was when the issue of sustainable development first made its appearance. In thefinal document published at the end of the Millennium 3 process, the conceptwas still limited to environmental concerns, and so failed to bring together manyother policies.

Most of the people we met in the PASTILLE programme, mainly betweenApril 2000 and February 2001, did not broach the theme of sustainabledevelopment of their own accord. It is a notion that we researchers have to bringup ourselves if we want opinions on the subject, opinions that are frequentlyimprecise and wavering. During the first phase of PASTILLE, some of ourinterviews made us doubt whether we were speaking a common language. Mostof the people we interviewed admitted hesitantly that ‘understanding the conceptof sustainable development does not come … does not come spontaneously’.Although sustainable development is called a ‘concept’, the latter is ‘hollow’ oreven a ‘pet subject’. And despite the work of Millennium 3, the tone adoptedwithin the departments of the Greater Lyons is scarcely different. For onehigh-ranking official, the notion of sustainable development is to be found ‘inbrochures and trends’ and its meaning is ‘about as clear as when you talk aboutthe inward-looking City or withdrawal into oneself’. In other words, sustainabledevelopment ‘is a bit of a nebula’.

Consequently, the elected representatives and heads of department of GreaterLyons are awaiting an operational dimension that, they all acknowledge, is byno means established. The technicians who are working most closely on relatedthemes admit that things are vague, and as a result have difficulty in adoptingan operational approach. Greater Lyons asked Rhone-Alpes-Energie, a consul-tancy agency, to produce a diagnosis of Greater Lyons policies that would takeinto account the criteria for sustainable development. The consultancy inquestion is, in fact, one of the 12 regional agencies for Energy and theEnvironment, which were created on the initiative of the Regional Councilsand grouped into a network that developed a methodology for the implemen-

623

C. Morel Journel et al.

tation of Local Agenda 21 programmes. One of the representatives of Rhone-Alpes-Energie is prepared to take a stand for a form of sustainable developmentthat would give preference to environmental stakes in a spirit that, he claims,is that of the Rio conference. The studies carried out do not appear to havecontributed a great deal as regards methodology, and their content is seldomreferred to. All that is mentioned is their existence, as if to offer proof of thereal headway made by the notion of sustainability within the Greater Lyonsauthorities. One of the official representatives of Greater Lyons specifically incharge of Agenda 21, who is also critical of the method, nonetheless qualifiesthe work done by Rhone-Alpes-Energie as having ‘pedagogical virtues, in thesense that we can place the conurbation within the whole, and that we can atleast assess the strengths and weaknesses … underlying all the actions ofGreater Lyons. And it enables us to go a bit further, and move on to concretereflections on a certain number of aspects.’ Be that as it may, these reflectionsand these first ‘translations’ were left aside during the transition period under-gone by Greater Lyons after the change in political majority. Furthermore, thiskind of study based on indicators measuring sustainability within active policiesmay give de facto a content to the notion of sustainability, without any politicaldebate.

A Long Way to Sustainability Indicators

However, since the beginning of 2002, the concept of sustainable developmenthas been used increasingly within Greater Lyons. It can, at least, be seen fromthe outside. The programme devised by the Socialist majority for their term ofoffice is based on sustainability issues. The development of an Agenda 21 ismentioned as a commitment and some previous commitments to sustainabilityare to be honoured. Even if the Sustainable Development Mission has not yetbeen set up (June 2002), an expert for sustainable development and Agenda 21was appointed to advise the Greater Lyons president; this person held the sametype of post in the Urban Community of Strasbourg (France). The urban areaproject, an outcome of the Millennium 3 process, planned to set up a Develop-ment Council, bringing together stakeholders from economical, social andcultural fields, and also from associations. The Council, composed of 50members representing institutions and nearly 400 volunteers, first convened inFebruary 2001. Five workgroups were created, the second dealing with sustain-able development and Agenda 21. Like Millenium 3 a few months ago, thisprocess highlights how difficult it is to give concrete content to sustainability,even in an assessment framework. Nevertheless, like several European cities,Greater Lyons is trying to develop its own Agenda 21. But there are at least twoways of building up such an Agenda 21: one ‘endogenous’, the other ‘exoge-nous’. The first leads to an umpteenth planning document but makes fewchanges in habitual practices, either ‘internal’ or ‘external’. The second standsmore chance of giving impetus to real changes in institutional ways of acting andthinking. Building up an Agenda 21 may lead to changes in the organisation,practices and the institution. A lot is at stake here, and the difficulties areconsiderable. The reduction of working hours (from 39 to 35 hours/week) could

624

Devising Local Sustainable Development Indicators

have given rise to transversal projects between the different services. Thisopportunity to open up services and practices was missed, but the search forcoherence in public policies and participation in decision-making remains themain objective of sustainability. There is not, as was once planned, a ‘correspon-dent for sustainable development’ in each administrative department of GreaterLyons. The Development Council puts into practice the Greater Lyons interestfor governance issues, but has not been given any role in the development anduse of local sustainable development indicators.

In fact, these fluctuations show how complex it is to ‘territorialise’ theconcept of sustainable development. Theoretical discourse on sustainable devel-opment was largely developed by economists and scientists (or morespecifically ecologists), as they were trying to reflect on the global way toreconcile development and the renewal of natural and human resources on aplanetary scale. Seen like this, sustainable development implicitly refers toa double macro approach. When the time comes to apply this approach on asmaller scale to a defined area with its own particular form and stakeholderdynamics, things become increasingly complex—the lower the level, themore complex the situation. This being so, there is a real risk of wantingsustainable development indicators to give, in fact, content to a concept thathas no clearly defined content, over and above the role already required ofthem by most stakeholders. As a matter of fact, they are required, oftensimultaneously, to be: tools to describe reality and to rigorously and sci-entifically synthesise complex phenomena; decision support tools, giving theclearest possible directions to follow or the tendencies to correct; communi-cation tools, to give the simplest possible information; tools for comparison(Grand Lyon, 2002). In other words, the production of sustainable developmentindicators must not compensate for a lack of reflection on the concept ofsustainable development, a concept that presupposes political objectives that areclear and democratic. This, in any case, was one of the main conclusions of acolloquium on the stakes involved in sustainable development indicators,organised by Greater Lyons at the end of June 2002, as part of the PASTILLEprogramme.

In the Greater Lyons governing body of today, sustainable development iscommonly referred to by stakeholders in political and administrative spheres. Alarge number of misunderstandings are, however, possible, owing to the virtualnon-existence of an operational dimension of the concept. But the terms of thedebate have been set, as we can see from the organisation of the above-men-tioned colloquium, and highlight the need to formulate objectives and ends priorto the construction of indicators These objectives and ends must suit theterritories to which they apply, which means that the question of possiblecontradictions between sustainable development policies formulated on differentscales remains unanswered.

The point we have addressed here is to show that what is basically at stakeis the appropriation of indicators and monitoring bodies and their respectivelimits by the different stakeholders involved. The Observatoire and its indicatorsdon’t have a lot of credibility within the Greater Lyons body and outside it.Beyond all historic and social explanations, this also shows that taking the

625

C. Morel Journel et al.

environment into account is not only a technical issue. The difficulty increaseswith sustainable development issues because of their conceptual woolliness andtheir reference scale. Nevertheless, the Greater Lyons example concerning eitherenvironmental or sustainability policies shows that the construction of indicatorsmust not remain the business of technicians alone, and nor must their utilisationbe thought of in purely pedagogical terms. Clear-cut division of the workinvolved (development for the scientists and technicians, utilisation—oftenlimited—for the elected representatives and the citizens) tends to make us forgetthat indicators are hybrid objects, involving ‘science, politics, economics, law,religion, technique and fiction’ (Latour, 1991). They are not, therefore, technicalfacts that cannot be grasped by sociological analysis, but have a history andincorporate one or several worldviews as well as the balances of powergoverning their development (Duchene et al., 2000). We must also ask ourselveshow seriously we are prepared to see the concept as an alternative to develop-ment that focuses on a solely economic dimension, before embarking on thework of building indicators and environmental monitoring bodies.

References

Bonneville, M. (1997) Lyon. Metropole regionale ou euro-cite? (Paris, Anthropos/Economica).Desrosieres, A. (1992) Discuter l’indiscutable. Raison statistique et espace public, Raisons pratiques, 3(92),

pp. 131–154.Duchene, F., Morel Journel, C. & Coanus, T. (2000) Social construction of indicators and decision making

process: the, easurement of air pollution in the Greater Lyons area (France), Ecological Indicators, 2(1–2),pp. 187–196.

Grand Lyon (Ed.) (2002) Indicateurs de developpement durable, jeux et enjeux (Lyon, Communaute urbainede Lyon).

Latour, B. (1991) Nous n’avons jamais ete modernes. Essai d’anthropologie symetrique (Paris, La Decou-verte).

McGranahan, D. (1995) Mesure du developpement: recherches effectuees par l’Institut de Recherche desNations Unies pour le developpement social, Revue internationale des sciences sociales, 143, pp. 53–73.

Sachs, I. (1995) Le quantitatif et le qualitatif. Quelques questions sur les enjeux et les limites de la mesure dudeveloppement, Revue internationale des sciences sociales, 143, pp. 9–20.

Theys, J. (1991) Le savant, le technicien et le politique, in: J. Theys (Ed.) Environnement, science et politique.Les experts sont formels, GERMES, Cahier n°14, 2, pp. 13–24.

626