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The UK Sustainable Development Commission The UK Government's Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) kindly allow James Greyson to take part in their consultative forum, the UK Sustainable Development Panel. This role offers opportunities to suggest how the SDC could gain influence by really getting stuck into sustainable development as a whole. This would benefit the SDC by avoiding criticism of being more lap-dog than watchdog whilst also avoiding being disbanded as happened recently to the Canadian sustainable development watchdog. This page gathers James' input to the Commission. Well-being indicators as a decoy from sustainable development Well-being indicators as a decoy from sustainable development See the full discussion and have your say at http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/forum_public/index.php?tid=1917 Your 'framework' or 'domain comments' omit the role of security (violence or fear of violence affecting both physical and physological well-being). You don't have to live in Iraq for this to be a major factor. How about security concerns in Northern Ireland, among the Londoners who no longer feel safe on public transport or the parents who won't let their kids out to play? Is the global escalation of cycles of violence now so pervasive, at all levels including state-led occupations, factional conflicts, terrorism and youth stabbings, that it can no longer be perceived? Is government inclined to exclude this factor due to the predictable likelihood that things will get worse in future (as Tony Blair apparently asserted when promoting continuing investment in nuclear weapons)? Despite the SDC's remit (http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/remit.html) to cover contentious and controversial subjects, is it somehow easier to proceed as if security issues bear no relation to sustainable development? The government are embracing the concept of well-being measures so warmly that I can't help wondering if they may end up getting more out of the collaboration than the SDC. What if a future government was looking to justify any number of unpopular, even Orwellian, encroachments into people's lives? They would need evidence that the loss of choice and civil liberties was outweighed by a duty to protect well-being from the ravages of unsustainability. The current work on well-being indicators could hand them their plastic shield to fend off those who advance towards them hurling accusations that they don't know what's good for us all. Meanwhile a good number of people who care passionately about sustainable development and one of its its intended end products, well-being, are kept busy discussing distributions around means for an indicator with no convincing feedback routes back into the millions of decisions throughout society which actually determine well-being. How much more could be achieved if all these motivated and intelligent people applied themselves to the delivery of SD and well-being rather than its cataloguing? The last 30 years of unSD have been largely wasted in discussing and measuring effects rather than correcting causes. What do you think should be done with the next 30 years? The stakeholder workshop (http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/wellbeingacommonapproach.html) you refer to sounds like it was fully stocked with people from government and people paid by government so it's not clear that there was any role for these kinds of reality checks. Balance between economic and non-economic values See the full discussion and have your say at http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/forum_public/index.php?tid=1915 Thanks Brian However I would take care not to skip over the possibility for adjusting/replacing the whole economic paradigm, as the posting before yours appears to do. Paradoxically it seems possible to achieve a different (sustainable) economic paradigm which would not support the mindless materialism of today's paradigm. Whereas conventional anti-capitalist environmentalism seeks to constrain unsustainable markets by transferring control to government, this approach would redesign capitalism to make economics work as originally intended, to distribute resources efficiently and to meet people's needs. Real value in action. Since capitalism isn't about to go away anytime soon, we might as well fix it so it can work sustainably, in some kind of partnership with the non-economic values you seem to propose. Economic growth can be environmentally sustainable; rationing is a decoy See the full discussion and have your say at http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/forum_public/index.php?tid=1915 > Can long-term economic growth be environmentally sustainable? > if you think part of your wellbeing is making several cheap long-distance flights each year. > the UK might gain some advantages from being the first to adapt its economy and society fully to the > This implies a need for government policies to assist with shifts in technology, changes in requirements for > In the Second World War, people accepted the need for policies such as rationing and simplified “utility” I think the logic for rationing usually goes that ecological capacity and resources are limited, humanity is using too much, vast inequalities in use exist, and so both resources and ecological sinks should be shared out equally by governments. To me this sounds defeatist, like sharing out the remaining provisions on a sinking life-raft. It would do little to increase future stocks of provisions or to stop the life-raft from sinking. Ecological capacity and resources are shrinking, populations of destitute people are growing and inequalities abound due to 'survival of the fittest' acquisitive unsustainable economic machinery, relentlessly churning nature into disposable products and ever more acute problems. Rationing says let's put the brakes on this machine by asking government to allocate resources instead. This equates to a centrally planned economy when what is actually needed is to rejig the economy to operate sustainably (possibly as above). There is the left-over issue of historical inequalities in ownership and economic power, which a sustainable market would not entirely address. A range of measures could help with this (one based on pensions is discussed in the JCP paper) but rationing would be unlikely to help, since society's poorest would be driven to sell their rationed rights to those with money to burn. In a scenario of energy or CO2 credits, this would offer the poor little protection from shivering in the dark.
Role of the SDC and UK SD Panel Suggestion for a consultation topic for the UK SD Panel. If SD existed within government as any more than spin, then SD would not just fit into Lord Leitch's review. Leitch's review would fit into a national SD vision. I sense a problem with the point at which the SDC enter the debate. Reviewing a review sounds more like thought-follower than thought leader. Slightly worried that the two other topics offered to the Panel were also following existing government initiatives (on well-being indicators and tidal power). I believe there is a future for the SDC as an influential thought leader, and that this is attainable by asking the right questions. Could the SDC preempt reviews such as Leitch with a short statement of the key SD issues to consider? Could the SDC focus more at the source of problems (eg an unsustainable economic model) and less on symptomatic measures (eg well-being indicators)? Can the SDC question some of its own thinking such as the "pragmatism" of incremental tweaking, the "stability" of the current growth model and the division of SD into neat compartments? Can the SDC consider issues of security and weapons spending, since government is busy making self-fulfilling plans for a more dangerous world? Will the SDC run a consultation with its Panel asking how the SDC and Panel can together raise all the relevant issues (not just those tolerated by government) and whether together we can do anything to make SD actually happen? Economic growth and well-being. Sustainable economic growth and well-being are possible, but beware prescription and rationing. > Can long-term economic growth be environmentally sustainable? > if you think part of your wellbeing is making several cheap long-distance flights each year. > the UK might gain some advantages from being the first to adapt its economy and society fully to the > This implies a need for government policies to assist with shifts in technology, changes in requirements for > In the Second World War, people accepted the need for policies such as rationing and simplified “utility” Agreed that ecological (and other aspects of) unsustainability merit a response on the scale of the problem, ie HUGE! Also agreed that there is an important role for simplified designs. However we need to be really careful where design changes would arise from - government dictat or market mechanism? This is part of a wider point about prescriptiveness. Whilst particular changes in the economy may seem like a good idea, prescribing these from the top down is a recipe for inefficiency and rebellion by those whom we need to be efficient and engaged. I think the logic for rationing usually goes that ecological capacity and resources are limited, humanity is using too much, vast inequalities in use exist, and so both resources and ecological sinks should be shared out equally by governments. To me this sounds defeatist, like sharing out the remaining provisions on a sinking life-raft. It would do little to increase future stocks of provisions or to stop the life-raft from sinking. Ecological capacity and resources are shrinking, populations of destitute people are growing and inequalities abound due to 'survival of the fittest' acquisitive unsustainable economic machinery, relentlessly churning nature into disposable products and ever more acute problems. Rationing says let's put the brakes on this machine by asking government to allocate resources instead. This equates to a centrally planned economy when what is actually needed is to rejig the economy to operate sustainably (possibly as above). There is the left-over issue of historical inequalities in ownership and economic power, which a sustainable market would not entirely address. A range of measures could help with this (one based on pensions is discussed in the JCP paper) but rationing would be unlikely to help, since society's poorest would be driven to sell their rationed rights to those with money to burn. In a scenario of energy or CO2 credits, this would offer the poor little protection from shivering in the dark. The SDC is inviting input to its planning The SDC can avoid becoming redundant. For example their policy areas omit the core SD issues of waste (DEFRA’s Achilles heel) and security (the Cabinet’s Achilles heel). Their SD Panel consultation entitled 'redefining progress' was content not to consider even a theoretical possibility of sustainable economic growth in favour of how to design indicators for measuring symptomatic effects on society’s well-being and happiness. Without being knowledgeable about all SDC activities, my exposure to activities on well-being indicators and tidal power suggests a pattern of the SDC pursuing projects together with government with which government are comfortable. I hope it doesn’t happen but for the SDC to be redundant they need only get comfortable in government’s comfort zone. The current policy area divisions would make their work easy to reabsorb back into government departments, especially (ref. well-being indicators and tidal power) when government is doing it themselves anyway. Target-led analysis sounds authoritative (‘The challenge is delivery not new policy’) but targets are not the business of thought leaders. Symptom-led solutions (such as road pricing and pay-as-you-throw charges) serve the current fashion of ‘blaming the individual’ but are vulnerable to popular rebellion and political backlash, Canadian style. ‘Try-harder’ rhetoric would look lame if any other institution starts to propose joined-up preventive proposals with the required level of ambition. Getting friendly with government departments so they agree to release the information needed for the SDC watchdog function of course renders objective assessment impossible. If in future a reliable SD audit of government is called for then the SDC could be unusable. The starting point for any future SDC activity would have to be the shaping of solutions fit for the scale and urgency of global problems. Otherwise why bother? The relentlessly cross-cutting, interconnected, systemic nature of SD offers a clear hint to the SDC about what to do and what not to do. Projects that government can do and is doing (such as well-being indicators and tidal energy) are not for them. Government doesn’t need SDC advice on technical details; the world is flooded with such information. What’s missing is knowledge that works across issues; such as visioning, back-casting, decision frameworks, and leverage points. In particular a small effort by the SDC researching sustainable economic models could guide government in creating the conditions to prevent hundreds of symptomatic problems. Long live the SDC! See the full discussion, and have your say, at http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/forum_public/index.php?tid=1774 The SDC could focus on SD rather than separate issues. Rather than continuing to act like the governent's own in-house friends of the earth, SDC should really think hard about the other possible strategy which is to do SD rather than doing issues. What makes SD distinct from any bunch of green issues? The possibility for radical change rt tweaking and the need for fast and vast improvement (as you mention). The joining up of issues in policy and practice. The prevention of problems in place of of mitigation. Shaping of a vision to surpass individualistic materialism. Idealism and imagination brought to life. Reinventing capitalism (not to be confused with fiddling about with wellbeing indicators). Here is the natural territory for a SDC worth its salt. The next time you consider launching another foray into one of the sideshow issues just ask yourselves whether that issue would be among those which would cease to be a problem if only someone, such as the SDC, instead makes SD whole and real. See the full discussion, and have your say, at http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/forum_public/index.php?tid=1797 The SDC could do more, despite limitations to their remit and independence. No-one should hold their breath waiting for SDC to get a regulatory role, but given that it's sure to be filled with individuals passionate about SD, it seems reasonable to expect a step change in their strategy, followed by a step change in their analysis and proposals. Your example of packaging is apt. If SDC sought to become packaging experts and to propose solutions for packaging waste they would merely be doing government's job for them. If SDC worked on a solution for all waste, including packaging and fuel emissions, then they would be doing SD. See the full discussion, and have your say, at http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/forum_public/index.php?tid=1774
The SDC consulted its Panel on "Redefining Progress" This consultation missed the chance to really redefine progress by considering the possibility of sustainable economic growth, in favour of studying how statistical measurements of well-being might compete against economic growth as a political goal. This is a brilliant example of how the study of symptoms can obscure solving problems at their source. Question 1: What should progress mean? Question 2: What do you think about the use of economic growth as a measure of national progress? It is possible that there would be some discontinuity in economic growth statistics during a transition to a sustainable model, since some influences (such as more second-hand sales and more non-financial neighbourly 'transactions') would depress GDP whilst other influences would increase GDP (such as massive investment in new environmental, energy and resource infrastructure). I'm surprised to read that 'economic growth generates economic stability' and can only assume you put that in to stimulate debate. This flimsy assertion is part of the sales pitch of unsustainable economics and, like any dodgy salesman, neglects to mention how the current economic model is equally responsible for recessions. Scaring people with the threat of a recession is nothing more than a bully tactic to argue against competing economic models. Should be obvious that an economic model based upon converting ever greater proportions of the world's resources into wastes is a recipe for anything but economic stability. Consider just oil-dependency for example and ask how long that can provide economic stability? Question 3: What other measure(s) of progress would you like to see emphasised within the UK governments? Question 4a: To what extent is the concept of 'wellbeing' a useful way of thinking about progress? Question 4b: Do you think 'wellbeing' is a useful measure of progress? Question 5: What role, if any, should UK governments have in shaping progress? Much of the current green efforts by government would be better operated by the market under a different sustainable economic model. The role of government would then be to set the playing field by instituting economic instruments sufficient to define that model. Please tell me if you would like to read my contribution to this question, which has now been accepted as an academic paper. Question 6: What role, if any, should UK governments have in fostering wellbeing? The SDC produced an interim report and invited comments... What would you like to challenge or add to the broad conclusions we have drawn? Your analysis assumes that because economic growth is an indicator you can generate change merely by introducing new indicators. You forget that economic growth is shaped by the power of the market and though we might wish it so, the power of the Sustainable Development Commission and your indicators is not comparable. The fundamental issue missed is that both economic growth and well-being are symptomatic outcomes of the viability of our society. Measuring effects is no way to influence causes. Your labelling of fundamental change as idealistic has derailed this consultation, arbitrarily dismissing a critical line of enquiry and wasting much valuable input from the panel. This label covers up your substitution of measurement for any discussion of actual change. By entirely missing the glaring need for sustainable market correction you are left only with ineffectual data-gathering and the unstated conclusion that sustainability is possible only to the extent that society will accept nanny-state interference. The SDC invited comments to review their 'well-being' consultation. The fatal error of this consultation may be tracked down to page 316 of 'Capitalism, as if..' Porritt 2006 which rightly positions the role of well-being as marketing for redefining progress. Well-being can make SD desirable. This consultation has swapped those roles, using the redefining of progress to market the pursuit of well-being indicators. Such indicators are all very well but let's not fool ourselves that they are anything but a measure of symptomatic outcomes with negligible opportunities for feedback to inform the market. There is no surer route to failure with SD than the substitution of symptomatic measures for systemic measures. The substitution of indicators for genuine debate about redefining progress offers no hope whatsoever of a SDC challenge to HM Treasury concepts of economic growth. The image of a SDC clutching indicators standing up to the global power of unsustainable markets is not really a David and Goliath scene, it is a comic book picture. The fact that the Treasury willingly indulge you with an indicators working group should warn you that they judge this to be a ineffectual pastime. Yes there are interesting ways to demolish the mythology of GDP and to reinvent capitalism via the price mechanism. But you won't find them by parroting myths about the 'stability' of economic growth and 'impractical unrealistic' idealism. Economic growth can not be challenged by anyone unable to first challenge their own assumptions about economic growth and GDP. Please may I tempt you out of the ivory tower of indicators (and other single-issue distractions) back into the real world where ambitious joined-up thinking is needed of a scale and urgency matching the world's problems. At least show me you're willing to try! A web-forum for the SD Panel provided space to comment on systems thinking in redefining progress. For example due to the failure to see climate change as a whole society issue (covering resource, community and nature as well as energy sources) climate is now used as an excuse for building incinerators to burn mixed wastes instead of fossil fuels. This is a reliable way to further entrench the disposable society whilst vastly increasing emissions. This can be expected to have vast well-being implications that the SDC's new indicators may measure in years to come. As an aternative to passively documenting society's decline there could be a debate about how to make "idealistic" fundamental changes. There have been decades of debate on partial solutions and "pragmatic" gradual improvements but almost nothing on systemic preventive measures that may address many problems. A forum comment on idealism... On the other hand, after decades of fiddling with incremental and symptomatic improvements have convincingly failed to create a society that is becoming more sustainable, it is possible that the idealists, if they are able to focus on widespread, systemic or fundamental changes may find solutions that turn out to be more practical than those of the pragmatists! I'd suggest also taking more care with equating pragmatism with scientific objectivity and idealism with woolly subjectivity. Surely one of the reasons why unsustainability persists is a woolly belief that only what can be measured matters and a subjective denial of all the evidence to the contrary. The 'realities of our society and government' are not immovable as you seem to suggest. They are merely immovable by incremental (pragmatic?) sticking plasters. Fundamental or radical (idealistic?) approaches aim precisely to move long-standing obstacles and to address today's problems on the scale that they exist. Sustainability means learning to implement idealism pragmatically. A forum comment on the 'nanny state'... Put your hands down now Tony and Gordon; it's not your fault that sustainable development amounts to an invitation to join a centrally-planned eco-economy (the green nanny state). Many environmentalists await the day when things get so bad that the public may accept a kind of eco-communism. I'm not convinced they ever will, no matter how dire things get. The missing debate is how to replace all this nannyism with a general sustainable development correction to market economies? Taxes are an insufficient solution as they will never be trusted. Single-issue corrections such as emission trading schemes are partial solutions which favour problem-switching (eg fossil to nuclear). I believe that non-prescriptive market-based non-nanny solutions do exist, they are just not discussed. Without market reform sustainability is a non-starter and discussion of indicators is futile. However with effective reform, indicators (including well-being measures) would be valuable to monitor the change process and societal progress. Since the final report from the consultation goes to the Treasury (who are in dire need of new ideas) lets hope the third session allows the panel to redefine progress with something a bit more ambitious than yet more data-gathering.
The Sustainable Development Commission tidal power project The SDC are asking their Panel members about views on tidal power, which is being investigated by government. My forum postings suggest that the SDC should not be leading this investigation at the expense of leadership with sustainable development as a whole. Post 3. Interesting how the question of SDC involvement in tidal power is less about the undoubted value of the technology (I've proposed its use within a large local development) and more about what the SDC should be doing and not doing. The SDC’s tidal project appears widely supported throughout UK government (see http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/tidal.html) which suggests that government could be left to get on with it. We pay taxes for this kind of thing. Having exerted its influence and won the argument, the SDC should move on and look at other issues which remain neglected by government. For example in the realm of climate/energy; the wisdom of tripling mixed waste incineration, chimney baffles and dehumidifiers, inter-seasonal solar thermal storage (perhaps combined with heat pumps), plasma gasification or street-level low-energy lifestyle initiatives? Other panel members could suggest more and better measures to pursue. No matter how absorbing and deliverable the project, there is always an opportunity cost. When the SDC uses staff time on tidal power there is less chance to deal with SD as a whole, specifically the cross-cutting themes that distinguish SD from hundreds of symptomatic problems and thousands of potential solutions. Anyone interested in the role of the SDC may enjoy their forum for this topic at http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/forum_public/index.php?tid=1774. I’ve spent rather too many years working to embed SD practices in current systems but could never shake off the feeling that any progress, viewed globally, was illusory. Actually things are getting worse. So long as we allow ourselves to be distracted from the task of fixing things at source, things will continue getting worse. Anyone can catch drips, only government and their advisors can mend the roof. Post 2. If we had 20 more years up our sleeves to promote tidal power and every other important issue then perhaps a 'one at a time' strategy would be plausible. Even then we should probably face it that the past 20 years have been spent pursuing issues separately and where are we now? The climate seems to be dropping hints that the spare time available before commencing focussed, all-issue, full-participation actions may actually be nill. If so then there are questions. Is tidal really the key to sustainability suddenly spluttering to life? Or does the government's tidal initiative serve to keep SDC safely away from asking deeper questions with more widespread implications? Does the government's well-being indicators initiative serve to divert SDC safely away from any significant work on reinventing capitalism? Why does the essential shift from linear to cyclic resource management (thus disposing of the concept of waste) apparently still not figure in either government or SDC's thinking? Let's speculate. Suppose a sustainability correction to market economy pricing was devised next week by SDC (let's say they weren't otherwise engaged) then would the higher fossil fuel prices and subsidies for renewables be relevant to tidal power? I'd guess so, to the extent that the stampede of investors would drown out any chat by our honorable Panel and Commission. I appreciate that SDC are right to take a broader interest than just sustainable price mechanisms and to shape this balance (between systemic issues and separate policy areas) it's possible to consider priorities. My humble suggestion... First, what could SDC pursue that would switch SD to full speed ahead? (Eg self-correcting markets.) Second, how can separate issues be joined up or otherwise approached creatively? (Eg treat climate/emissions as one part of a general waste problem.) Third, what are the small, simple changes that highlight ridiculous current practice? (Eg how about omitting weapons spending from GDP figures, or labelling foods with the pesticides applied?) Apologies for not including a project on tidal within these prospective SDC priorities. This is a government project which we are all paying for. If there really is a shift happening in government (carbon neutral buildings etc) then let government lead their own project rather than hide behind SDC. Let SDC work on SD, not issues. Post 1. Thanks to the SDC for proposing this topic which deserves to sit proudly alongside a few hundred other technical contributions to sustainable development. I've got nothing against tidal power and wouldn't dream of trying to hold it back! However I do have a different dream, that my own tiny contribution to something called a sustainable development panel, alongside those of hundreds of fellow members, can build one or two ideas together with the SDC who then use their influence with government to somehow tip the agenda from token actions, technical fixes, disconnected policies and end-of-pipe thinking to a new era of actions throughout the country of a quality, scale and speed to rival the unravelling problems facing us all. It's a lot about redefining progress and reforming capitalism, which was the theme of the previous consultation, though the SDC didn't quite succeed to venture beyond government's comfort zone. Whitehall has civil servants beavering away on well-being indicators not because it represents any kind of challenge to prevailing models of economic growth, but precisely because it doesn't. Let them, if that's what makes them happy, but please can the SDC be excused to focus instead on something with half a chance of making a difference? And can the SDC's SD panel please be given something to do which exercises their evident creativity and knowledge. This panel is as close as some members, like me, ever get to influencing government and we need the experience of at least dreaming about sustainable development as a working reality. So by all means offer tidal power for members so inclined but let's not lose track of the timescale. If the panel work their way diligently through every sub-topic equivalent to well-being indicators and tidal power the panel would become wonderfully well-informed over the next two decades; yet we would have nothing but apologies to pass on to our grand-kids. Want a world that works? Return to: top of page, home page, BlindSpot reviews, BlindSpot tools. | |
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