Making sense of sustainable development

Making sense of sustainable development

Clive Bates

“Central organising principle”

Sustainable development will be the central organising principle of the Welsh Assembly Government

One Wales, One Planet

One Wales: One Planet, a new Sustainable Development Scheme for Wales, 22 May 2009.

What is it…?

Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

Brundtland definition

Everyone’s at it...

For us, sustainability means addressing key business-related social, environmental and economic impacts in a way that aims to bring value to all our stakeholders, including shareholders.

Paul Adams

CEO, British American Tobacco

We do have a problem…

I know that this term is obligatory, but I find it also absurd, or rather so vague that it says nothing

Luc Ferry, French philosopher

Three conditions for a central organising principle…

1. A clear definition and overall aim that is supported by the whole government

2. It has to inform hard but different choices about money, policy focus and delivery

3. It must be possible to secure legitimacy and support



2. It has to inform hard but different choices about money, policy focus and delivery

3. It must be possible to secure a sufficient mandate

Single over-arching measure

1. We should measure progress in a way that can guide policy. This requires a single over-arching measure of how we are doing. [...]

2. The right single measure of progress must be the one that is self-evidently good. The only such measure is

Richard Layard: "Why subjective well-being should be the measure of progress", given at the OECD World Forum on “Statistics, Knowledge and

Policy Charting Progress, Building Visions, Improving Life", Busan, Korea - 27-30 October 2009 chard Layard,

Single over-arching measure

1. We should measure progress in a way that can guide policy. This requires a single over-arching measure of how we are doing. [...]

2. The right single measure of progress must be the one that is self-evidently good. The only such measure is the happiness of the population - and the equivalent absence of misery.

Richard Layard: "Why subjective well-being should be the measure of progress", given at the OECD World Forum on “Statistics, Knowledge and

Policy Charting Progress, Building Visions, Improving Life", Busan, Korea - 27-30 October 2009 chard Layard,

What it means

In Wales, sustainable development means enhancing the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of people and communities, achieving a better quality of life for our own and future generations:


What it means

In Wales, sustainable development means enhancing the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of people and communities, achieving a better quality of life for our own and future generations:


How it is to be done

In ways which promote social justice and equality of opportunity;



In ways which promote social justice and equality of opportunity; and …



In ways which promote social justice and equality of opportunity; and

In ways which enhance the natural and cultural environment and respect its limits using only our fair share of the earth’s resources and sustaining our cultural legacy.


Dimensions of well-being

Developed from report of the “Sarkhozy Commission” on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress by Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz, Professor Amartya Sen and Professor Jean-Paul Fitoussi

Wellbeing maximised across generations and through the life-course

Increasing body of empirical data

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and wellbeing

Production capital

Human capital

Social capital

Natural capital

Self-provided services

Goods and services in the market

Social goods and services

Ecosystems services

Activity Experience Wellbeing

Investment (+)

Depreciation (-)

Assets, services, wellbeing



2. It has to inform hard and different choices about money, policy focus and delivery


Hard choice 1: long-termism

£154bn

£30bn

4

6

8

10

12

14

1977

-78

1982

-83

1987

-88

1992

-93

1997

-98

2002

-03

2007

-08

2012

-13

2017

-18

2022

-23

Projected UK health care spending

(% GDP public & private, annotations at 2002-3 prices)

£96bn 2007-8

US spent 14.6% GDP in 2002 (OECD)

% GDP

Source: Wanless, 2002 Securing Our Future Health: Taking A Long-Term View

About £220 bn over 15 years

Fully engaged

Hard choice 1: Long termism

Finnish penal policy had two overall aims:

(i) the minimization of the costs and harmful effects of crime and of crime control

(ii) the fair distribution of these costs among the offender, society and the victim

Hard choice 2: silo-busting

• System-wide optimisation• Hospitals vs community care• Hospitals vs gritting pavements• Prison & police vs youth inclusion• Managing dysfunctional families• Dealing with failure at school• Catchment sensitive farming / SUDS• Flood defence vs clean up and rebuild• Energy efficiency vs renewables

Hard choice 3: using evidence

Micro-gen

Energy efficiencyMetering etc

Hard choice 3: Value for money in challenging times

25

Opportunity cost?Sound rationale for

intervening?

Credible market failure rationale?

Will government do better?

Does 20% of effort secure 80% of value?

Evidence for cost-effectiveness?

Unintended consequences?

Deadweight and displacement effects?

Proportionate?

Measurement and evaluation?

Looked at all options fairly?

Review, break-point, sunset?

A more critical environment for policy-making and spending

Hard choice 4: building resilience

• Investment in critical infrastructure • Decarbonising and securing energy supply• Demand management ‘smart roads, grids’ etc• Electrification of transport• Flood and water management in a changing climate• Digital inclusion and high speed broadband• Meeting housing demand – quantity and quality• Waste management and resource productivity

…. at the expense of current consumption



2. It has to inform hard and different choices about money, policy focus and delivery


Non-negotiable?

Living within ecological limits is the non negotiable basis for our social and economic development

Jonathan Porritt

The negotiation

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Pollution / environmentQ What would you say is the most important issue facing Britain today?Q What do you see as other important issues facing Britain today?(Unprompted - combined answers)

Most important issues facing Britain

Peak concern on climate

change

Ozone hole

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20

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EconomyPollution / environmentUnemployment / job losses

Most important issues facing Britain

Winning legitimacy and support

• Define an ideology and governing philosophyFormulate a compelling narrativeMatch words with deeds and act consistently

• Build trust by the way you workEvaluation, openness, external advice and scrutiny, genuine consultation , candour, media relations

• Use time – pursue slow big wins“Governments overestimate their power to achieve change in the short term, and underestimate it in the long term”

Trusted to tell the truth?

Trust in People /Trust in Doctors 2009 Ipsos MORI/ RCP September 2009 (2023 GB adults 15+)

Encourage

Enable

Engage

Exemplify

Catalyse

Behaviour changeTaxes & fiscal measures

Regulation & finesLeague tables

Targets / perf managementPrizes / rewards / bonuses

Preferential treatment Status recognition

Subsidies / discountsFeedback

Remove barriers to actSet defaults / opt-out vs opt-in

Form clubs / communitiesProvide information

Choose intervention timingPersonalise

Provide space / facilitiesBuild confidence

Ease/cost of access

Community/network actionDeliberative fora

Segmentation / focusSecure commitmentPersonal contacts

Role models / 'super-users'Paid/unpaid media campaignsPester power / Peer pressure

Workplace norms

Evidence baseWalk the talk & lead

Consistency across policiesSustained approach

Credibility / confidenceBenchmarking / evaluationLearning & improvement

Political consensus building


1. A clear definition and overall aim• Maximisation and fair distribution of well-being over the long term

2. It has to inform hard but different choices• Long-termism

• Silo-busting

• Evidence based

• Invest in resilience

3. It must be possible to secure legitimacy and support• Clear ideology and narrative

• Build trust

• Behaviour change strategy

POSSIBLE POLICY IMPACTSAnnex 1

Starter for 10: families & community

• Integrate services and intervene intensively for the 2-3% families at most risk. These families can cost £250k / year

• Focus on adults and parenting skills, even if the objective is to secure wellbeing and social mobility of the children

• Find ways to help isolated older people to develop social networks and remain involved

• Recognising that relationship breakdown has negative wellbeing consequences, provide support for couples in difficulty and address potential drivers of breakdown (drugs, debt, prison)

• Promote opportunities for neighbours to get to know each other, based on clear evidence that this tends to enhance wellbeing

Starter for 10: health

• Place progressively greater emphasis and resources to evidence-based preventative measures, as envisaged in Our Healthy Future, and relatively less to treatment – though recognise that demographics and societal preference will drive underlying demand

• Help people get out and stay out of hospital by giving GPs stronger commissioning role covering health and social care

• Challenge the approach to the last years of life – considering whether the expense and intensity of interventions in the last two years of life provide the dignified death that most people say they want

• Place greater emphasis on mental health, with investment in cognitive behavioural therapies

Starter for 10: education

• Ensure the incentives and performance management for schools give proper weight to addressing the needs of those failing and at risk of leaving unqualified, considering the lifetime negative wellbeing consequences

• Have longer school days and four terms for disadvantaged children (reduce reliance on family support)

• Teach ‘resilience’ – drawing on the evidence that it improves academic performance and employability

• Create more rounded adaptable personalities, by specialising later

• Rethink career guidance and manage transitions to work

Starter for 10: crime

• Learn from Finland. Shift sentencing policy to minimise overall harm, including cost to taxpayer and consequences of reoffending: generally moving to community sentencing, restorative justice and prison as a last resort

• Greatly expanding ‘youth inclusion’ programmes and focussing on failure at school.

• Focus prisons on reducing reoffending, with greater attention aid to preparing for law-abiding life outside, avoiding extremely disruptive short-stay sentences and greater attention to transitions from custody to the community

• Adopt a harm minimisation approach to drugs – perhaps including prescribing

Starter for 10: economy

• Give due weight to GDP – but measure and care about what matters.

• Focus on assisting the transition from economic inactivity to productive activity. The focus should be on unemployment and jobs at all levels in the economy, not just hi-tech or knowledge-based.

• Focus on building the foundations of sustainable growth (establishing conditions in which forward looking and well managed businesses can thrive rather than direct business support

• Reshape apprenticeships and other programmes for teenagers to strengthen psychological fitness to help young people find and keep work

• Design transportation, housing and economic policy to reduce commuting time and allow a more localised economic and social geography

• Only go beyond regulations made at UK or EU level where the wellbeing case justifies it (applies generically).

Starter for 10: environment

• Promote resource efficiency as a dominant environmental strategy.

• Recognise total cost of flooding includes private costs (pooled cleaning up costs through insurance) and seek harm minimising allocation between avoiding floods, reduction of impact and costs of damage/repair.

• Give greater weight in the planning system to the high value that people place on owning their own home and living in pleasant surroundings

• Carefully differentiate protected areas – avoid overprotecting some and under-protecting others and give weight to access as a wellbeing driver

• Recast farming as a land management occupation and production of a mix of market good (food) and non-marketed goods and services – for which payments are made.

• In energy sector transition, place greater emphasis on the demand side and energy efficiency – relatively less on renewables. Be wary of high carbon cost technologies (microgen, PV etc)


1. A clear definition and overall aim• Maximisation and fair distribution of well-being over the long term

2. It has to inform hard but different choices• Long-termism

• Silo-busting

• Evidence based

• Invest in resilience

3. It must be possible to secure legitimacy and support• Clear ideology and narrative

• Build trust

• Behaviour change strategy

Making sense of sustainable development

Education

meansin wales

social progress

planetone wales

sustainable development

policy charting progress

policy focus

social justice

hard choice