Within the framework of the ECOPRONAT research program, AFD has supported the development of methodologies to assess a country’s environmental sustainability. Among them is the ESGAP framework, a “dashboard” for monitoring the state of several components of the environment. Drawing on the cases of South Africa and Colombia, this research project also explored how ESGAP could help public decision-makers steer environmental policies.
Context
To prioritize their actions to conserve natural capital and assess their effectiveness, public actors need to monitor the state of the environment objectively. To do so, they must be able to rely on science-based reference values.
Developed with this in mind, the ESGAP (Environmental Sustainability Gap) is an innovative method for calculating indicators that assesses the distance between the state of a territory’s critical environmental functions (air or water quality, pollution, forest resources, fisheries, etc.) and their sustainability level.
For several years, AFD has supported research to test this tool in different contexts (New Caledonia, Kenya and Vietnam). With this new project, it sought to refine how ESGAP can reflect the state of biodiversity and serve as a guide for public policies to estimate and preserve the critical functions of the natural capital of a given country.
This project is part of the ECOPRONAT research program, which supported research aimed at improving the consideration of biodiversity and mainstreaming it into key economic sectors.
Objectives
Building on the lessons learned in other countries, the researchers implemented the ESGAP framework in Colombia and South Africa and tested its relevance in fostering dialogue on environmental public policies. To this end, University College London and the Basque Centre for Climate Change partnered with teams from Stellenbosch University (South Africa) and the National University of Colombia (UNAL).
The project had four objectives:
- Improving the ESGAP indicators related to biodiversity and the state of ecosystems that could be used by the Colombian and South African governments, and promoting the use of science-based targets by public authorities;
- Promoting reflection on strong sustainability in Colombia and South Africa through the ESGAP framework, by assessing whether the development of these countries lies within the safe operating space for humanity;
- Clarifying how the ESGAP framework aligns with, complements and adds value to other types of sustainability indicators that both governments already use;
- Beyond the research work, strengthening the capacity of partner countries to use the ESGAP framework, notably through training activities for postgraduate students and awareness-raising activities for policymakers.
Method
The ESGAP framework is based on a dashboard that provides information on changes in the state of 23 components of the environment. These components cover the 4 main categories of critical and essential environmental functions: resource provision, pollution reprocessing, biodiversity maintenance and human health.
Their state at a given point in time is compared with a value that science considers “sustainable” (i.e., compatible with the preservation of life and human activities). The difference between the two is the “environmental sustainability gap”: the wider the gap, the longer the path to environmental sustainability.
The scores for the 23 components are then aggregated to provide an overall picture of the state of the environment, scored out of 100. A score of 100/100 would be achieved if the indicators for all components matched the sustainability reference values.
Learn more about the ESGAP methodology
Results
The research project helped further develop the ESGAP tool by testing its relevance for countries where environmental data may be less accessible and data infrastructure less advanced. It also deepened reflection on how to operationalize the ESGAP framework, particularly its complementarity with other indicators.
In Colombia and South Africa, specific work was carried out to improve the indicators related to biodiversity maintenance because, although both countries had a regulatory framework and natural resource management in place, not all data – particularly on biodiversity – were always available.
In terms of capacity building, five students and early-career researchers – four of them women – took part in this research as part of their training. The results were also presented to the Colombian and South African public authorities.
At the end of the project, a webinar in the “Research Conversations” series presented the results of the articles to the scientific community.
South Africa’s overall environmental sustainability gap score is 42/100. Major challenges remain for indicators related to human health: CO2 emissions, ambient air pollution and microbiological water pollution. However, South Africa scores well on indicators related to biodiversity conservation, indoor air pollution, groundwater use and consumption of ozone-depleting substances.
Key institutional actors – the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and the Ministry of Environment – welcomed the research findings at a seminar organized by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) to present and discuss the results. The 60 or so participants discussed ways to integrate these results into national strategies (biodiversity strategy, nationally determined contribution and municipal climate plans); they also stressed the need for a formal collaborative process to adapt and operationalize the framework.
Colombia’s overall environmental sustainability gap score is 32/100, showing considerable room for improvement. Good scores are achieved in areas where the country has made international commitments and set clear targets, such as the consumption of ozone-depleting substances. However, the ESGAP framework highlights critical vulnerabilities that require urgent attention: exploitation of forest and fishery resources; CO2 emissions; surface water pollution; coastal ecosystem health; conservation of endemic biodiversity; and conservation of natural World Heritage sites.
In Colombia, the indicator was built from assessments carried out by the Ministry of Environment. The ESGAP framework could only be applied to 17 of its 23 components, highlighting major data availability issues in some areas (such as groundwater resources, monitoring of chemical pollution in terrestrial ecosystems and ecosystem health indicators).
A workshop with several ministries provided an opportunity to present and discuss the results, leading to exchanges on the quality of the data and reference values used, and on how to make better use of these results to formulate concrete public policy recommendations. A summary for decision-makers was written specifically for the Colombian case.
Going further
- Research paper: Assessing environmental sustainability in Colombia: Metrics and policy recommendations, Environmental and Sustainability Indicators n°27 (2025)
- Policy brief: Enhancing Environmental Sustainability Through the Environmental Sustainability Gap (ESGAP) Framework in Colombia (2024)
- Infographic: Assessing the state of the environment in Colombia: What can we learn from the ESGAP analysis
This research project deepened reflection on how to operationalize the ESGAP framework, particularly its complementarity with other international indicator frameworks.
- The limitations of the SDG framework
The research team showed that the framework for monitoring progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly the environmental ones, does not ensure that progress toward environmental sustainability is properly measured: most indicators do not refer to critical environmental functions, and only a minority come with sustainability reference values.
Read the research paper: The SDGs Provide Limited Evidence That Environmental Policies Are Delivering Multiple Ecological and Social Benefits, Earth’s Future, vol. 12 (May 2024)
- The potential of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA)
The team recommends that public decision-makers make better use of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA). Although recommended by the United Nations, it has so far been little used to monitor progress toward the SDGs or the Global Biodiversity Framework. The solution would be to integrate science-based sustainability reference values (such as those of the ESGAP framework) into the SEEA ecosystem accounts. This would make it possible to quantify gaps relative to ecological thresholds and thus make the SEEA more useful for monitoring progress toward the SDG sustainability targets or biodiversity targets.
Read the policy brief: Mobilizing strong sustainability indicators to achieve global durability goals
Read the research paper: Strong sustainability in the SEEA and the wider indicator landscape, One Ecosystem (May 2025)
Lessons learned
The ESGAP framework is a replicable tool for monitoring a country’s environmental sustainability and can inform public decision-makers about the action needed. Complementary to other indicators, it underscores the importance of science-based sustainability reference values for properly assessing the effectiveness of environmental public policies.
The ESGAP approach is recent but is gaining scientific legitimacy. It is currently considered to produce the most credible strong sustainability development indicators (Neumayer, 2025). It has also been cited as a methodology particularly well suited to assessing national policy frameworks for environmental sustainability (by WWF) and to assessing nature-related financial risks (by the NGFS).
While other research has developed the ESGAP approach in several developed countries (notably in Europe and Japan), the research supported by AFD through the ECOPRONAT program has shown that the ESGAP analytical framework can be adapted to countries of the Global South (Kenya, Vietnam, Colombia and South Africa). It thus provides an innovative and meaningful overview of the degree of environmental sustainability in a country.
As not all the data needed for the ESGAP analysis are systematically available, indicators adapted to each country can be developed. The downside is that countries cannot be compared with one another. AFD will launch new research to propose a standardized ESGAP framework that will allow countries’ environmental performance to be compared. This would be a kind of Human Development Index (HDI), but for nature.
In countries of the Global South, the picture of environmental sustainability is often incomplete because the data may be:
- Missing: there are blind spots in the environmental statistics system;
- Available but hard to access (not compiled, scattered, not public, etc.), so they cannot feed into the dashboard needed by public authorities, researchers or the general public;
- Available and accessible, but without a science-based sustainability reference value, which prevents a rigorous assessment of the sustainability of these functions.
Conducting an ESGAP analysis therefore reveals blind spots in some countries’ monitoring of the state of the environment and, consequently, in their assessment of the effectiveness of environmental public policies. This can help a country identify concrete actions to ensure that knowledge is available and accessible to guide action on biodiversity (Target 21 of the Global Biodiversity Framework). More broadly, investing in better environmental data collection systems is essential to accurately assess the state of the environment and the effectiveness of the policies implemented, thereby supporting better decision-making
Testing ESGAP in Colombia and South Africa also made it possible to assess its usefulness in initiating dialogue on environmental policies. The results were discussed between researchers and public decision-makers, and public policy recommendations were formulated for both countries. These discussions showed that, even though the ESGAP analysis is partial due to the lack of data, it can help integrate biodiversity into decision-making (Target 14 of the Global Biodiversity Framework).
The project demonstrated how ESGAP complements other indicators. In particular, it can be integrated into the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) recommended by the United Nations, and it can improve the monitoring framework for the SDGs and the Global Biodiversity Framework.
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Contact
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Oskar LECUYER
Economist
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Julien CALAS
Research Officer on Biodiversity
