The Standing of Sustainable Development in Government

When I was still Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, I was hoping to produce a snapshot of just how deep sustainable development had penetrated into the workings of government – since the election of the Labour Government in 1997, the establishment of the Sustainable Development Commission in 2000, and the issuing of the Sustainable Development Strategy, ‘Securing the Future’. As it happens, it didn’t get done. Which has allowed me a few extra months to reflect in less frenetic circumstances.

And that’s been helpful! I have to admit, I was feeling a bit grumpy back in July. There’s only so much head banging one can do before brain damage sets in! And so much of what the Sustainable Development Commission does is going on behind the scenes – received and acted on, for example, by bodies like the Environmental Audit Committee, the Office of Government Commerce, individual departments and so on.

And if one gets really disciplined about both sides of the balance sheet (the pluses and the minuses), the overall picture on the standing of sustainable development question is actually “not half bad” – and I’m constantly struck by just how impressed people from other countries are at the ‘sustainable development architecture’ that’s been created here in the UK, including the Sustainable Development Commission itself.

But there still remains something of a mystery here, despite all the good things, it’s demonstrably clear to me that not enough has changed on the ground. Plenty of good process but not enough good outcomes (and quite a few really bad outcomes!)

That’s the mystery I’ve tried to unravel in this new Report, unimaginatively entitled The Standing of Sustainable Development in Government. Not an all-singing, all-dancing retrospective, and certainly not a completely dispassionate study. But useful for all that, I hope.

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