Energy Indicators for Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Methodologies International Atomic Energy Agency United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs International Energy Agency Eurostat European Environment Agency

3.4
Establishing Links and Causality 
If indicators are to be used to guide policymaking and strategic decisions, then they 
must provide some notion of where to apply policy pressure and where to initiate 
changes that can bring desired results. Establishing links and some idea of causality is 
thus an important feature of policy monitoring with indicators. Seeing trends without 
understanding how to affect them is not useful for strategic development. 
A complete understanding of how each individual economic activity influences all 
others and fits into the whole is not yet in reach. Nonetheless, one can establish useful 
general rules of cause and effect to analyse economies and guide policymaking. The 
indicators can help us understand some of the effects that energy production and use 
have on the economy and the environment. By linking these indicators and monitoring 
changes in their values, one should be able to see the effects that shifts in energy 
production or use have on the economy, society and the environment. 
In general, a cause–effect framework allows policymakers to track pathways and 
subsidiary effects from the point of a policy’s implementation to its impacts in order 
to discern linkages among energy and to target policies more specifically. 
A model of cause and effect was initially designed to identify and categorize the EISD 
using a driving force, state and response (DSR) framework. Similar models are used 
by international organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation 
and Development (OECD), the International Energy Agency (IEA), the United 
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), Eurostat and the 
European Environment Agency (EEA). These include, for example, the pressure-
state-response (PSR) model developed by the OECD for categorizing the nature of 
different environmental indicators and the DPSIR (Driving forces, Pressures, State of 
the environment, Impacts, and societal Responses) framework developed by the EEA. 
The PSR framework describes indicators for environmental pressures as ‘direct’ and 
‘indirect’ pressures exerted on the environment. These indirect pressures are called 
driving forces in other models. The indicators for the environmental state relate to 
environmental quality and the quality and quantity of natural resources. The indicators 

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for societal responses measure how society responds to environmental concerns 
through individual and collective actions and reactions.
2
In the DPSIR framework, the driving forces are the causes underlying the problem; 
pressures are the pollutant releases into the environment; state is the condition of the 
environment; impact is the effects of environmental degradation; and responses are 
the measures taken to reduce the drivers and pressures on the environment or to 
mitigate the impact and effect on the state of the environment. The DPSIR framework 
is used by the EEA to categorize its environmental indicators.
3
As previously noted, the CSD has abandoned the use of the driving force, state and 
response (DSR)-type categorization of indicators as being unwieldy and subject to 
definitional difficulties. Consequently, and following the same approach currently 
used by the CSD on the Indicators of Sustainable Development (ISD), the EISD are 
now simply categorized according to the theme and sub-theme framework. The theme 
framework emphasizes policy issues and is useful in discerning correlations among 
themes, defining sustainable development goals and basic societal needs. In addition, 
the theme framework has proved to be easier to understand and implement at the 
country level. However, when interpreting the indicators, care must be taken in 
attributing causality, because the indicators can sometimes show trends that are 
similar but not linked.