House of Commons - Environmental Audit

Select Committee on Environmental Audit Second Report

GREENING GOVERNMENT REPORT

Strategy

53. The last Government developed its strategy, targets and indicators on sustainable development through the 1990s. It first produced a comprehensive description of general principles and objectives and an approach to environmental problems in the 1990 White Paper, This Common Inheritance.[51] This was followed by annual reports recording progress against the commitments made in This Common Inheritance.[52] Sustainable Development, the UK Strategy was published in 1994 along with separate strategic policy documents on the other main agreements of the UN General Assembly Special Session on Sustainable Development in Rio in 1992, the "Earth Summit", on the Climate Change Convention, the Biodiversity Convention, and the Statement of Principles for Sustainable Forestry.[53] Reporting on the Sustainable Development Strategy was taken forward in the annual This Common Inheritance reports as were the separate strategies subsequently developed, for example on waste and air quality.[54] A preliminary set of Indicators of Sustainable Development for the UK was published in 1996.[55]

54. These strategic documents covered the environmental agenda and set out commitments to action. However the Committee notes that they did not address all three strands of sustainable development — economic, social and environmental — nor did they keep to a strategic level. In the last This Common Inheritance annual report there were 636 commitments to action which ranged from strategic commitments, for example to press for a target to be agreed at Kyoto for developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 5-10 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010 to other lower level or less specific commitments for example to consider follow-up to publication of a Good Practice Guide on tree-planting and landscaping in cities or monitor the impact of research into dust associated with mineral workings.

55. Although by 1997 the last Government had agreed 41 "key" targets in the range of their strategic policy documents, together they did not appear to reinforce a coherent strategy.[56] The targets did not cover all the environmental media and resources or sectors of the economy which put pressure on the environment which were set out in the Government's strategy. Nor did they relate directly to the Government's preliminary set of Sustainable Development Indicators. Government commitments identified the department responsible for taking them forward. Responsibility for achieving the targets was not identified, baseline data for the targets were not set out in the This Common Inheritance annual report and there were no specific commitments regarding reporting of progress against them.

56. The Council for the Protection of Rural England expressed to the Committee their view that since the This Common Inheritance series was launched in 1990 "it has got more and more dull and less and less informative"[57] whilst The Green Alliance described the series as "long on words and short on specific targets and actions".[58] We therefore commend the Government's decision to review this work and furthermore regard it is a matter of principle that any new government should spell out its commitment and approach to sustainable development. This Committee echoes the view put by a number of witnesses that the Sustainable Development Strategy and indicators needed a fresh look, building on the work undertaken by the last Government. [59] We therefore welcome the Government's decision to produce a revised UK strategy for sustainable development and new indicators and targets. We look forward to the strategy demonstrating how substantive changes in government policy are intended to deliver sustainable development.

Timing of the revised strategy

57. The Government launched consultation on a revised UK strategy for sustainable development "Opportunities for Change" in January 1998 with a view to publishing a new strategy by the end of 1998.[60] Many other reviews with a significant impact on sustainable development, including the Government's review of spending priorities (the Comprehensive Spending Review), the Integrated Transport White Paper and reviews of policy regarding energy supply, were also underway at this time and are expected to be completed during 1998, before the launch of the revised Sustainable Development Strategy. Mr Meacher told the Committee he considered the timing of the reviews was necessary and reasonable although it would have been nice to have had a Sustainable Development Strategy in place first. [61] We were pleased with indications in our discussions with Green Ministers that some departments were taking up matters of sustainable development in advance of the completion of the revised Sustainable Development Strategy.[62]

58. The Committee considers the approach adopted to developing this key strategy for government has been unsatisfactory with many other major policy reviews being completed first and with no formal link to the Comprehensive Spending Review. However, the Committee considers this approach can still produce the basis for a new commitment to sustainable development. Indeed the conclusion of the Comprehensive Spending Review and the revision of the Sustainable Development Strategy together provide an opportunity for revisiting departmental aims and objectives in line with the goals of sustainable development.

Engaging the community

59. The consultation paper "Opportunities for Change", a short summary leaflet and further consultation papers on specific issues have been widely distributed. The Government has also sought views from the sustainable development advisory groups and is expected to do so again when the draft strategy is nearing completion.[63] DETR told us that extensive discussions and a seminar had been held with various stakeholders on possible new sustainable development indicators and it hoped to produce a consultation paper and incorporate the resulting indicators and targets in the Sustainable Development Strategy. [64]

60. We believe the sustainable development agenda needs to be taken forward in a spirit of cooperation. We were therefore pleased to hear from Mr Meacher that there had been a good response so far from the public to the consultation process[65] and that the proposed Sustainable Development Indicators would be considered by selected members of the public in the summer.[66] Local government, business and environmental groups told us that they welcomed the consultative approach that had been adopted by the Government on the revised Sustainable Development Strategy, although the Institute of Directors told us that they considered it would be hard to respond to the initial paper because it briefly touches on an enormous range of issues.[67]

61. The Committee also learned from DETR of the range of initiatives it has to promote public understanding of sustainable development and in particular to encourage people to make appropriate lifestyle changes. These have involved advertising to spread the Government's message and consultation on government policy; support for voluntary projects, in particular through the Environmental Action Fund; and direct encouragement, for example, of the purchase of energy efficient products and the provision of free vehicle emissions testing. In 1997-98 DETR's expenditure on these initiatives has totalled some £7.3 million with a further £19.6 million on the Energy Saving Trust work.[68] These are very small sums given the scale of the change in public behaviour which a commitment to sustainable development implies. DETR told us that in all cases the department has arrangements to measure the achievements of these schemes, but we notice from the National Audit Office report "Grants to Voluntary Bodies" that there has been no evaluation of the Environmental Action Fund since it was first established in 1992.[69]

62. The Committee applauds the efforts made by the Government to consult on a revised Sustainable Development Strategy and raise awareness more generally. This is particularly important now that it has been accepted that the strategy should address not only environmental issues but also economic and social strands in an integrated way. The Committee considers that to achieve sustainable development the whole community will need to be engaged in the process. The strategy review is a good time for the Government to work with others to get their commitment to action so that the resulting strategy is to some degree owned by all relevant bodies, UK, national and local.

63. The effort to capture the hearts and minds of political leaders, policy-makers and administrators needs to be matched by efforts to do the same with the public at large. Unless this is achieved there will remain the danger that sustainable development and the environment will continue to receive general support from the public which will not be translated into support for individual government policies such as efforts to address the use of private cars. The Committee considers DETR should evaluate the many strands of its work designed to help the public meet the challenge of sustainable development to ensure that these efforts are well directed. We recommend that the Government should consider inviting one of its advisory bodies to contribute to this evaluation by reviewing the nature and scale of the changes in lifestyle and consumption patterns that may be needed in the new century to achieve a more sustainable society; and the role which government should play in promoting awareness and acceptance of the need for such changes.

The strategy

64. The consultation paper "Opportunities for Change" proposes a new framework for analysing sustainable development. The first three themes — Sustainable goods and services; Building sustainable communities; and Managing the environment and resources — address the heart of the domestic sustainable development agenda. The fourth theme — Sending the right signals — is a cross-cutting theme; and the fifth theme — International co-operation and development — is about the UK contribution to sustainable development in other countries.

65. At this early stage in the consultation process it is not possible to judge what will come out of the strategy review. The Committee would expect the resulting document to set out what the aim of sustainable development means for the country at large, identifying the nature and scale of the concerns about the sustainability of current activity and perhaps identifying key problem areas. But first and foremost the strategy should be auditable and set out where responsibility lies within government for taking the relevant actions.

Identifying indicators

66. Identifying indicators to capture and measure changes in the environment and in social and economic welfare is vital as the basis for measuring how far the country is pursuing a sustainable path. The setting of targets focusses attention on those measures and on the scale of change in the sights of policy makers and provides a baseline against which performance can be assessed. Both Mr Prescott and Mr Meacher emphasised to the Committee their commitment to using indicators and targets to allow performance to be measured and to allow the review of methods where performance has fallen short of targets.[70] Mr Meacher is aiming to identify a new set of Sustainable Development Indicators and to identify a handful of 'core' indicators which are resonant with the public and measurable in a precise way, giving as much salience to social and environmental indicators as there is currently on economic goals.[71]

67. The Committee found great enthusiasm for identifying a few core sustainable development indicators, so that social and environmental indicators can be set alongside existing key economic indicators to allow the country's progress to be assessed in terms of sustainable development, as well as simply economic development.[72] We also consider that identifying a core set of indicators would make significant strides towards helping the public understand sustainable development and hence the reason for government action.

68. For many years Friends of the Earth and others have argued that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is inappropriately used by governments as a measure of progress and benchmark of a country's success and well-being because it includes expenditure on defensive action such as pollution abatement and does not measure the quality of life. Friends of the Earth described to us their preferred indicator, the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, which takes GDP and adjusts it to reflect a number of other aspects of people's quality of life.[73] Figure 1 opposite sets out the trends in the index and GDP since 1950.

51 This Common Inheritance - Britain's Environmental Strategy, CM 1200 Back

52 Cms, 1655, 2068, 2549, 2822, 3188, 3556 Back

53 Cms, 2426, 2427, 2428, 2429 Back

54 Making Waste Work, Cm 3040, and Air Quality: meeting the challenge, January 1995 Back

55 Op cit March 1996, Department of the Environment Back

56 This Common Inheritance (TCI), 1997 Cm 3556 Back

57 Q309 Back

58 Q778 Back

59 Q309 Back

60 Opportunities for Change, February 1998, DETR. Back

61 Q711 Back

62 QQ 100 and 341 Back