4. Industry Canada's Sustainable Development Management System

Industry Canada's Sustainable Development Strategy 2006-09 is based on a sustainable development management system with the following life cycle: (1) planning; (2) implementation; (3) performance measurement and evaluation; and (4) reporting.

Planning

The SDS is a three-year, Department-wide plan for sustainable development prepared using the foundation pieces (internal and external issues scans and mid-term evaluation of the third strategy) recommended by the Guide to Green Government (1995), and an internal process that involved officers and senior management from every sector of the Department.

The SDS's strategic outcomes and action items are also aligned with Industry Canada's Report on Plans and Priorities (RPP) through its Program Activity Architecture, where appropriate, and under its strategic outcomes, expected results and performance indicators. The Strategy's framework is highlighted in Section 3 of the RPP.

Implementation

Section 3 presents the 26 action plan items in SDS IV , to be delivered by 12 responsibility centres across five sectors of the Department. The Strategy has been built to focus on those areas in which the Department has a "substantial opportunity, given its nature and mandate, to advance sustainable development," as directed by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development in her letter of April 2006 to Deputy Ministers. The letter also outlined her expectations and provided guidance for the fourth round of sustainable development strategies.

As with previous strategies, the Department will need flexibility in terms of responding to changes in governmental and departmental policy directions, as well as branch resources, during the three-year implementation period. If modifications need to be made to specific activities associated with a particular action item, these will be explained in the requisite implementation reports that will be publicly available on Industry Canada's sustainable development website for each of the six semi-annual reporting periods, ending in December 2009.

Performance Measurement and Evaluation

Industry Canada has further refined its results chain performance measurement and reporting framework to more effectively measure immediate (one-year) and intermediate (two- or three-year) outcomes. In June 2006, the Department held its first-ever performance measurement workshop for officers that were in the process of developing SDS action items. The goal of the workshop was to provide further guidance on the results chain, how to set performance expectations and indicators, and how to communicate Industry Canada's performance story more effectively, going beyond solely reporting on activities and outputs.

In fiscal year 2007-08, the Department will undertake a formative evaluation study of this strategy to provide senior management with feedback on the strengths, weaknesses and lessons learned in anticipation of developing SDS V in 2009.

Reporting

A critical part of Industry Canada's sustainable development management system is performance reporting. This allows for senior management oversight on the implementation of sustainable development strategies. Thus, the implementation of SDS IV will be accompanied by comprehensive semi-annual performance reports to the Directors General Policy Committee and the Deputy Minister during the three-year implementation period.

The Department also reports on its sustainable development performance in its Departmental Performance Report (DPR), which presents sustainable development accomplishments considered against planned performance expectations, as set out in the RPP. Similar to the RPP, these are reported in both the body of the DPR and in the supplementary information section.