Public agencies, given their size and influence, are expected to lead by example in delivering sustainability goals by ensuring that sustainability informs planning, decision-making and operations. Thus, the integration of sustainable development (SD) principles into all government processes – including policy formulation and operations – is crucial for the implementation of SD and is, actually, the major challenging task of the public sector (PS) organizations.

Sustainability performance measurement has been increasingly recognized by PS organizations as one tool that allows us to evaluate the integration of sustainability considerations on government processes. Several governments are beginning to implement “greening and sustainable government” programs. These initiatives focus on the environmental dimension of SD and on the measurement and evaluation of government operational performance, namely the assessment of government operations and management practices. In this context, integrated environmental, social and economic issues are poorly addressed. Neither of them integrate a two level (strategic/policy and operational) assessment approach. Besides the operational performance, public agencies should assess the sustainability performance of their decision-making processes through identification and evaluation of SD principles on several PS initiatives (such as legislation, regulation, policy, plan or programme).

The main goal of the present research consists in developing a Sustainability Performance Evaluation Framework for the PS. The framework will enable PS organizations:

• To assess sustainability performance, through an integrated approach of SD dimensions, and optimise performance management;
• To benchmark sustainability performance and facilitate continuous improvement and exchange of good practice;
• To improve sustainability performance through daily activities (operational and strategic levels);
• To assess how sustainability principles are embraced in decision-making management processes.

For this purpose the following aspects will be developed: i) a PS Sustainability Profile; ii) a Sustainability Performance Evaluation

Framework for the PS including the development of a sustainability label for public services and a case study analysis – the

Portuguese PS; iii) an interactive guidebook that assists self assessment of PS agencies and provides guidelines for sustainability good practices implementation; and iv) a Sustainable Public Performance Benchmarking web tool.

To develop the PS sustainability profile a questionnaire survey will be conducted involving a representative sample of the Portuguese central government agencies. The Sustainability Performance Evaluation Framework will include the development of a checklist, which will allow the assessment of PS practices against established sustainability criteria. Those criteria and respective performance indicators include the evaluation of the environmental, social and economic performance of PS policies, plans and programs and operational activities in the context of overall performance. The evaluation of the framework itself will be conducted through a meta-performance process that will allow the continuous improvement of the entire framework, where the effectiveness of the framework will be measured. This will represent a significant part of the model review information. This framework could be used as a self-assessment and communication tool for public organizations. The framework will be tested and validated with the Portuguese PS case study.

An interactive guidebook will be created to assist the self-assessment of PS agencies, supporting the framework implementation, and to provide guidelines for sustainability good practices implementation, offering web-links to good practices reference documents and sites, e.g. sustainability performance indicators and reporting guidelines.

A Sustainable Public Performance Benchmarking tool will be built, consisting on a web-based graphical interface supported by a relational database, setting into practice the framework developed. The data obtained through the framework test and validation will be used in a first benchmark exercise.

It is expected that the research outputs can contribute to the promotion of a SD strategy in Government activities and in the overall PS. The proposed research will try to integrate operational and strategic levels for the sustainability performance assessment of the PS, aiming to integrate the environment, economic, social, cultural and institutional issues. This innovative approach thus tries to improve and mitigate the main drawbacks of sustainability assessment methods developed for the PS, mainly focusing on environment and operational issues.