The Indicator System underlying the Monitoring Report and the overall report itself were created and agreed politically in an inter-departmental process with the participation of numerous experts from the competent sectors of agencies at Federal and Länder level and from scientific and private institutions. This painstaking theme-specific process took nearly six years. In future the monitoring report is to be updated quadrennially.

The Indicator System comprises 102 indicators; the Monitoring Report runs to some 256 pages. High standards were set and a documentation system was constructed to support the process of updating the indicator documentation, the data sources and the reporting process itself. This documentation system was designed in a way to ensure the complete repeatability of calculations.