Knowledge / Skills for Protecting Environment

This indicator is relevant when people targeted by environmental mainstreaming measures (e.g. project staff, partners) need specific knowledge or skills to practice the promoted practices. It measures the extent to which they have such knowledge or skills. Examples include knowing how to effectively consider environmental impact in procurement, segregate waste, or reduce energy consumption.

Determine the indicator's value by using the following methodology:

1) Review the organisation’s (or a project’s) environmental mainstreaming measures and list the practices that relevant people (e.g. staff, partners) are encouraged to follow.

2) Define which knowledge and skills the people need to have in order to follow these practices well. Focus on those that some people might not have (to avoid measuring something nearly everyone knows). Avoid having unrealistically high or unnecessarily low requirements by verifying the test’s difficulty by pretesting it with several people.

3) Prepare simple tests assessing whether the targeted project participants have the predefined, most important knowledge and/or skills. The testing can consist of, for example:

     - a written test assessing people’s knowledge

     - practical tasks testing their skills

4) Decide the minimum result a person needs to reach to pass the test (for example, answering at least 7 out of 10 knowledge-related questions correctly and performing at least 3 out of 5 tested skills correctly).

5) Administer the test to a representative sample of the targeted people.

6) To calculate the indicator’s value, divide the number of people who have the minimum required knowledge/skills by the total number of people who took the test. Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage.

Disaggregate the results by gender, age group and other important criteria, depending on the context and focus of your intervention.

1) Keep in mind that some people might have the required knowledge or skills but face other constraints that prevent them from following the promoted practices. In such a case, the indicator can be changed to focus on measuring the extent to which they have what they need to follow a given practice. See also this guidance on measuring the prevalence of barriers to change.