Survey of Environmental Protection Expenditures (SEPE)

Detailed information for 2002

This survey provides a measure of the expenditures made by industry operating in Canada for environmental protection in response to Canadian and international environmental regulations, conventions and voluntary agreements.

Data release - April 28, 2004

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

The Survey of Environmental Protection Expenditures provides a measure of the cost to Canadian industry to comply with present or anticipated environmental regulations, conventions and voluntary agreements. The survey also collects information on environmental management practices and environmental technologies used by industry for the purpose of preventing, abating or controlling pollution.

Data from the survey are used predominantly by policy analysts and by both industry and academic researchers. Data may be used to monitor expenditure trends within industry groups or provinces for the purpose of developing business or research and development strategies, as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of policy.

Reference period: The calendar year or the 12-month fiscal period for which the final day occurs on or between April 1st of the reference year and March 31st of the following year.

Subjects

• Environment
• Environmental protection

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The survey provides an estimate of environmental expenditures made by establishments in primary industries (resource extraction), manufacturing industries, the Electric Power Generation, Transmission, and Distribution Industry, the Pipeline Transportation Industry, the Oil and Gas Extraction Industry and the Natural Gas Distribution Industry. In order to be selected for the survey, an establishment has to have more than 49 employees. Note: In some provinces and territories, employment thresholds are reduced in order to obtain minimum coverage.

Two survey forms are used: a long (detailed) questionnaire is sent to establishments in industry groups whose environmental expenditures per employee are equal to or greater than $1000; a short questionnaire is sent to establishments in industry groups whose environmental expenditures per employee are less than $1000.

Estimation is done for all companies in the targeted industry groups whose employment is 50 or above.

Instrument design

The questionnaire has undergone various transformations since its inception in 1994. The original material was developed by the Environmental Accounts and Statistics Division with assistance from Industry Canada. A pilot study involving a limited group of respondents was performed as a means of initial testing of content and terminology. The basic expenditure questions have remained relatively constant over the cycles, with most significant changes involving the environmental management processes and technologies material (qualitative data).

For the 2002 reference year, questions dealing with greenhouse gas emission reduction technologies were added. During the development phase of this material, a series of one-on-one interviews with businesses were conducted to test the new material, as well as to collect feedback on existing survey questions.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design.

The non-manufacturing (primary) and manufacturing sample is stratified based on industry group, which in turn determines a take-all portion and a take-some portion. The take-all stratum includes the following industries: Oil and Gas Extraction; Mining; Electric Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution; Natural Gas Distribution; Beverage and Tobacco Products; Pulp, Paper and Paperboard Mills; Petroleum and Coal Products; Primary Metals; and Pipeline Transportation. All establishments with over 49 employees in these primary and manufacturing industries are surveyed using a detailed (long) questionnaire.

The take-some industries include Logging, Food, Wood Products, Chemicals, Non-Metallic Mineral Products, Fabricated Metal Products and Transportation Equipment. These industries also receive the long questionnaire. The take-all and take-some portions of the sample are determined based on a number of factors found in each industry, such as the average level of environmental protection expenditures per employee greater than $1000 (at the 4,5 or 6-digit NAICS level, depending on the industry) and the number of small and medium-sized establishments within the industry group.

The remaining industries in the manufacturing sector are sampled at the 4-digit NAICS level and grouped into an "other manufacturing" category. To minimize response burden, establishments (with more than 49 employees) in these industries receive a short questionnaire. The industries in the "other manufacturing" category are chosen based on an average level of environmental protection expenditure per employee below $1000.

The take-some stratum is selected by ranking establishments within each 4,5, or 6-digit NAICS (again depending on the industry group) by total employment. For NAICS categories with 50 or more establishments, the top 15% are selected. If there are between 15 and 49 establishments, the top 20% are selected. Where the total number of establishments falls below 15, all establishments are selected. In some provinces and territories, the employment threshold is reduced to improve coverage. The largest establishments are selected in order to maximize the employment covered while minimizing the number of establishments surveyed.

The sample size fluctuates between survey cycles, however, it generally ranges between 2 500 and 3 000 units.

Data sources

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

In most cases, data are collected using one of two paper questionnaires mailed to the respondent. A long (detailed) questionnaire is sent to establishments in industry groups whose environmental expenditures per employee are equal to or greater than $1000; a short questionnaire is sent to establishments in industry groups whose environmental expenditures per employee are less than $1000. In some cases, establishments supply their information by means of an electronic questionnaire, returned either by e-mail or diskette/CD-ROM. A letter explaining the purpose of the survey, the requested return date and the legal requirements of response is included with the mail-out package.

The surveys were addressed to a contact person who was either responsible for, or had knowledge of, the environment-related operations of the firm. In the case of some multi-establishment firms, the survey was mailed to the head office which either forwarded the questionnaire to the appropriate establishment or provided a combined report for all targeted establishments.

Telephone and fax follow-up are used to obtain data from establishments who return incomplete questionnaires or who fail to respond. Information is manually captured and entered into a database using BLAISE capture and edit software, in which they are subjected to edit checks which serve to illuminate real or potential response errors. Phone follow-up is performed to verify information in cases where edit checks have failed.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s).

Error detection

Many factors affect the accuracy of data produced in a survey. For example, respondents may have made errors in interpreting questions, answers may have been incorrectly entered on the questionnaires, and errors may have been introduced during the data capture or tabulation process. Every effort was made to reduce the occurrence of such errors in the survey.

Returned data are first checked using an automated edit-check program (BLAISE) immediately after capture. This first procedure verifies that all mandatory cells have been filled in, that certain values lie within acceptable ranges, that questionnaire flow patterns have been respected, and that totals equal the sum of their components. Collection officers evaluate the edit failures and concentrate follow-up efforts accordingly.

Further data checking is performed by subject matter officers who compare historical data with returned data to determine if differences between survey cycles are reasonable. If not, collection officers are asked to confirm with respondents their responses. Subject matter officers also research companies (annual reports, web sites, etc.) in an effort to verify information submitted by respondents.

Outliers are identified after collection has ceased and are removed from the imputation process.

Imputation

Imputation is used for non-response records. Imputation programs are used to identify best-fit donors, moving systematically through increasingly general donor pools. Criteria for donor identification are various combinations of industry group and geographical location (province, region, or Canada). The programs used for this process were developed in-house when the survey was first created and are updated each cycle to accommodate for changes in the sample/population.

Estimation

Estimation is done for establishments that had 49 or more employees but were not surveyed. The mean of the environmental protection expenditures to employment ratio for a particular industry group and province/region is multiplied by the number of employees to determine an estimate for a non-sampled establishment. No estimation or imputation was done for questions dealing with qualitative information.

Due to the fact that the sample is not drawn in a random manner, variance estimates and error ranges are not calculated.

Quality evaluation

Data evaluation and error detection during data collection is an important way to ensure that the final estimates that are produced are of good quality. Post-collection, the survey results and estimates are evaluated as a further method of evaluating data quality. One way to assess data quality is to compare it to the trends of other data collected. For example, in comparing the environmental protection expenditures with those of the previous cycle, some industry groups would show increases in expenditures, while others would show a decrease. Increased expenditures would be expected in industry groups that were subject to new environmental regulations or that had experienced a general increase in capital investments. On the other hand, some industries would have made large expenditures in the past to comply with regulations that came into effect before the reference year, and therefore would not be reporting as much in the current year. Instead, a shift in expenditures from capital to operating may be noticed, as firms now pay for the operation and maintenance on previously implemented processes and equipment. Respondents are provided with an area to provide a brief explanation to account for significant changes in environmental protection expenditures made by the establishment (either increased or decreased compared to previous reporting periods).

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any data which would divulge information obtained under the Statistics Act that relates to any identifiable person, business or organization without the prior knowledge or the consent in writing of that person, business or organization. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

Two stages of disclosure control are used. MS FoxPro programs specifically written to identify cells that may contain confidential data are run against the cross tabulations. A decision is then made whether to suppress cells or to aggregate cells to avoid disclosure. The second step is an intensive peer review of all tabular data prior to publication. This manual verification ensures that both inter and intra tabular comparisons cannot be made that may lead to disclosure of confidential data.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

Revisions to the data are sometimes made between the release of the preliminary data table and the release of the detailed survey report. In that case, only the preliminary data table is revised. The data are not seasonally adjusted.

Data accuracy

The accuracy of data collected in a sample survey is affected by both sampling and non-sampling errors. In the case of this survey, due to the non-random nature of the sample, CVs are not calculated for the data. As for non-sampling errors, they arise from coverage error, data response error, non-response error, and processing errors. Every effort is made to reduce these types of errors including verification of keyed data, consistency and validity edits, extensive follow up and consultation with government departments and industry associations.

The overall response rate, based on the ratio of the number of completed and partially completed questionnaires to the total number of in-scope questionnaires, was 78%. An alternative response rate of 81% was calculated based on total employment covered (not including employment in the Pipeline Transportation industry). Imputation was used to fill in the missing responses to certain questions. The imputation rate for total operating expenditures, total capital expenditures and total expenditures was 10.5%, 7.2% and 9.0% respectively.

For additional information on data accuracy, please follow the link below.

• Additional documentation