SPAR Impact Calculator
(for a Project)
Purpose: The Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute (CFLRI) and the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association (CPRA) have worked collaboratively with Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton (RCGT) on an innovative initiative to assess the social, health, economic and environmental impacts of sport, physical activity, and recreation in Canada (see measuring-impact.ca). This initiative is based on reliable and national surveillance data, and its development involved the input of many experts in the sector.
One of the outcomes of this initiative is to assist governments and organizations at all levels to effectively use common data and methodology when examining their own infrastructure or departmental impact and value. To this end, interactive tools have been developed that will calculate the economic and health impacts on the population based on the characteristics of a community’s, province’s, or territory’s circumstances and efforts. The CFLRI and CPRA also intend to revisit the data and the calculator as new information becomes available.
What you need: To estimate the impact of a new infrastructure project, some inputs will have to be entered in the calculator. The types of information that you will either need, or be able to estimate, include:
- the type of infrastructure;
- the estimated construction costs in dollars of the project;
- the annual estimated operating costs of the proposed facility project;
- the estimated total annual number of users of the new facility build;
- the number of months that the new facility project will be used;
- the estimated number of volunteer hours involved in the operation of the new facility project;
- sporting event information, including the number of provincial/territorial, national, or international events hosted in the new facility project and the average number of participants at each event;
- the total tree cover associated with your project in either hectares or square metres (applicable only to certain facilities).
It is possible that you may not have all of this information and that is okay. Whatever inputs you can provide will be what the calculator bases impact and value outputs on. It is okay to use your best estimates.
What you will get in return: When you feed these values into the tool, you will receive a summary of the estimated positive outputs produced by the one-time construction costs (during the build) and annual impacts of the ongoing operations of a proposed facility project. These include the human health impacts represented by the estimated costs averted (i.e., the impact of certain non-communicable diseases, depression, and the effects of air pollution) and the estimated economic outputs (i.e., the contribution to the gross domestic product and to employment, volunteering and tourism).
How to use the information: Governments and organizations have indicated to us that they often require this type of impact data to further justify the value of their proposed infrastructure project or the ongoing operations of a department to decision-makers. This type of data can assist in providing monetary values indicating the return on investment in sport, physical activity, and recreation at a community, provincial/territorial and national level. This calculator was designed to help articulate impact in a more quantitative fashion, similar to what is done in other sectors. In addition to quantifying and celebrating impact, this data can also be used in budgetary or grant submissions, or in planning.
Notes of caution: These are estimated values based on the best available data. There are, however, many limitations and caveats to the data that are described in detail in our foundational report called The Price on Inactivity: Measuring the Powerful Impact of Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation in Canada.
This tool was made possible through a financial contribution from Parks Canada, the Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation Council (SPARC), and the Canadian Training Network for Parks and Recreation (CTNPR). The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of these agencies.
Terms of Use
The CFLRI, CPRA, and RCGT, and funding organizations do not assume any liability from your use of this online calculating tool or its results. Users are to employ this tool at their own risk and discretion. The User of the tool agrees to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless the CFLRI, CPRA, and RCGT and the funding organizations, including its directors, officers, employees, agents, and affiliates from and against any and all claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, expenses, or fees that may incur as a result of use of the data or arising from the User’s violation of any terms of this Agreement. This indemnity includes any acts or omissions by the User which result in: (i) violation of any applicable law or regulations; (ii) infringement of the intellectual property rights of any third party; or (iii) unauthorized disclosure of personal or confidential information. Unauthorized reverse engineering, decompilation, or disassembly of this technology is strictly prohibited.
