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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GRAEME COOK At its meeting on 25 June 2003 the Environment and Rural Development Committee agreed to pursue inquiry work on sustainable development when time allowed after legislative commitments. This briefing is to inform discussion around the topic at the Committee awayday on 26 August 2003. SPICe briefing 20 August 2003 03/64 1 SPICe Briefings are compiled for the benefit of the Members of the Parliament and their personal staff. Authors are available to discuss the contents of these papers with MSPs and their staff who should contact Graeme Cook on extension 85086 or email graeme.cook@scottish.parliament.uk. Members of the public or external organisations may comment on this briefing by emailing us at spice.research@scottish.parliament.uk However, researchers are unable to enter into personal discussion in relation to SPICe Briefing Papers. Every effort is made to ensure that the information contained in SPICe briefings is correct at the time of publication. Readers should be aware however that briefings are not necessarily updated or otherwise amended to reflect subsequent changes. www.scottish.parliament.uk INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................................3 WHAT IS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT? ..............................................................................3 GOVERNMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT .............................................................5 Global .......................................................................................................................................5 Europe......................................................................................................................................6 United Kingdom .......................................................................................................................7 Scotland ...................................................................................................................................8 Local Authorities .................................................................................................................... 10 EVALUATING PROGRESS TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT .............................. 11 Sustainable development indicators....................................................................................... 11 Life satisfaction and other sustainable development appraisal mechanisms ......................... 11 SOURCES……………………………………………………………………………………………….14 providing research and information services to the Scottish Parliament 2 providing research and information services to the Scottish Parliament 3 INTRODUCTION This briefing examines the broad concept of sustainable development before examining policy approaches taken at global, European, United Kingdom and Scottish level. It further suggests possible areas of analysis for a committee inquiry and/or external research into sustainable development. WHAT IS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT? Given a high profile by the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, the traditional definition of ‘sustainable development’ relates to using resources today in a manner that will allow future generations to meet their own needs. The concept though, is far from new. As a Scot, John Muir said over a century ago: “Unfortunately, man is in the woods, and waste and pure destruction are making rapid headway. If the importance of forests were at all understood, even from an economic standpoint, their preservation would call forth the most watchful attention of government” Modern discussion around sustainable development began from an environmental base, but economic and social considerations are equal partners. These three elements – social, economic and environmental are the three traditional pillars of the concept. However, most government sustainable development policy is formulated in environment departments, a model illustrated by the European Commission, the UK and Scottish administrations. The debate has moved on from defining sustainable development to trying to integrate the concept of common sense decision making into policy and spending commitments. A reaffirmation of the overall concept was made at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September 2002, attended by the First Minister. The UK Sustainable Development Commission (2003a) states: “Two centuries of industrial development have made life better for many people in ways that would have been unimaginable even a generation ago. But it has also brought increasing damage to the physical systems and social fabric on which our well-being depends. It is clear we cannot continue in this way indefinitely. Indeed the call for a change of direction is urgent. What we need now is a different kind of development, one which meets people’s needs without compromising our future. For this to be sustainable, we must take full account of the social, economic and environmental impacts of our decisions, over the long term.” and: “Sustainable development is inevitably a contested idea, dependent on finding the right balance between different and often conflicting objectives through much more integrated policy-making and planning processes. Putting its principles into practice demands debate, experimentation and continuous learning, and therefore requires a thriving democracy to allow it to evolve and flourish.” Others, such as Shell (1997) have said that: “’Sustainability,’ or ‘sustainable development,’ is a topic of our age and by its nature is ambiguous and elusive. [ ] many can be emotional about the subject without fully defining providing research and information services to the Scottish Parliament 4 what it is. We need not be ashamed of this, for to explore sustainability at this juncture in human history is to raise fundamental questions of how humanity defines itself and how each one of us comes to terms with the challenges of the 21st century.” At all levels of decision making, from the individual to the supra-national, sustainable development is now seen less as an abstract concept. Instead, it is generally considered as making common sense decisions, appraised from a variety of angles. At a practical level for the government and agencies this means evaluating decisions with an understanding of the impact they will have on other policy areas. For example, transport decisions may have implications for health spending (positive or negative), planning decisions may have a direct impact on water and energy networks, and agricultural spending may have implications for the environment and rural communities. This concept of Impact Assessment is being championed at European level (European Commission 2002a). The traditional measure of progress has been Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but this does not incorporate social or environmental costs. The Sustainable Development Commission in a quote which could equally apply to government (2003b) states: “However dynamic it may be, the global economy is in the first instance a sub-system of human society, which is in itself a sub-system of the totality of life on earth.” Whilst there is little doubt that increasing economic growth can lead to improvements in social and environmental circumstances, problems arise when negative consequences of that economic growth, sometimes known as negative externalities, begin to outweigh the benefits. In some cases the improvements are not seen by citizens who nonetheless have to bear a share of the negative consequences. For example the increased use of cars in the latter half of the 20th century undoubtedly led to greater freedom for those who could afford cars, and boosted the traditional economy, but those who do not have access to a car have to bear their share of externalities such as increasing pollution and congestion levels. This is the root of the concept of environmental justice broadly defined as: "The socially just distribution of environmental costs, assets and resources, and the means to achieve this" (Friends of the Earth Scotland 2003). As the First Minister (Scottish Executive 2002) has said: "The gap between the haves and have nots is not just an economic issue – improving quality of life demands environmental justice too. At the moment there is a real injustice in that people who suffer the most from a poor environment are those least able to fight back.” Consideration by business of the relationship between economic goals, and social and environmental impacts is framed in a developing concept known as ‘corporate social responsibility’, though by no means do all businesses adhere to the concept. As an example of a business decision having a direct impact on the environment, Royal Mail (2003) cited efficiency and cost as the reasons behind the recent decision to drop rail from its distribution network and focus on air and road – a decision criticised by freight operators (EWS Railway 2003). This example raises questions around the ‘costs’ considered when making such decisions. providing research and information services to the Scottish Parliament 5 Instead of considering the three pillars of sustainable development in the abstract, it is useful to consider a real situation, that of the sea fishing industry where a balance has to be struck between jobs (social), profits (economic) and the health of fish stocks (environmental). This example illustrates the need for key decisions to be taken earlier to reduce the risk of local economies crashing, with long term planning built into all levels of decision making. For several decades, the stocks of whitefish in the waters around Britain have been over- exploited, to such an extent that one stock, cod, is on the brink of a potentially irretrievable collapse, and there are grave concerns about the health of other stocks. Long term visionary thinking is required to turn the situation around. Hard decisions have to be taken which may reduce both jobs and profits in the short term. This issue illustrates the problems politicians can have in implementing sustainable development, which sometimes depends on their taking unpopular decisions which can sacrifice jobs and profits in the short-term for longer term environmental (and ultimately economic and social) gain. GOVERNMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GLOBAL The World Summits in Rio in 1992 and Johannesburg in 2002 have given sustainable development international focus. The 1992 Summit culminated in international agreements, including a Declaration on Environment and Development; Agenda 21; conventions on climate change and biological diversity; and a statement on Sustainable Forestry Management. The 2002 Summit, whilst less groundbreaking, saw a reaffirmation of the concept of sustainable development. More on global agreements is available in SPICe Subject Profile 03/29 Environment (2003a). The political resolution (United Nations 2002) adopted at the Johannesburg summit states: “The global environment continues to suffer. Loss of biodiversity continues, fish stocks continue to be depleted, desertification claims more and more fertile land, the adverse effects of climate change are already evident, natural disasters are more frequent and more devastating, and developing countries more vulnerable, and air, water and marine pollution continue to rob millions of a decent life. Globalization has added a new dimension to these challenges. The rapid integration of markets, mobility of capital and significant increases in investment flows around the world have opened new challenges and opportunities for the pursuit of sustainable development. But the benefits and costs of globalization are unevenly distributed, with developing countries facing special difficulties in meeting this challenge.” More fundamentally though, the plan of implementation for sustainable development sets an objective to: “Encourage and promote the development of a 10-year framework of programmes in support of regional and national initiatives to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production to promote social and economic development within the carrying capacity of ecosystems by addressing and, where appropriate, delinking economic growth and environmental degradation through improving efficiency and sustainability in the use of resources and production processes and reducing resource degradation, pollution and waste. All countries should take action, with developed countries taking the lead.” providing research and information services to the Scottish Parliament 6 EUROPE The new draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (European Convention 2003) states as one of the Union’s objectives: “The Union shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth, a social market economy, highly competitive and aiming at full employment and social progress, and with a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment. It shall promote scientific and technological advance.” According to the European Commission sustainable development website: “The transition towards more Sustainable Development is a strategic goal for the European Union. This is a long-term process requiring structural changes in our economy and society, but also in the way we develop and implement policies. In order to succeed, this will require the active participation of all sectors and groups (Community institutions, the Member States, the private and the non-governmental sectors and local authorities).” The main tool for implementation in Europe is the European Sustainable Development strategy (European Commission 2001a). Within this framework, five priority areas have been identified (European Commission 2003): • policy coherence • sustainable globalisation • consumption and production patterns • energy • poverty eradication. The European Commission is further seeking to take a lead in partnerships for global sustainable development (European Commission 2002b). Fundamental to the European approach is that the debate is not only generated from an environmental angle. At official level this can lead to, for example, designated transport staff working in DG Environment (European Commission 2003c) and designated sustainable development staff working in DG Energy and Transport (European Commission 2003b). This type of approach makes it easier to deliver on political priorities, for instance the recognised relationship (European Commission 2003a) between transport and environmental degradation, and environment and health (European Commission 2003d). Such cross cutting horizontal working is fundamental to the delivery of Europe’s sustainable development agenda. Such an approach is increasingly mirrored in European Commission departmental policy development. The Sixth Environmental Action Programme (European Commission 2001b), the framework for European environment policy development is broad enough to consider social and economic aspects, and works in tandem with similar approaches taken elsewhere in the Commission1. One of the seven key themes of the Sixth Environmental Action Programme sees the current development of a ‘Thematic Strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources’. Another is a developing urban thematic strategy. The point is that ‘sustainable development’ can no longer sit exclusively in DG Environment. 1 The Sixth Environmental Action Programme is due for mid term review in 2006 providing research and information services to the Scottish Parliament 7 Furthermore, the concept of ‘Impact Assessment’ (European Commission 2002a) has been developed at European level, essentially allowing policy decisions to be far better appraised than previously. According to the European Commission: “Impact Assessment identifies the likely positive and negative impacts of proposed policy actions, enabling informed political judgements to be made about the proposal and identify trade-offs in achieving competing objectives.” UNITED KINGDOM The UK priorities for sustainable development, identified on the official sustainable development website are: • a sustainable economy • building sustainable communities • managing the environment & resources • international co-operation and development In May 1999 the United Kingdom Government published a UK Strategy for Sustainable Development (DETR 1999). This strategy recognised the new political landscape created by devolution and stated: “Where matters are devolved, the new administrations will decide how to proceed in the light of their country's particular circumstances and the needs and wishes of their people. Thus, while some of the policies described in this Strategy apply to the UK as a whole, others are exclusive to England. Reflecting this, many descriptions in this Strategy of policy initiatives in devolved areas focus on action in England, but some references are also included to parallel policies and related examples in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK Government looks forward to forging new partnerships on sustainable development with the devolved administrations. It hopes that this Strategy will help the devolved administrations to address their task.” Building on the February 2003 Review of progress towards sustainable development (Defra 2003) the UK strategy is currently under review with a Sustainable Development Task Force meeting for the first time on 8 May 2003 and again on 14 July 2003. Early discussion has focused on, amongst other things, whether a national strategy that covers all governments of the UK, rather than a UK Government Strategy would be most useful. The minutes (Sustainable Development Taskforce 2003) of the 14 July meeting give a useful overview of progress and structures in England and the devolved administrations: • The Welsh Assembly has committed to promoting development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This was done through formal adoption of the document ‘Learning to live differently’. Fundamentally this document states: In future, wherever the Assembly is faced with taking a decision, at whatever level, it will need to think of how the issue contributes to the Assembly’s overall vision for the future of Wales, and whether it is in harmony or conflict with other things the Assembly is trying to do. providing research and information services to the Scottish Parliament 8 WWF and Best Foot Forward have published a report (2002) to the Welsh Assembly measuring Wales’ ‘ecological footprint’2. • In England the 1999 UK Strategy provides the framework for action. Government departments are ‘encouraged’ to take account of the Integrated Policy Appraisal Tool (Sustainable Development in Government 2003a) and the Framework for Sustainable Development on the Government Estate (Sustainable Development in Government 2003b). At regional level, regional development frameworks have been drawn up by key players. • In May 2002 the then Minister for Environment in the Northern Ireland Assembly published a discussion paper on a proposed sustainable development strategy. A further consultation on substantive proposals is due shortly. • Scotland is discussed in more detail