Environmental Audit CommitteeWritten evidenced submitted by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

Key Points

Improving our understanding of, and ability to measure, human wellbeing is critical to better policy making.

There is a distinction to be drawn between subjective approaches to measuring wellbeing and developing objective measures of underlying factors, like natural capital, which influence it. It is important to make progress on both.

It must be acknowledged that this research is at a nascent stage. Whilst some benefits can be realized immediately the use and usefulness of these measures will improve over time and so a long-term commitment is essential.

The UK Government is sponsoring or undertaking a range of related, but independent, initiatives related to wellbeing (eg the NEA, ONS, WAVES, BESS, VNN, NCC). It is important to ensure these efforts are coordinated to avoid duplication and to maximize synergies.

Research motivated by environmental considerations (like the NEA, or NCC) is directly relevant to other areas of Government. It is important to involve and engage other Departments (HMT, ,DECC,CLG. BIS, DfE, Health) in this evolving, policy relevant work.

The ONS requires more technical support in the proper interpretation of these new data.

The RSPB and Well-being

1. The RSPB is the UK charity working to secure a better environment for wildlife and people. We have extensive experience of bringing people together with the natural environment, contributing to the well-being of people and communities through various different means. In addition to a membership of over 1 million people there were almost two million visits to RSPB reserves in 2009 and in 2011 more than 600,000 people took part in our Big Garden Bird Watch survey. These are just some examples of the RSPB’s experience in enhancing wellbeing through connectedness with nature.

2. In terms of research activity, the RSPB has been at the forefront of Ecosystem Service related research. This centres on understanding the array of human benefits associated with the environment. This research is described and documented in our publication “Naturally: At your Service”. A variety of staff have been involved, as authors and reviewers in both TEEB and NEA research. In addition to this, we have recently undertaken research, with the University of Essex, to articulate and measure childhood connection to nature. We have just completed a national baseline for the UK which will be published in July.

3. We primarily want to respond to this consultation to add support to the work which the ONS has been tasked with. We believe that this work should become critical evidence for better policy making. Attention to this subject has waned somewhat since the program was initially announced and we hope that a consequence of this consultation is to provide it with more momentum.

How to use the Results in Policy Making

4. Measuring subjective wellbeing is at an early stage. It will become more useful once we have data over a number of years and can identify trends. In time we expect to see more research which combines wellbeing measures with other data sets to help understand the factors underlying human welfare. The NEA is becoming a valuable source of spatial, environmental data, which, if combined with regional wellbeing measures, could be used to analyse sources of regional variation.

5. Recent years have seen rapid growth in our understanding of human benefits associated with the natural environment. The wellbeing benefits associated with health, educational, recreational or aesthetic attributes of engagement with nature are evident from research such as the NEA and expressed clearly in the Coalition’s Natural Environment White Paper. The establishment of the NCC represents a major positive step in turning this understanding into policy. The NCC faces two major hurdles. The first is the need to have traction with current macroeconomic orthodoxy which is solely concerned with jobs and growth in the short term. The second is the complexity of Natural Capital itself. In relation to the first, the correct measure in economics is wellbeing (not money) but there is clearly a major job to be done to demonstrate the importance of natural capital to present and future economic prosperity. In relation to the second, ecological complexity is not amenable to spreadsheets and it will take time to modify existing, and develop new accounting frameworks to accommodate it. While we expect the NCC to measure certain aspects, or dimensions, of natural capital in the short term, it is fundamentally a long term endeavor. It is important to manage expectations to ensure NCC sponsors do not become discouraged by lack of progress and withdraw support. The usefulness and use of these measures will improve with time; long term commitment is essential.

6. Currently it is clear that all government departments are acutely mindful of their impacts upon growth as measured by GDP. It is also more commonly understood that GDP is an important economic parameter but not a measure of wellbeing. One of the reasons being that it is essentially an income measure and ignores stocks of wealth. A key ambition of the NCC must be to have gains and losses of environmental capital reported alongside GDP so that we know at what cost economic output was gained and so that we understand how sustainable, or otherwise, our economic performance is.

The need for Effective Communication

7. Both the launch of the wellbeing work and the announcement of the NCC received critical receptions in the press. It will be important for both initiatives to become better at communicating both their objectives and their findings. We believe the EAC and other Westminster based cross party committees or groups (APPG on Biodiversity) can play an important role in ensuring these initiatives retain cross party support.

Better Interpretive Support for the ONS

8. The Office for National Statistics is a statistical office and is well placed to gather data. It is not always as well placed to interpret these data. For instance—a “key point” chosen by the ONS in its Natural Environment1 report was that, “The population of the wild birds in the UK has remained relatively stable between 1970 and 2010”. This is a poor interpretation of the bird index. We therefore suggest that the ONS is provided with greater support in the interpretation of its figures for their reports. Without such support there is a danger that there will be similar misunderstandings across this broad set of measures.

14 June 2013