Memorandum from WWF
WWF welcomes the opportunity to contribute evidence
to this inquiry. Over the last decade, WWF has moved increasingly
from programmatic conservation responses towards addressing the
underlying drivers of environmental decline. Our biennial Living
Planet Report has charted the global environmental impact
of our activities in the industrialised world. From this base,
WWF has increasingly engaged with the sustainable development
agenda, for example as the only environmental NGO invited to present
in plenary at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002.
WWF has developed a particular body of experience
in areas such as Footprint analysis and new ways of tracking the
flow of environmental resources within the economy. We have been
working closely with local authorities and the devolved governments
in Wales and Scotland to put such tools into practice, shaping
decision-making on sustainable development. WWF has led many of
the developments in Education for Sustainable Development since
the 1990s. We are also developing a programme of work on consumption
issues and their global impacts. WWF's written evidence to this
inquiry focuses on those areas where we can contribute perspectives
derived from these specific areas of competence. We would welcome
the opportunity to elaborate on any of these points at a later
stage in the inquiry if the Committee would find this helpful.
1. Definition of Sustainable Development
The definition of sustainable development does
matter because it is about living within the carrying capacity
of the Earth while ensuring equity and quality of life now and
in the future. WWF would therefore recommend the adoption of the
Caring for the Earth definition:
"Sustainable development means improving
the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity
of the earth. Sustainable economy is the product of sustainable
development. A sustainable society lives by the principles of
sustainable development."
Alternative approaches that separate out economic
definitions allow space for the delusion that the economic, social
and environmental contexts are not interlinked. They would also
allow this country to engage in burden sharing whereby being a
rich, northern country we can buy our way to prosperity and quality
of life without accepting responsibility for the negative social,
environmental and economic consequences in other parts of the
world.
WWF's Living Planet Report (2002) showed
that, if everybody in the world lived as we do in the UK, we would
require three planets to support us. There is no simple link between
economic growth in the UK and poverty in southern countries (as
the poorest communities in some countries of Africa are now poorer
than they were 20 years ago). Any definition of sustainable development
must link quality of life and people's incomes with the social
and environmental consequences of development.
If by sustainable we mean "able to continue
forever" then purely economic definitions will not do this.
By WWF's calculations, we have been living beyond the carrying
capacity of the Earth for about 20 years. Technological breakthroughs
and trends in increased resource efficiency are insufficient to
outweigh growth in consumption.
The definition needs to be consistent with the
maintenance of biodiversity, living within the carrying capacity
of the Earth, equity of access to resources and quality of life
now and for future generations.
2. Has the strategy acted as a driver or
does it occupy a limbo existence which has little impact on departments'
real priorities?
WWF commends the work of the Sustainable Development
Commission and their report on progress to date—Shows
Promise, Could do Better. WWF supports many of its conclusions.
From our perspective, a significant failing
of the Sustainable Development strategy has been that its four
key objectives do not relate well together. They could indeed
be mutually exclusive: it would be possible to achieve Objective
4 while working against Objectives 2 and 3. A central theme of
the Sustainable Development approach is the integration of policy
responses, yet the strategy has not worked well to promote this
integration across government. We examine this point further in
the final section.
In this section, WWF would like to emphasise
the lack of international perspective in the 1999 Strategy. There
is a chapter focusing on global poverty, MEAs[7]
trade and the environment and debt. But there is a fundamental
failure to recognise that all aspects of government policy have
global environmental and social consequences. Sustainable development
is not a set of discrete policy responses to separate environmental
challenges. It must be an integrated approach that balances the
social, environmental and economic consequences of all government
action, and the underlying perspective on these consequences must
be global.
Government departments have not systematically
taken the UK Sustainable Development Strategy to heart in their
policies and delivery structures. Some key examples of this failure
in relation to global issues:
— DFID in its annual report on PSAs
("2003 Autumn Performance Report") states that "the
only target we have dropped from the 2001-04 PSA is the target
relating to sustainable development. This target was about donor
inputs and processes rather than poverty outcomes, it covered
too many issues, and there were no objective means of verifying
its achievement. We have mainstreamed sustainable development
issues through our new Service Delivery Agreements".
— Looking at the UK Sustainable Development
Strategy 1999, there were some very clear outcomes for sustainable
development in international development (chapter 9). It seems
that DFID may have given up on trying to make all its development
sustainable and has forgotten about the very useful Target Strategy
Papers produced in conjunction with earlier White Papers. It also
appears that following restructuring in DFID centrally, there
has been a decline in the number of staff and the amount of resources
given to environmental policy, including water. The lack of staff
resources both in country and in HQ will not help the required
objective of the White Papers on poverty elimination to mainstream
environment into PRSPs[8]
or indeed to reach the MDG[9]
on environmental sustainability.
— The 1999 SD Strategy talked about
the importance of water and sanitation (Chapter 9). This was also,
along with plans for Integrated Water Resource Management, a key
UK government objective for WSSD. In a speech at Environment 2003
organised by the Environment Agency, the Secretary of State for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs emphasised the problems caused
by lack of access to safe water and to sanitation, and that economic
development depends on healthy ecosystems. Yet, a recent report
from WWF and other INGOs for CSD12 cites the decline in UK expenditure
on water in development aid, from 4.3% in 1998-99 to 2% in 2001-02.
— Reports on the UK Strategy have cited
the success in decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation,
but this is based solely on UK activities. There is no mention
of the fact that UK economy and consumers depend on resources
from many other parts of the world, including developing countries
where environmental resources are being lost at an alarming rate.
The decline of manufacturing in the UK has been accompanied by
an increase in manufacturing elsewhere to support our needs. Of
course there are some economic benefits of this change for poor
communities; equally, the associated environmental impacts have
been exported. The point is not to ignore these tensions and trade-offs,
but to ensure that an integrated sustainable development strategy
assesses these different kinds of impacts and develops balanced
responses to that analysis.
How is this requirement to consider both international
as well as domestic resource use being taken forward in government?
Social and environmental justice, equity, environmental limits
and safeguarding future generations should be principles in any
sustainable development strategy. The Welsh Assembly is to be
congratulated for encapsulating this sort of thinking within its
own objectives and indicators and has set a precedent which others
should follow.
Inter-departmental processes
It is to be welcomed that the Spending Review
process requires departments to assess their requests in terms
of contribution to sustainable development, and that Cabinet Committee
papers are required to note their impacts on sustainable development
objectives. Public scrutiny of these assessments, particularly
within the Spending Review process, would ensure that they make
a stronger impact on departmental priorities.
WWF also recommends that the use of Sustainability
Impact Assessments or Sustainability Appraisals is made mandatory.
This would ensure that all new major policies are subjected to
tests for their long-term contribution to UK government's sustainable
development objectives. Defra has initiated guidelines on Integrated
Policy Appraisal but there seems to be little take up by other
government departments, or indeed any drive from the heart of
government to ensure that these guidelines are implemented.
There has also been little success in shifting
public opinion on sustainable development. While we agree that
this is not just the responsibility of government, more could
be done to inform the UK public that a strategy exists and to
establish its relevance to individuals. Government should begin
to make the public case for new policy initiatives in terms that
relate to sustainable development, and to have the courage to
lead the public debate around any possible trade-offs this may
involve.
3. Indicators of Sustainable Development
The current indicators are useful in order to
measure progress on specific initiatives within government departments
or business sectors. However, they do not give a broad picture
of progress which is politically relevant and can be understood
by the public. There needs to be a way to test the effectiveness
of the initiatives and policies against sustainable development
(and not simply against the four objectives of the current strategy).
Government is accountable for the effectiveness
of its work, and this very effectiveness needs to be framed in
terms of sustainable development. This cannot be tested except
by using the sustainable development definition which WWF believes
must focus on:
— carrying capacity of the earth;
— quality of life now and for future
generations; and
— equity of access to resources.
Crucially, aggregate indicators are required,
against which several departments or policies or initiatives would
be assessed. Several such indicators are being developed eg ecological
footprint, the Green Growth indicator from China, a social aggregate
indicator in South America and various versions of quality of
life tests, such as happiness indexes. Each initiative or policy
still needs its own indicator but we need a period of experimentation
and learning from aggregate tests of sustainability, alongside
the narrower, policy-specific measures.
The Welsh Assembly has shown how it is possible
to make progress in this area through testing a basket of sustainable
development indicators, including an aggregate Footprint indicator.
The UK government should be assessed. Several such indicators
are being developed eg ecological footprint, the Green Growth
sustainable development and its measurement, rather than waiting
for a complete resolution of all the technical debates around
optimal indicators.
The current headline indicators do not add up
to sustainable development, nor do the wider set of 150 indicators.
The lack of integration is shown by the fact that some indicators
are showing progress whereas others are not. If any new policy
measure is assessed against a set of separate, narrow indicators,
its overall positive or negative impact on sustainable development
may be obscured. This failure to adopt integrated indicators,
which can demonstrate overall impact, mirrors the failure to develop
integrated policy responses across government departments.
4. Consumption and Sustainable Development
The current sustainable development strategy
has not driven government action in response to the social and
environmental impacts of UK consumption. Consumption issues are
seen as politically difficult to manage, and even the new UK Government
Framework for Sustainable Consumption and Production focuses largely
on the production side of this equation. Decision-makers across
government have neglected the importance of three fundamental
issues:
— Our overall level of consumption
in the UK and across the industrialised world is already breaching
global environmental limits. On issues such as climate change,
pollution, loss of biodiversity, and over-use of natural resources,
the scientific debate is over: global limits have already been
exceeded, with consequences that will hit some of the world's
most deprived communities hardest. Current growth in our consumption
is inherently unsustainable.
— Much of UK consumption is within
a global marketplace, and so the social and environmental impacts
of that consumption are overseas. Discussion of "decoupling"
consumption and economic growth from their environmental impacts
has frequently ignored the export of these impacts, in particular
as the manufacture of consumer goods has moved abroad. When these
factors are taken into account, it can be seen that "decoupling"
remains a myth: increases in GDP are driving net increases in
consumption, as represented by material flows through the UK economy.
— The pursuit of GDP growth as an overriding
objective sets all government departments on an inherently unsustainable
path. There are many ways in which the fixation with GDP growth
is in tension with quality of life, the environment, social cohesion
and equity—all of which are fundamental dimensions of sustainable
development.
The new Sustainable Development strategy will
not succeed unless it shapes priorities across government in ways
that address these fundamental issues related to consumption.
The objectives of government, expressed from PSA targets through
to detailed departmental workplans, will need to shift away from
an over-arching focus on GDP growth and give equal weight to the
promotion of quality of life, environmental sustainability, social
cohesion and even happiness (which is famously uncorrelated with
economic growth). Departmental strategies will need to give extra
weight to the complex interactions between these areas, in particular
between the environmental and social consequences of current consumption
patterns, which have to date been peripheral in the government's
approach to sustainable development.
The government will also need to begin a programme
of engagement with consumers on the impacts of their consumption.
Research suggests that consumers are broadly unaware of the impact
of their consumption decisions, though the emergent "mainstreaming"
of fair-trade products suggests that this can be changed. A valuable
step in the short term would be to set up a mechanism to bring
together the considerable amount of government, business and academic
research that already exists on consumer attitudes and the factors
shaping these attitudes.
Public engagement programmes should be one approach
to encourage consumers to make more sustainable consumption choices.
This is not simply about education: it requires testing methods
to bring consumers face-to-face with the consequences of consumption,
in a way which leads to new choices being made. WWF's use of computer-based
Ecological Footprinting tools offers one model, already shaping
decisions by local authorities, but easily applicable to individual
choices. Government could improve its own analysis of priorities
for reducing consumption impacts by adopting tools such as ecological
budgeting, which tracks the real movement of resources around
the economy in a similar way to the value-flows tracked by traditional
economic analysis.
The government has a wide range of policy and
fiscal tools with which it could begin to shape the drivers of
consumption. Equally, it has a role in shaping wider ideologies
that value conspicuous consumption over quality of life, including
through engagement with the media and advertising industries.
The government has not begun to accept responsibility for taking
on these roles.
The UK Treasury's 2002 paper "Tax and the
Environment" has failed to fulfil its potential to give incentives
to shift consumption patterns in a sustainable direction. Weak
political leadership has allowed an open door to those lobbying
against tax measures that would begin to internalise environmental
and social costs within the price of consumer goods. Examples
have included the government's early opposition to London's congestion
charge, failure to make the public case for fuel duty increases,
and the recent decision to weaken the UK's final Emissions Trading
cap. Such policy measures are the starting point for any government
serious about sustainable development. The failure to drive forward
such incentives for more sustainable consumption patterns has
arguably been one of the major weaknesses of the current sustainable
development strategy.
WWF welcomes the Consumption Roundtable being
set up as part of the current consultation on the new UK Sustainable
Development Strategy. However, the outcomes of such debates need
to be driven by senior champions within government if they are
not to sit as worthy recommendations within strategy papers. Over-consumption
is a difficult issue for government to address, but no sustainable
development strategy can succeed without making dramatic progress
in this area.
5. Structures within Government to support
Sustainable Development
The current Sustainable Development strategy
has not made a major impact on departmental priorities outside
Defra, particularly over decisions where there are trade-offs
between the economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainable
development. The recent weakening of the proposed emissions cap
for the UK's National Allocation Plan under the EU Emissions Trading
Scheme is only the latest decision to go against sustainability
criteria. Weakening of environmental taxation measures, water
pricing decisions, and the UK's role in weakening the EU Commission's
draft chemicals regulation last autumn are other examples.
If the strategy is not shaping departmental
priorities in this way, then arguably it is failing at a fundamental
level. The reasons for this failure are closely associated with
the absence of powerful political backing for sustainable development
within government, and the failure of government structures to
steer decision-making towards more sustainable outcomes.
There is no structural mechanism in government
for resolving potential economic, social and environmental trade-offs
in a way that genuinely balances these equal pillars of sustainable
development. The basis for a good model exists through the Spending
Review process, in which departments must note in their submissions
the likely impact on sustainable development. These impacts are
then included within the decision-making process. But there is
no wider process for adjusting priorities in the light of sustainable
development considerations, even where such consideration have
to be "noted" (as in Cabinet Committee papers). Even
PSA targets and the Spending Review process fail to give incentives
to join up sustainable development strategy and actions across
government departments.
The current role for Defra of driving forward
sustainable development across Whitehall has not been successful,
precisely because of these considerations. Where there are trade-offs,
Defra does not have the power to effectively influence other departments'
priorities. There is no other political drive behind sustainable
development, and in the examples noted above, Downing Street has
added weight behind the arguments against sustainability considerations.
Green Ministers have also failed to work together to drive through
cross-departmental sustainable development priorities; they have
largely worked independently as their own department's environmental
representative, which is a quite different role.
There is a strong case for sustainable development
to be defined as a core responsibility of government, driven from
within the Cabinet Office. This would provide a clear way of balancing
the different dimensions of sustainable development in government
decision-making. It would also provide the necessary central direction
for an area of policy-making that requires co-ordinated action
across government. From consumer education to managing global
impacts of government activity, sustainable development needs
a central steer. Ultimately the right structure is only a part
of the solution. The new sustainable development strategy will
only be more successful than its predecessor if it is driven politically
from the top of government.
May 2004
7 Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs). Back
8
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). Back
9
Millennium Development Goal (MDG). Back
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