Image © EAC
The Environmental Audit Committee, a Select Committee in the UK Parliament, has published the transcript of its first conference, held on 10th November 2015, on the Government’s Approach to Sustainable Development.
Following the EAC’s public inquiry from July 2015, to which the FDSD has submitted a response, a panel from various sectors and interest groups discussed the Government’s policy towards “protecting the environment, supporting the low carbon economy and improving wellbeing”.
The Chair of the Committee, Huw Irranca-Davies, noted that the general conclusion from more than 100 submissions to the Committee was that the Government’s record was rather mixed. Whilst it was widely acknowledged that “the Government had set out some encouraging ideas in some areas, for example, agreeing to extend the life of the Natural Capital Committee, integrating natural capital accounting into national accounts and committing to a 25-year plan for nature, … it was also clear from many of the responses … that in other areas, for example, on renewable energy and on energy efficiency, the Government were sending out mixed or even perverse signals.”
As part of the wider discussion with the audience, Farooq Ullah, Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum challenged the UK government to catch up with developments, including public engagement, elsewhere in Europe, and closer to home in Wales: “Germany has a sustainability code; Finland has taken a bottom-up approach to produce Finnish society’s commitment to sustainable development; in Wales we have just seen the recent legislation of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act, which of course is around sustainable development for future generations. These are all things that exist elsewhere. At the moment, we do not even have a national sustainable development strategy in the UK.”
Beverley Hall from the Trades Union Prospect pointed out that “in terms of sustainability in Wales and Scotland, there is a very holistic approach, an acknowledgement of people, skills and communities, as well as the environment, because the environment needs people to protect it or to change behaviour, whereas we have seen within the UK and within England that there is this policy vacuum.”
The clearest call to listen to the public came from Mike Barry, Director of Sustainable Business, Marks & Spencer: “We listen to consumers as much as Government listen to the electorate: 35 million people in our shops every year, we listen, and 80% of them are telling us they are concerned about the future. They want a better future, they want more from central government to take a lead on solving it. … They have seen the linkages of what is happening in their locality, they have seen the issues to do with noise, to do with transport, to do with air quality all the time.”
Related links
- Read the full transcript on the parliament.uk website.
- See the FDSD’s submission to the EAC’s inquiry on the Government’s Approach to Sustainable Development.
