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The Sustainable Penang Initiative: 

Penang People's Report 1999 

The Penang People's Report is about using community indicators to monitor sustainable development in the state of Penang in some ways similar to taking the temperature and blood pressure of a person to tell us about his health. Only it is a lot more complex than that. The measure of community development and its sustainability involves more than just a set of standard physical indications. Once we inject individual values and cultural diversity into the equation it will be seen at once that what is involved is a infinitely intricate mesh of issues not susceptible to a simplistic approach. The Report which is the result of the pilot phase of the Sustainable Penang Initiative recognises the complexities involved. 

The community indicators adopted in addressing the challenge of sustainable development for Penang was developed in the course of the project itself and are intended to be continuously improved and developed as the issues involved evolve further. Drawing on input from people from government, NGOs, business and industry, professional associations and academia, an initial set of indicators was identified for 5 areas: Environment, Community, Economy, Culture and Participation. There is substantially more material in the Report under Environment and Community than the other 3 areas. It is not surprising that the initial stage of the initiative should be better supported in issues of current (and perhaps more fashionable) concern, namely, ecological sustainability and social justice. 

Some indicators seem obviously to be the first things to measure. For example, air quality and acid rain readily come to mind where the environment is concerned and are amongst the indicators adopted. What is not so obvious but quite ingenious is the use of the number of crows as a measure of unmanaged waste. The scavenging habits of these birds make the crow counts a convincing indicator. Many of the community indicators suffer from want of figures and statistics for study. Urban trees as an indicator of environment was based on the number of trees planted as part of the National Tree Planting Campaign but the more relevant records of existing urban trees in a 1991 survey could not be retrieved and no figures were available for the number of trees lost to development and road widening. Other indicators lack historical data simply because there had been no reason or impetus to measure the particular quantity before. The number of appropriate street signs as an indicator of culture is one example and the crow count is the other novelty. 

Given the pioneering nature of the pilot project and the complexities with which it had to grapple, there is little to criticize about any of the indicators adopted. Each of them is clearly explained without overstating its merits. Sources for facts and figures are faithfully attributed and shortcomings readily stated. The "readings" on the indicators are summarised in a Report Card, sorted by category and also according to the degree of concern each should engender. Areas of greatest concern are labelled challenges although a stronger term like alarm bells would have been appropriate for some of them, such as river water quality and traffic safety. Not all the 5 items listed as good news may be what they seem, for example, the tree planting figures which do not take into account what has been cut down. The spread of the results between good news, mixed news, challenges and question mark accords with one's feeling about the state of health of Penang — many things need to be examined and something needs to be done before it is too late. 

The value of the Report is not so much in its findings but the awareness that it creates. It is a refreshing change to come across for the first time an attempt to address the complexities which confront the Penang community. It is heartening to see the citizen participation on issues of critical importance to their future. The Penang Report 1999 is really a bit of good news. 

                    Review by K H Koh

(The Report is a collection published by the Socio-Economic & Environmental Research Institute (SERI) 
 

Links

   The Penang Report 1999 online is at:

   www.seri.com.my/spi/contents.htm

   The paper on the Sustainable Penang Initiative presented by Mayor Teng Hock Nan at the Mayors' Asia Pacific Environmental Summit can be found at:

   www.csis.org/e4e/Mayor42Teng.html 

   An article on Sustainable Community Indicators can be found at:

   www.explorecbd.org/tools/nov97/indicators.html