Abstract
This paper examines how environmental sustainability is addressed, acted on, measured and communicated by the performance management system of a government agency. The Finnish Transport Safety Agency (Trafi) is the researched object, the activities and services of which cover a wide range of environmental sustainability goals set at different levels. The goals originate from international agreements, national strategies, performance agreements between the agency and the governing ministry, as well as from in-agency strategies and managerial planning. The results of the case research suggest that, instead of balanced and holistic addressing the different environmental sustainability dimensions, the agency’s portfolio of activities focused on climate change. More extensive sustainability goals did not trickle down to action or performance measurement metrics, but topical political discussions and pressures had narrowed the scope down. The analysis concludes with suggestions on how the existing performance management systems could be improved in the future.
Highlights
Environmental adversities caused by transportTransport is one of the most serious generators of environmental adversities and contributes significantly to climate change
(3) to allow adaptation to take place, there needs to be control processes in place; these are the reporting systems that are needed to communicate the level of performance and degree of achieving the objectives; this paper shows that such controls have not been adequately in place, or they have been overlooked under political pressures, or were overridden by more urgent climate policy actions
The example of Trafi serves as a benchmark how to develop the environmental sustainability effectiveness and impact of any public agency, because in a public sector organisation systems thinking and holistic perspective is vital for good planning, operation and decisionmaking
Summary
Transport is one of the most serious generators of environmental adversities and contributes significantly to climate change. Combustion engines’ emissions include carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) particles (PM), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx) and hydrocarbons (HC) These are all causing adverse impacts on the climate as well as flora and fauna and not least on humans. Leviakangas and Auvinen (2019) made a rough estimate based on number of different studies that about 1600 of these are due to air pollutants and 200 attributed to noise. For both air pollutants and noise, road transport is obviously the main source of adversities. Leviakangas generation drainage systems where the pollutants can be filtered from entering the natural waters. (Finnish Environment Institute, 2017)
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