Why Environmental Sustainability Must Be Central to Program Evaluation?

Gita Zareikar, Partner, CogniProbe Solutions Inc.

Why do most evaluations fail to consider environmental sustainability (ES)? In many sectors—health, education, social programs, economic development—evaluations tend to focus on short – to medium-term outcomes for people and systems. But what’s often overlooked is whether those programs are environmentally sustainable or even environmentally harmful.

Do we need to improve our evaluation practices? Absolutely. But are we actually improving? Let’s take a closer look—particularly through Canada’s climate commitments and performance.

In 2015, Canada committed under the Paris Agreement to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. That goal was revised upward in 2021 to a 40–45% reduction by 2030, with a longer-term target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Where are we now in 2025?
As of 2020, Canada’s emissions were only 9% below 2005 levels—and that included temporary reductions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the federal government released its Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP), outlining sectoral strategies to meet its targets. Yet by 2023, the first progress report showed that Canada remained off track and needed to significantly ramp up efforts in oil and gas, transportation, buildings, and other high-emitting sectors.

Meanwhile, the environmental crisis is escalating. In 2023, Canada’s unprecedented wildfires burned over 15 million hectares and released an estimated 647 megatonnes of carbon—the equivalent of about 2.4 billion tonnes of CO₂. According to a 2024 Nature study, this made Canada’s wildfires the fourth-largest source of CO₂ emissions in the world that year—exceeding the annual emissions of most entire countries. As “The Energy Mix” notes, if those wildfires were counted as a country, they would have been among the top eight global emitters.

This context shows why environmental sustainability must be embedded in evaluation practice. Programs that appear successful by conventional metrics may be undermining long-term ecological health. Whether evaluating social services, employment training, or infrastructure projects, evaluators must ask: What is the program’s carbon footprint? Are environmental risks being addressed? Are we advancing sustainability or contributing to long-term harm?

The Footprint Evaluation Initiative, led by the Global Evaluation Initiative, offers a concrete framework for this shift. It calls for integrating environmental sustainability into all evaluations—not as an add-on, but as a core design and assessment principle. It emphasizes that all interventions, regardless of sector, have ecological impacts that must be measured, interpreted, and addressed.

As climate breakdown intensifies, evaluation practice must evolve. It is not enough to improve human outcomes today if those gains come at the expense of future generations. Integrating environmental sustainability into program evaluation is no longer optional—it is essential.