COP15 — As this article is being written, an effervescent activity is building up around the preparation of COP15 —the United Nations Climate Change Conference, 2009. The Copenhagen event will be an opportunity to reinforce awareness internationally around global environmental issues, to acknowledge overall progress, but also to reflect on how to best measure and communicate such progress —especially in areas as diverse and as important as environmental and social sustainability, quality of life, societal well-being, and economic progress per se.

Searching for a Sustainable GDP — In a report by the purposely-formed Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, shortcomings of GDP as a universal indicator of progress are inventoried; and options for building a more appropriate measurement framework are examined. A key message of that report is that the definition of some nation's well-being is complex, for its must encompass a diverse range of dimensions: nation-wide economic performance; household income, wealth, and consumption; present & future environmental conditions; responsible management of resources; responsible governance; security; health; education; quality of life; societal well-being; to name a few.

Investment industry and ESG — Such interdependence across dimensions of progress has also been noted by the investment industry —identifying environmental, social, and governance (ESG) components as a natural extension of institutional investment's fiduciary role (see pesentation by UNPRI). Sustainability indices have entered the catalogue of established stock exchange institutions' indices, such as: FTSE4GOOD index series, the the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, or the announced Bursa Malaysia’s ESG index.A variety of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) networks are available to value-driven investors —see ASRIA in Asia. Attracting SRI to Cambodia is one of TCE's important missions.

Private sector and sustainability performance — In parallel, a dramatic uptake is observed from the private sector, in terms of so-called corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs and disclosure of sustainability performance —most of which occurs on a voluntary basis (see a comparison of European contries by ESRA). There too, corporations are invited to consider impact and sustainability in its broadest sense —see for example, the G3 Guidelines by the Global Reporting Initiative. Interestingly, these guidelines also put an emphasis on comparability: “ Reported information should be presented in a manner that enables stakeholders to analyze changes in the organization’s performance over time, and could support analysis relative to other organizations”. Helping companies develop meaningful and effective CSR plans is another important mission of TCE.

Toward a shared measurement framework — This opening decade of the 21^st century has been witnessing a dramatic rise in awareness regarding sustainability priorities, and a growing mobilisation from governments, private sector, NGO's, and transnational organisations toward tackling such priorities. For the sake of efficiency, the question now arises as per a suitable measurement framework that could be used on an universal basis. see for example a recent report by FSG Social Impact Advisors titled Breakthroughs in Shared Measurement and Social Impact. See also recent advances around an IT open standard called XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) and the GRI-XBRL project for a taxonomy for sustainability performance. Advances in shared measurement methodologies is central to TCE's focus.

Keep watching! — New economic models and financial flows are emerging, e.g.: carbon credit funds, socially responsible investing channels, hybrid “social enterprise” organisation models, CSR catalytic philanthropy models, to name a few. Another key mission of TCE is to keep watching that space for you, and to announce concrete opportunities for Cambodia as they arise. Stay tuned!