June 8, 2023. I have just started writing this book. This morning, as every day, I read the news. Fires are raging in Canada. More than 400 fires are active from the west coast to the east coast. People are displaced from their homes, and their communities are at risk of being burnt down. The newspaper I am reading tells us that the overall area burning is already 15 times the annual average, and we are still early in the fire season. Firefighters are arriving from South Africa (yes, South Africa!) and France. Air quality has declined dramatically in many regions, well beyond the fire areas; New York is experiencing its worst air quality in 20-25 years.
In the same newspaper a news article reports on the heatwave occurring in Bangladesh, the longest of the last 50 years. Thousands of schools are closed. Electricity production (coal fired) needs to be reduced because of air pollution. Those who are most vulnerable face the greatest exposure and impact. Another article, same newspaper: Oceans have experienced the warmest month of May ever recorded. We can expect cascading effects such as an acceleration of melting ice, increased sea levels, ocean acidification, decreased capacity of the oceans to absorb CO2. And this year, with El Niño, scientists are already predicting droughts and extreme weather events. Environmental news is getting worse each year, and it is hard to stay hopeful.
Solutions exist to positively impact the environment and to maintain the conditions for all species to thrive. They are technological, social, legal, economic, cultural, and they exist across all sectors: transportation, food systems, waste, land management, etc. Furthermore, solutions exist at all levels: from individual, community, regional, nation state to multi-state. However, despite our knowledge of the existence of solutions and continual and starker warnings from scientists, climate advocates, and land defenders, we observe a disturbing inertia. We are so far from the transformational change we need.
As climate change accelerates, adaptation measures will be more necessary. This fact doesn’t alleviate the need to simultaneously implement deep resiliency and mitigation measures. We need more than mitigation given the state of environmental degradation. We need positive action: projects, programs, and policies that have positive impacts, environmentally and socially, and contribute to healthier and more equitable societies, while protecting, restoring, and regenerating local environments.
The response we need to the current challenges requires a real transformation in the way we organize our societies. All activities should contribute to this transformation. The status quo is harmful and no longer desirable. To stop harming the environment and the living conditions of humans and other living species we need to reenvision everything we do. In fact, we need to contribute to protecting health and the environment, promoting well-being, restoring land, air, and water. For these outcomes, we need to stop thinking in silos, isolating each action from its context, and instead, consider all actions in their environmental and social contexts. We need restorative system thinking in everything we do.
Implementing such a transformation necessarily involves drastically disrupting existing societal power structures. Those with powerful interests in the status quo will not allow for a smooth transformation. In particular, industries profiting from extracting, distributing, and marketing fossil fuel energy are the most threatened. Even if other sectors benefit from a socio-ecological transition, fuel-related industrial actors will resist this change as strongly as they can. We are observing this resistance with the implementation of insidious propaganda and lobbying strategies, also called post-truth, at many levels: from strategic use of social media, manipulation and polarization of public opinion, establishment of strong coalitions, funding of political parties, think-tank groups, and pseudo research institutes, etc. (Brousselle, 2024). As the 2023 fires are raging in Canada, disinformation videos are popping up on social media and attributing fires to ecoterrorists and the government. Not surprisingly, this is happening when fires are raising awareness on the importance of urgent climate action. Post-truth tactics are being implemented to discredit climate action advocates and governments to weaken potential mobilization. Post-truth strategies seem to target topics with a potential for changing the existing balance of power.
In the coming years, the context evaluators will navigate will be a complex and changing one with many challenges: large-scale disinformation, distrust in public institutions, environmental disasters, increasing socio-economic inequities, and increased social and environmental injustices. Evaluators working on issues with high transformational potential will be more exposed than others to polarized contexts. However, all evaluators need to understand this broader context to position themselves to make a difference.
Evaluation can be defined as an engaging process that combines different, complementary inquiry approaches to support decision-making while contributing to sense-making, value creation, positive ecosystems, and social change. Evaluation aims at providing credible information to make informed and socially accepted decisions about products, projects, programs, and policies – what we will call interventions in this book. Evaluation can help align interventions with community needs, support evidence-informed design of interventions, provide information on what works and what doesn’t according to the context, inform on the larger impacts of interventions, support informed decision-making on allocation of resources, and monitor progress.
Current evaluation approaches often take the broader social and environmental context for granted. It stays in the background in part because it is easier methodologically to treat it that way, when this context is the most important determinant for human survival and well-being. As we need to collectively respond to many embedded crises we also need to reconsider the way we design and practice evaluation to consider the reciprocal and interrelated nature of the relationships between living beings and the elements and to acknowledge that the future rests on a positive ecosystem that allows all forms of life to flourish (Brousselle et al., 2024a; Brousselle et al., 2024b).
2024. The evaluation community adopted the Earth Day Evaluation Declaration 2024 and published it as a petition (see https://www.change.org/p/incorporate-environmental-sustainability-in-evaluations). The model proposed in this book closely aligns with the values and commitments articulated in the declaration.
Earth Day Evaluation Declaration 2024
Promoting Environmental, Social and Economic Sustainability and Regeneration Criteria in Evaluations.
Evaluators’ Role
Given the overwhelming evidence that climate emergency, loss of biodiversity, soil degradation, and pollution of water, air, and land threaten the future of humanity and all life on Earth…
We commit to introducing context-specific criteria for environmental, social, and economic sustainability and regeneration into all evaluations recognizing that these three domains are intertwined.
Role of Commissioners of Evaluation
We call on those who commission, fund, and use evaluations to include and support context-specific criteria for environmental, social, and economic sustainability and regeneration in all evaluations; and engage a wide range of researchers and scientists in the evaluation teams.
Elaboration, Implications, and Implementation Guidance
Scope. Taking the polycrisis seriously means including appropriate and relevant sustainability and regeneration criteria in all approaches to evaluation for all types of interventions and change efforts, and across all sectors – public, private, nongovernmental, academic – in whatever ways are relevant and feasible.
Level. The universality of the multi-faceted environmental and related crises means developing and applying context-specific environmental, social, and economic sustainability and regeneration criteria at all levels, local and indigenous, regional and national, Global North and Global South, international and global, within formal institutions and informal networks, and in so doing, take into account the mutually reinforcing interrelationships across levels.
Interconnectedness. We reiterate the interconnectedness of environmental, social, economic, political, and cultural systems. Our focus is on the mutually reinforcing and dynamic interrelationships among environmental sustainability and regeneration, equitable, inclusive, and resilient social systems, and economic justice to make clear that these are not conflicting ideals to be pitted against each other but rather interdependent systems that need to be recognized, examined, understood, and evaluated together.
Values undergirding the criteria.
Nexus perspective. Evaluating at the nexus where environmental, social, and economic actions interconnect and intertwine means applying a complex systems framework in evaluation, seeking restorative and regenerative solutions that endure resiliently, and documenting both positive and negative patterns, intended and unintended, and planned, adapted, and emergent pathways toward transformation.
Context. Sustainability-inclusive evaluations include recognition of the historical patterns of exploitation, extraction, expropriation, colonialism, oppression, human dominance over nature, and greed that have created the climate crisis.
Uses. Evaluation for sustainability and regeneration should be designed and implemented to improve and enhance sustainability-inclusive initiatives, support informed, strategic and democratic decision-making through processes and procedures that are fair and just, and strengthen community voice in evaluations and interventions To do so, sustainability-inclusive evaluations will build and facilitate collaborations with those who commission, fund, implement, and are meant to benefit from evaluation processes and results.
Role and responsibility. All evaluators have a responsibility to bring this commitment to sustainable, regenerative, and restorative evaluation criteria into their work and be able to explain to stakeholders that these criteria constitute a statement of evaluators’ professional and ethical responsibility, thereby advocating on behalf of inclusion of these criteria in an appropriate way and doing as much as is practically feasible given constraints of capacity, resources, and context.
Transformation. In affirming this Declaration, we recognize that the challenges confronting our world - energy, environment, climate change, food security, financial security, human security, sustainability for all forms of life - demand solutions beyond what traditional evaluation methods can comprehensively assess. Evaluating systems transformation initiatives through a multi-dimensional and cross-levels sustainability lens will require innovative and inclusive evaluation approaches grounded in, engaged with, and responsive to multiple perspectives.
Commitment. Our shared commitment is to ensure that evaluation is part of the solution going forward and not part of the problem, and that in addressing environmental, social and economic sustainability and regeneration, evaluation makes meaningful, substantive, timely, rigorous, feasible, and useful contributions to a more equitable and sustainable future.
June 20, 2025. I have just finished writing the last chapter of this book. And I can’t help but ask—have we moved closer to a better, more just and sustainable society in the past two years? Around the world, war is a brutal and daily reality. Countries are once again investing in armaments, and we are witnessing an escalation of violence and suffering. Dangerous leaders are in power. Many governments are taking this situation as an excuse to roll back climate commitments. Extractive industries are celebrating again, as governments race to secure essential minerals and once again prioritize economic growth over other agendas.
More than ever, solidarity and mobilization are needed. Over the past two years, evaluators from all places and cultures have been committing to taking a clear stance on social and environmental betterment. Seeds of change are being planted across the planet! None of us can make a difference alone but, together, we can contribute to meaningful social change.
With this book, I hope to provide guidance for evaluators designing evaluation projects which will contribute positively to planetary health, considering the importance and embedded relations of natural and human systems. Ceasing harmful actions is an urgent moral obligation and implementing positive and regenerative solutions is part of this restoration and healing project. I hope this book will inspire evaluators willing to contribute to positive changes for their organizations and communities, by addressing the many challenges human beings are facing and contributing to creating better societies.
This book is the result of a decade of reflection and research, and of two decades of teaching and practicing evaluation. It offers an evaluation model based on the premise that planetary health must be our core goal. The model presented in this book is largely inspired by, yet very different from, the model taught at the University of Montreal which was published as a textbook first in French (Brousselle et al., 2011b) and translated into Portuguese (Brousselle et al., 2011a). Furthermore, many of my published articles are used as the foundation for chapters. This book introduces ways to practice evaluation that are adapted for our times, to contribute positively to planetary health.
Written in short chapters, this book was intentional in its effort to meet several objectives:
- To offer a coherent approach to evaluation adapted to the Anthropocene era. The book presents evaluation questions, concepts and methodologies as an integrated model and not as piecemeal suggestions.
- To teach newcomers to the field of evaluation approaches and methodologies adapted for our times. After working for years on planetary health, I kept asking myself, “how would I teach a foundations course in evaluation now that I think a planetary health lens should be applied to all we do?” This book is the answer. It starts by defining the current context and planetary health. Then it provides guidance on evaluative steps, concepts, questions and methodologies. Readers are then guided through the process of defining and representing the intervention, and explore evaluation questions, in particular logic analysis, effects analysis, implementation analysis, economic evaluations, needs assessment, and monitoring. The book won’t provide deep guidance and knowledge on methodologies and methods; this can be found elsewhere. The evaluation field is a dynamic, multidisciplinary domain. Many textbooks already exist. I assume evaluators are curious and they will dig further to complement their knowledge and skills by reading other textbooks and articles.
- To provide guidance to seasoned evaluators seeking to change their practice to contribute to planetary health.
I hope this book will resonate with what experienced evaluators already know, and, coupled with their moral and ethical stance, provide guidance on how to practice evaluation that will make a difference in this 21st century context. With this book, I want to create a space for the development of approaches and tools for evaluating interventions that consider what matters the most, including determinants of health and well-being for all, with particular attention to the challenges posed by the current post-truth era. After reading and working with this book, evaluators should feel that they can be game changers and contribute positively to the survival and well-being of all species on our planet.