APPENDIX 8
Memorandum from the Electricity Association
I am writing on behalf of the Electricity Association
in relation to the Committee's inquiry into the revised UK Sustainable
Development Strategy. The Electricity Association is the trade
association representing the major electricity generation, transmission,
distribution and supply companies in the UK.
The Association responded to the various consultations
by the Government last year on Sustainable Development and the
development of a revised UK strategy. The Association supports
the principle of a UK Strategy for Sustainable Development to
provide a better framework in which industry, along with all other
sectors, can plan for the future.
PLANNING
By the nature and the scale of its operations,
supplying energy to 27 million customers across the UK, the electricity
industry inevitably has environmental effects and is, in certain
instances, a significant contributor to the UK's overall impact.
It is also an industry which is capital intensive and with low
marginal rates of return; decisions on major infrastructure projects
require long term assessments, both in the planning and construction
of projects and in the timescales for delivering returns on investment.
The industry therefore regards the environment and sustainable
development as key issues for its future, and the industry's performance
in recent years clearly demonstrates its efforts to respond to
the concerns.
Nevertheless, the industry has undergone continual
restructuring since privatisation, resulting from the market changes
of liberalisation but also changes imposed by Government and by
the electricity and environmental regulators as successive issues
have come to the fore. This has led to an unsettled context in
which the industry has had to plan. One of the key aspects of
sustainable development is that it looks at the medium to long
term, setting out a view of where we should be aiming towards,
and thus providing a framework for the actions that are being
taken in the short to medium term as the first stages in that
transition. Such an approach would coincide with the planning
needs of the electricity industry as outlined above.
The UK Sustainable Development Strategy would
be expected to provide just such a framework for UK industry,
with both the long term view and the shorter term actions arising
from that context. However, in relation to the energy sector,
the revised published strategy largely comprises actions which
are already planned or in hand without that longer term vision.
The electricity industry, both as individual companies and collectively,
already considers the question of sustainable development and
how we evolve towards a sustainable energy business. It is disappointing
that the newly published strategy does little to provide a clear
vision which would further that process.
BALANCE
Our view of the sustainable development concept
has been a means of giving greater prominence to environmental
issues, within a context which recognises the needs for social
and economic development, so that they receive due consideration
in decision-making processes. We note that the published strategy
appears to shift the balance in its approach to sustainable development
compared to previous Government discussion on the issue, with
greater emphasis on economic and social issues relative to environmental
ones. For example, the chapters on A Sustainable Economy and
Building Sustainable Communities come before that on Managing
the Environment and Resources. In the chapter on the Economy,
paragraphs 6.22 to 6.37 address skills and education (that is
education per se, not understanding of environmental issues)
and welfare to work while Chapter 7 includes discussion of proposals
for health and the NHS. Without commenting on these issues which
are of course entirely appropriate for Government to address,
their presentation in this document suggests a changed emphasis
in the use of the sustainable development concept.
I trust that these comments are helpful to the
Committee's considerations.
June 1999
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