"This document discusses how the six evaluation criteria of the OECD DAC (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development – Development Assistance Committee) can be used to get environmental sustainability on the agenda for evaluations and monitoring. These criteria are widely used in inter ... national development organisations, and similar criteria are often used in other organisations. This document is based on existing guidance produced by OECD DAC (OECD, 2021) with additional commentary from the members of the Footprint Evaluation Initiative." (Summary, page 1) more

"The guidance is intended to support people who are planning, managing or conducting evaluations, especially within national and sub-national governments, to include environmental sustainability, even when this is not a stated objective of the program or policy. Environmental sustainability includes ... consideration of climate change, biodiversity, pollution, over-exploitation of natural resources, invasive species, and deforestation.The guidance sets out ways to embed environmental sustainability in evaluation in ways that are feasible and useful. Usefulness includes direct, instrumental use, to inform specific decisions and actions. It also includes wider conceptual use - understanding the value of natural systems, and the coupling between environment and equity." (Page 4) more

"The Footprint Evaluation Initiative aims to ensure that all evaluations consider environmental sustainability, regardless of whether this is an explicit objective of the project, policy or program being evaluated. This report describes four ‘thought experiments’ undertaken as part of this proje ... ct. The thought experiments explored whether it is relevant, feasible and useful to consider environmental sustainability in evaluation, how this might be done, what challenges and issues it raises, and what is needed to address these. This report aims to document and share what we learned during this process, provide concrete examples of how environmental sustainability might be considered in an evaluation, and share details of our thought experiment process that others might find helpful." (Summary) more