Designing for impact: the next stage for climate assemblies| Blog by Graham Smith
If the recent COP26 tells us anything, it’s that different ways of making hard decisions about our shared futures are needed. Too often critical decisions are made through last minute compromises, hammered out amongst small groups of negotiators behind closed doors,...
Beyond COP26: what next on Scotland’s sustainable development journey? | Blog by Paul Bradley
Living in Glasgow has been a somewhat surreal experience in recent weeks. The sounds of megaphones, police horses, and helicopters have been prominent in daily life. World leaders have come and gone, having spent an evening at my local museum. Hundreds of police lined...
UN Sustainable Development Goals—LGA and UKSSD launching ‘A guide for Councils’
The Local Government Association (LGA) in partnership with the UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development (UKSSD) have launched a guide to help boost councils’ efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in England and Wales. The SDGs are an...
FDSD welcomes UK Climate Assembly
FDSD has long supported the wider use of participatory and deliberative processes such as citizens’ assemblies in bringing the voice of citizens into political decision making. We are therefore delighted that the first weekend of the UK Climate Assembly has been a...
Activism in a new climate | Conference and theatre, Manchester 29 Apr 2020
Appeals for people to act now in response to the climate emergency surround us. Many of them focus on the responsibility of the individual to act: to eat less meat, to drive less, to fly less. Does this focus on the role of individuals underestimate the challenge of...
Future Generations Podcast | Reasons to be Cheerful with FDSD trustee Andrea Westall
“When they go short-term, we go long-term…” FDSD trustee Andrea Westall recently joined Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd for their Reasons to be Cheerful Podcast, to discuss the urgent need for representation of future generations in today’s politics....
Citizens’ assemblies: how to bring the wisdom of the public to bear on the climate emergency | Blog by Graham Smith
Citizens’ assemblies could be vital in kick-starting the tough steps needed to respond to the climate emergency, Chair of the FDSD board of trustees, Graham Smith, argues. But the detail of how they will work is critical. (This blog first appeared on The Conversation...
A call to do politics differently—Blog by Peter Davies
The 2015 Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act requires public bodies in Wales to incorporate public involvement in their decision making. The explicit emphasis on engaging the public reflects the strong views expressed in the national conversation of 2014 that...
Extinction Rebellion and democratic renewal—Blog by Graham Smith
2018 witnessed the emergence of a dynamic, new climate change movement—Extinction Rebellion (XR). Building chapters around the UK, Europe and across the world, XR’s most visible action was its day of mass civil disobedience in November, with 6,000 activists shutting...
With democracy becoming an endangered species, is sustainability in peril? | A reflection by Sara Parkin, November 2018
In 2008, Sara Parkin wrote a provocation for the FDSD: “Are Political Parties getting in the way of the sort of collaborative democracy we need to tackle sustainability? If so, what can we do about it?” Ten years later, she revisits her thinking, “in the...
Bringing Future Generations into Today’s Politics | A workshop summary by Andrea Westall
On 19th April 2018, FDSD jointly held an event with the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries to ask “Will the Future Blame Us?” and how do we bring future generations into today’s politics. The audience, a mix of actuaries, academics, policy-makers and civil society,...
Governing Geo-Engineering? | New Report by ETC Group, BiofuelWatch and Heinrich-Böll Foundation
“It is much easier for us to imagine the end of the world than a small change in the political system”, Slavoj Zizek famously said. The same is true for altering the earth climate system according to a recent report by the Canadian ETC-Group, BiofuelWatch and...
Harnessing democracy and engagement for sustainable prosperity
As environmental crises become ever more severe, voices are reappearing that call for authoritarian solutions: Democracy, so the argument goes, has proven to be too slow to respond to urgent threats, and so a stronger, authoritarian hand is needed to push through the...
Time to reach beyond the ‘elite’ | Blog by Simon Roberts
Widespread public participation is important not only for working out the best ideas to tackle complex problems or effectively implement change, but also to create agreement for major transitions in society or the economy. Simon Roberts, CEO of the Centre for...
New study identifies key trends in worldwide climate change litigation
A new global study published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law has found that the number of lawsuits involving climate change has tripled since 2014, with most of climate change litigation cases being...
Audit Committee report on Government’s lack of ambition on SDGs
The House of Commons Audit Committee recently published its report Sustainable Development Goals in the UK. The Committee is critical of the Government’s lack of ambition in embedding the SDGs. As the report argues: The Sustainable Development Goals represent a...
A Future Generations Commissioner for the UK | London, 11 April 2017
+++ The video of the event is available here. +++ FDSD, in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Democracy and the Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity is organising an event on Tuesday 11th April to explore the potential to establish a...
Integrated Management at local scale to achieve global Sustainable Development Goals
Dimple Roy is Director, Water, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). When it comes to safeguarding the future of our natural habitats, natural resources, livelihoods, and economies for future generations, we now have the guidance of the...
Local authorities should involve local community groups much more in climate resilience
The Urban Heat project has released its final report highlighting the distinctive and largely untapped potential of the local voluntary and community group sector (VCS) in the developm ent of local climate resilience and emergency response. On the basis of three local...Sign up for newsletter
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