Defra has published its annual guide to the UK's key sustainable development indicators which provides a statistical overview of the country's progress in tackling key economic, social and environmental issues. Sustainable development indicators in your pocket 2008 is a compendium publication, which has drawn on indicators and other National Statistics from across Government. Most of the indicators are based on already published statistics, and almost all have been updated since the 2007 edition.

The aim of the guide is to make indicators easily accessible to a wide audience and to enable everyone to judge where change for the better or worse is occurring and where the challenges are.

The 2008 edition includes new information on estimates of carbon dioxide emissions associated with the UK's consumption of goods and services, whether or not the emissions occur within the UK i.e. including through the production of imported goods (often referred to as embedded emissions). The 68 indicators comprise 126 measures and using these it is possible to get an overview of change compared with earlier years, based on the number of measures showing improvement, little change or deterioration. However it is essential to look at the individual indicators too as this does not take account of the relative importance of particular indicators.

Compared with the position in 1999, 53 measures show improvement (representing over half of those for which it is possible to make an assessment), and 11 show a deterioration.

A wide range of measures show improvement including:

• * renewable electricity
  * emissions of air pollutants
  * waste recycling
  * agricultural emissions and land stewardship
  * river water quality
  * land recycling for development
  * local environmental quality

The eleven measures showing deterioration since 1999 include:

• * aviation emissions of greenhouse gases
  * fossil fuels used for electricity generation
  * nitrogen oxide emissions from electricity generation
  * carbon dioxide emissions from the service sector
  * energy supply (consumption exceeding UK production)
  * household waste arisings
  * wintering wetland bird populations

Twenty of the 68 indicators are also 'UK Framework indicators' covering key impacts and outcomes that reflect the priorities shared by the UK Government and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These include:

Greenhouse gas emissions: emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, were about 8 per cent lower than in 1990. Emissions decreased by about 3 per cent between 2006 and 2007 as a result of switching from coal to natural gas for electricity generation.

River water quality: between 1990 and 2006 the percentage of rivers of good biological quality in England rose from 60 to 71 per cent and in 2006, 54 per cent of rivers in Northern Ireland and 82 per cent of rivers in Wales were of good biological quality. In 2006, 66 per cent of English rivers were of good chemical quality (up from 43 per cent in 1990), this figure was 74 per cent in Northern Ireland (up from 44 per cent in 1991). In all years since 1993 over 90 per cent of rivers in Wales have been of good chemical quality. In Scotland, the percentage of rivers of good quality has remained stable at around 87 per cent between 2000 and 2006, based on a combined chemical, biological and aesthetic assessment.

Bird populations: Farmland bird populations fell by 42 per cent between 1970 and 1993, but remained fairly stable thereafter. Woodland bird populations in 2006 were about 30 per cent lower than the peak of the early 1970s and about 16 per cent lower than 1990. The UK's breeding seabird populations increased between 1970 and 1987 by 37 per cent but have fallen again since 1999.

Some international data have been compiled to enable some comparisons to be made for the UK and twelve other countries: France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Canada, Japan, Australia and the United States of America. Summaries are presented below based on the measures that meet the criteria. Out of 20 measures for which data were available for all 13 compared countries and for 2002 or later, 4 measures showed the UK positioned as one of the 4 countries with the most favourable conditions. These measures were: energy consumption, water abstractions, carbon monoxide emissions and road fatalities. The UK's highest position was second, for water abstractions.