From today the Government’s sustainable development website will provide a new calendar of planned and proposed events and publications from government and some international public bodies covering the sustainable development agenda.

A new archive will provide details of past events and publications, including recent documents, previous editions of the SD Scene newsletter, and key publications going back a few years.

We hope you find them useful.

• Calendar of forthcoming events and publications
• Archive of past events and publications

Some of the timings and details will be provisional and may be revised, but we hope it will at least provide an idea of what you can look forward to seeing from us over the next few months. We shall endeavour to keep these listings as up-to-date as we can and include new entries as necessary. We will highlight published documents through our SD Scene newsletter and past events and publications pages.

We will continue to provide details of other events relating to sustainable development through our event listings on SD Scene.

The new resources reflect the Government’s commitment to increase transparency in mainstreaming sustainable development through frequent and up-to-date publishing of information to enable independent scrutiny of our performance and progress.

In this round-up:

• REAP Petite: online tool to help individuals and communities calculate their environmental impact
• UKCIP publishes new graphs of climate indicators over the last 150 years
• Interactive DECC Maps visualize Local Authority Datasets
• New portal to online information about the environment in Scotland
• ‘Eye on Earth’ mapping service launched by European Environment Agency, Microsoft and Esri

Read about more recent publications and research in the latest SDRN bulletin…

Online tool to help individuals and communities calculate their environmental impact

A new, free online tool has been launched by the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York, which they hope will help individuals and community groups to calculate their environmental impact. The tool allows community groups, schools, clubs or workplaces to compare their individual or household carbon and ecological footprints with their peers, and with the UK average.

The tool (called ‘REAP petite’) asks questions about users’ energy use, travel, food and goods consumed, to build complete footprints at the household level. The research team at SEI in York hopes that REAP Petite will contribute to the new wave of “citizen science”, where people can better understand and contribute to scientific research by helping to input and collect data. More…

More from Stockholm Environment Institute…

UKCIP publishes new graphs of climate indicators over the last 150 years

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have brought together observed datasets to show how a range of variables have changed over the previous 150 years, up to and including 2009.

The raw data is publicly available from the NOAA website, however, UKCIP have made this more accessible and produced a range of graphs as a simple visual representation of the changes. Revised graphs will be uploaded as the subsequent data is available. The graphs include ground level temperature over land; the sea level; and the area of arctic ice each September.

More from UKCIP…

Interactive DECC Maps visualize Local Authority Datasets

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has recently published a series of interactive maps that bring together DECC’s Local Authority datasets into one place and allow users to view trends in fuel poverty; gas and energy use; installation of energy efficiency measures (like cavity wall and loft installation); and solar panel installation.

At the moment the graphs only extend to Local Authority level, but there is the possibility that they may be developed to smaller geographical areas. The maps will be updated when the latest quarterly and annual datasets are published at Local Authority level.

More from DECC…

New portal to online information about the environment in Scotland

The Scottish government has recently launched a new web portal, which aims to provide everything you want to know about Scotland’s environment in one place. ‘Scotland’s Environment Web’ (or ‘SEWeb’) has an online library containing all partner agency’s reports and publications.

The first major project to be hosted on the SEWeb Library is the Scottish State of the Environment Report, which contains sections on reducing the Scottish contribution to climate change, improving quality of life, land management and improving the water environment. Three years of funding have been provided for SEWeb, including funding from the EU. Over the three years of SEweb there will be opportunities for the public to get involved with Scotland’s environment and the Scottish government hopes it will create a forum for debate and assessment from all corners of the environmental community.

Scotland’s Environment Web…

‘Eye on Earth’ mapping service launched by European Environment Agency, Microsoft and Esri

A new global web service allowing users to create maps and visualise data on environmental issues is now live. Launched as part of a planned five-year partnership between Microsoft and the European Environment Agency, the new Eye on Earth global public information service brings together vast amounts of data about the environment in an accessible, visual format, and acts as a two-way communication platform on the environment which brings together scientific information with feedback and observations of millions of ordinary people. Currently, it includes information on the water quality for more than 22,000 bathing sites and information on air quality for more than 1,000 air quality monitoring stations throughout Europe. It will eventually broaden out to include ground level ozone and other forms of air pollution, oil spills, biodiversity, and coastal erosion.

Access the Eye on Earth network and create your own maps…

Access the searchable map of the globe, and add your own ratings for noise, air and water pollution in your neighbourhood here…

Arguing that the linear systems of global food production are inherently unsustainable – assuming and requiring a limitless supply of resources and capacity to absorb waste – the authors of Virtuous Circles: Values, Systems and Sustainability propose the adoption of circular systems that mimic sustainable natural cycles.

The book is an output of Designing Resilience, part of a collaborative research and communication programme co-ordinated by IIED. Through a process of co-inquiry, the programme aimes to strengthen the capacity, knowledge and innovations of local organisations of farmers, indigenous peoples, pastoralists, food workers and other citizens to bring about positive change in meeting human needs.

Linear versus circular systems

Assessing the “perfect storm” of food price crises, water shortages, climate change, financial turmoil, deforestation and biodiversity loss in recent years, the authors identify a polarised debate on the nature of sustainable products, systems and supply chains. This debate is exemplified in competing visions for the future or farming and food supply: a continuation of current trends of industrialised, centralised and globalised production systems against the adoption of more localised food systems based on agroecological principles.

The first vision represents a linear approach that assumes an unlimited supply of energy and resources as inputs, and produces continual outputs of carbon emissions, air pollution, waste water and solids.

The Linear Approach to Foodfrom Jones, A, Pimbert, M and Jiggins, J (2011) Virtuous Circles: Values, Systems and Sustainability. IIED, London

The authors argue that these linear systems result in vicious cycles of negative environmental and social impacts.

In the second vision, a circular approach – founded on the values of autonomy, resilience, knowledge-sharing and fairness and ecological, social and economic sustainability – seeks to minimise external inputs, reuse and recycle materials and nutrients, and maximise local production.

From vicious cycles to virtuous circles

The circular approach reflects natural systems, which are based on closed loops or cycles (eg of nitrogen or carbon) and have little or no waste – the “waste” of one organism is instead used as food for another or converted into a useful form by natural processes.

Linear and Circular Metabolismsfrom Jones, A, Pimbert, M and Jiggins, J (2011) Virtuous Circles: Values, Systems and Sustainability. IIED, London; adapted from Girardet, H (1996) The Gaia Atlas of Cities: New Directions for Sustainable Urban Living. Gaia Books Ltd, London.

The book seeks to demonstrate how the circular approach can create systems that provide food, energy and water without consuming large quantities of fossil fuels and other finite resources, thereby minimising greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution. Furthermore, the authors argue that this approach has the potential to enhance human wellbeing, food and livelihood security, and democratic control.

Circular systems in action

The book describes example circular systems, such as integrated circular water, energy, sanitation and food systems, and a composting and biogas system for household or farm energy and fertiliser needs for production of food and construction materials. Four case studies are presented of circular systems in practice, in the Andes, across Asia, in Cuba and Ecuador. Analysis of a typical liner system – the manufacture of tomato ketchup in Sweden – reveals over 100 separate process stages and over 50 transport stpes across several continents, an insight into complicated linear production and supply chains, and their dependency on fossil fuels and other resources. An alternative circular systems approach to ketchup production is sketched out, greatly reducing the waste, pollution and use of resources.

Michel Pimbert, one of the book’s authors sums up the potential benefits of re-localised and circular food systems:

“A transformation towards re-localised food systems will significantly help to address climate change and other challenges. Circular systems also provide the basis for economic and political sovereignty – the ability of citizens to democratically manage their own affairs and engage with other communities on their own terms.”

Further reading

• Virtuous Circles: Values, Systems and Sustainability: available as a free pdf download.

You may also be interested in...

• The Energy Water Food Stress Nexus
• Feeding a thirsty world: threats and opportunities for water and food security

In this round-up:

• Water Policy Fitness Check (IEEP report)
• Attitudes to water services in a changing climate (OFWAT report)
• A community approach to catchment management (Relu Policy and Practice Note)

Read about more recent publications and research in the latest SDRN bulletin…

Water Policy Fitness Check (IEEP report)

The future of Europe’s water is under the spotlight leading up to the expected agreement on a new comprehensive Blueprint in 2012.

As part of the preparation for this, the European Commission is undertaking a Fitness Check to assess the effectiveness of existing laws and identify possible gaps or inconsistencies that need to be dealt with. The first phase of this assessment has just been completed with the help of the consultancy Deloitte and the Institute for European Environment Policy (IEEP).

The report suggests that the policy laid out in the Water Framework Directive is robust and largely coherent with other EU environmental laws. However, implementation remains challenging and makes the achievement of the 2015 targets uncertain. The EU needs to step up action on policy integration, particularly with regard to using water in agriculture and buildings more efficiently. Member States have made only sluggish progress with introducing economic instruments such as water pricing, while the principle of cost-recovery remains controversial.

More from the IEEP…

Attitudes to water services in a changing climate (OFWAT report)

The water industry regulator, OFWAT, has published research into water consumers’ attitudes to water and sewerage services in the context of a changing climate.

In particular, the research explored: consumer attitudes to service and price in relation to the challenge of climate change over the long term; and appetites for using water more efficiently and managing water entering the sewers.

The findings indicate that participants: accept that collectively we need to respond to changing weather patterns and reduce greenhouse gas emissions – irrespective of the cause of climate change; would prefer to pay a little bit more in their water and sewerage bills now (for climate-change-related investment), in order to avoid paying a lot more in future; thought metering was the fairest form of charging, but had no interest in ‘green tariffs’; and are not prepared to accept a reduced level of service in the future (as a result of climate change). However, they were open to changing their own behaviour to help maintain levels of service and keep bill increases as small as possible.

More from OFWAT…

A community approach to catchment management (Relu Policy and Practice Note)

Involving the public in environmental management is high on the political agenda. This policy and practice note summarises the key findings from a Rural Economy and Land Use Programmen (Relu) project which has explored how such involvement might be achieved in the Loweswater Catchment in Cumbria.

The research was designed to create and support a new process to enable residents, land owners, institutions and scientists to work together to make decisions that affect the water quality of the lake. The note considers the problems that have affected water quality in Loweswater, highlights how residents and other stakeholders came together with scientists to form ‘The Loweswater Care Project’, how this worked in practice, the benefits derived from this type of collaborative approach, and distils the key messages for policy-makers.

More from Relu…

Signals, an annual publication from The European Environment Agency (EEA), offers snapshot stories, eyewitness reports and analysis of innovative approaches to issues of environmental policy, collectively illustrating the interrelations between seemingly unconnected issues.

Signals 2011: Globalisation, environment and you aims to challenge the perception that we are just passive onlookers:

“A key message of Signals 2011 is the role we all play in shaping the world today and the role we can play in shaping the future. With the right governance, economic incentives and attitudes, we can design a fairer, better future.”

Informed by experience

The stories draw on the EEA’s experience of the impact of environmental issues on the ground, thought its monitoring of the environment across its 32 member countries:

“From researchers up to their knees in water to satellite imaging from space, we work with a huge amount of environmental data. Finding, reading and understanding the range of ‘signals’ regarding the health and diversity of our environment is at the heart of what we do. Signals respects the complexity of the underlying science and shows awareness of the uncertainties inherent in all of the issues we address. Our target audience is broad, ranging from students to scientists, policymakers to farmers and small business people.”

Key messages

Following the EEA’s recent analysis of the environment in Europe and global challenges, The European environment — state and outlook 2010 (SOER 2010), Signals 2011 seeks to address its conclusion that “environmental challenges are complex and can’t be understood in isolation”, and is organised around the following key messages:

• The complex interconnections in the global economy, environment and society create many challenges;
• Nature delivers hugely valuable services to humankind, determining our wellbeing and prosperity;
• When resource extraction destroys ecosystems, poor people bear many of the costs but receive few of the benefits;
• Global consumption patterns are a key driver of humanity’s environmental impacts;
• How and where we live affects our consumption and therefore our environment;
• In addition to demanding resource inputs, our economies threaten our ecosystems and the services they provide by generating pollution and waste;
• Globalisation creates new challenges but it also offers solutions including sharing of innovations and knowledge and new mechanisms of governance.

Global megatrends

Signals 2011 highlights and considers the impact on Europe’s environment of six “global megatrends”, emerging trends that are shaping the world and which cut across social, technological, economic, political and even environmental dimensions:

• A new global order
  Global power is shifting. One superpower no longer holds sway and regional power blocs are increasingly important, economically and diplomatically. As global interdependence and trade expands;
• Changing patterns of disease
  The possibility of exposure to new, emerging and re-emerging diseases, to accidents and new pandemics grows with increased mobility of people and goods, climate change and poverty;
• Economic growth, rather than population growth, will be the core driver of consumption
  The global population will still be growing in 2050 but more slowly than in the past. People will live longer, be better educated and migrate more. Some populations will increase as others shrink. Migration is only one of the unpredictable prospects for Europe and the world;
• Intensified global competition for decreasing stocks of resources
  How will we survive in the intensifying scramble for scarce resources? The answer may well lie in more efficient production and resource use, new technologies and innovation, and increasing cooperation with foreign partners;
• Pollution — increasing use of chemicals
  Presently, most chemicals are produced by so called ‘developed countries’ but production is increasing more than twice as fast in India, China, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia. Their economic share of total world chemical production is projected to rise to around 30 % by 2020 and almost 40 % by 2030;
• Living in an urban world
  An increasingly urban world will probably mean increasing consumption and greater affluence for many. But it also means greater poverty for the urban underprivileged. Poor urban living conditions and associated environmental and heath risks could impact all areas of the world.

Cutting across social and environmental issues

In her introductory editorial Executive Director of the EEA Professor Jacqueline McGlade stresses the impact of environmental issues on the poor:

For these people the natural environment is their lifeline. Their situation is not unique. Across the world, the poorest of the poor are being affected by environmental degradation. Often, as you will read, this damage is driven by global demand for raw materials, which in turn is driven by human consumption. And that consumption is itself linked to demographics: the size and make-up of human populations.

By 2050 our population could be as much as 9 billion. ‘Could be’ because the truth is we simply don’t know exactly how our population will develop. This uncertainty is everywhere around us when we speak of the future. But it must not paralyse us into inaction. Rather, we must get better at taking the long view. In day-to-day life we are continuously confronted with long-term issues and plan accordingly. We must broaden this approach to include some of the major issues facing us as societies.

Further reading

• Signals 2011: Globalisation, environment and you: full report to download and read online;
• The European environment — state and outlook 2010: set of assessments of the current state of Europe’s environment, its likely future state, what is being done and what could be done to improve it.

In this round-up:

• A toolkit for wellbeing (NEF Publication)
• Common concerns about wind power (Centre for Sustainable Energy Report)
• Public engagement into the value of ecosystem goods and services (Resources for Change Report)
• Assessment of the 6th Environment Action Programme (IIEP Report)

Read about more recent publications and research in the latest SDRN bulletin…

A toolkit for wellbeing (NEF Publication)

This Mental Wellbeing Impact Assessment (MWIA) toolkit seeks to provide an evidence based framework for improving wellbeing through commissioning processes, project and service design and delivery, community engagement and impact assessment. It enables people and organisations to assess and improve a policy, programme, service or project to ensure it has a maximum equitable impact on people’s mental well-being, and to identify ways to measure those impacts.

The toolkit has been developed by a partnership of specialists and organisations bringing together mental health and well-being and Health Impact Assessment (HIA) knowledge and skills. There has been a development process over seven years beginning in Lewisham and Lambeth and developed further in the north west of England and latterly supported and funded by the former National Mental Health Development Unit (NMHDU). A National Collaborative steering group oversees the development and implementation of MWIA, including capacity building and policy development.

The MWIA Toolkit introduces the user to the policy and evidence base for mental well-being (in England), and provides a framework and resources to undertake a MWIA. It is published in sections that follow the MWIA process. Some sections can be used as a ‘stand alone’ resource such as the Screening Toolkit and the Indicator section.

More from NEF…

Common concerns about wind power (Centre for Sustainable Energy Report)

The Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) has produced this report in response to requests from community groups for factual information about wind energy, in part to counter the myths and misconceptions that surround this technology.

The report was produced as part of PlanLoCaL, a project that aims to give communities the knowledge and confidence to influence local planning policy and contribute to a low carbon future.

The report covers: wind turbines and energy payback times; wind turbines, costs and subsidies; efficiency of wind turbines; intermittency of wind turbines; the need for onshore as well as offshore turbines; wind power and nuclear power; public acceptance of wind power; wind turbines and property prices, safety, shadow flicker and epilepsy, and noise; infrasound from wind turbines and ‘Wind Turbine Syndrome’; and bat and bird mortality in relation to wind turbines.

More from CSE…

Public engagement into the value of ecosystem goods and services (Resources for Change Report)

Resources for Change was asked by the Countryside Council for Wales (with support from Sciencewise) to engage with selected communities to explore the challenges and opportunities for UK landscapes, and the benefits delivered by different ecosystem goods and services.

This work, based in the northern Cambrian Mountains, was part of a larger project called ‘Adaptive Landscapes’, and involved discussion on a range of topics including landscape tools such as Polyscape. The results of the research can now be viewed online.

More from Resources for Change…

Assessment of the 6th Environment Action Programme (IIEP Report)

The 6th Environment Action Programme (6EAP) provides a framework for EU action on the environment from 2002 to 2012, setting out key environmental objectives as well as horizontal and governance-related measures to be pursued.

In 2010, the European Commission contracted an independent study to assess the achievements of the 6EAP since its adoption in 2002 to the end of 2010. This study was carried out by the Ecologic Institute, the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IIEP), and the Central European University.

The study found that progress towards the objectives set out in the 6EAP has varied across different areas. Some objectives have already been achieved, while the attainment of others critically depends on future implementation efforts.

The study concludes that despite some shortcomings, the 6EAP helped to focus the attention of policy-makers and stakeholders, providing them with a better understanding of EU environmental policy and a sense of its future direction. It has also helped defend the environmental agenda in times of political uncertainty and acted as a point of reference within the Commission and among external stakeholders.

More from IIEP…

The SDRN review of successful business and procurement was undertaken by Dr. Helen Walker of the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick. It aims to provide an improved understanding of successful businesses and their approaches to procurement and the relevance of these to current debates on sustainable public procurement.

The report concludes that there are three main lessons for policy-makers in the public sector:

Firstly, strategic procurement has been shown in the private sector to be an approach that can contribute to successful delivery of a firm’s strategic objectives. As such government should consider adopting (or in some cases expanding) a strategic approach to its procurement activities.

Secondly, government should use its significant procurement spend and power to stimulate the development of markets and supply chains for sustainable products and services.

Thirdly, on the basis of the evidence reviewed in the literature, more needs to be done to create a regulatory environment that encourages, enables or requires the private sector to adopt sustainable procurement practices.

Further reading

• The SDRN Successful Business and Procurement full report and briefing are available to download from the SDRN website.
• For further information about the Review, please contact the SDRN team.

In this round-up:

• The heat is on (CBI): delivering an integrated heat policy
• Green Streets (ippr): exploring the potential of community energy projects – interim report
• You just have to get by (CSE): coping with low incomes and cold homes

Read about more recent publications in the latest SDRN bulletin…

The heat is on: Delivering an integrated heat policy

The Confederation of British Industry has recently launched a report urging the Government to develop a clear strategy to reduce carbon emissions from heat, including encouraging the use of surplus industrial heat to warm homes.

The report stresses that cutting emissions from heat is crucial to meeting legally-binding carbon reduction targets by 2050 and mitigating rising energy costs. However, it warns that existing heat policy is fragmented and complex, and calls on the Government to review the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), which will subsidise homeowners and businesses that want to install low-carbon heat technologies.

Among the measures the CBI is calling for are:

1. an early review of the RHI with a presumption that support levels will decrease as needed to ensure the total subsidy cost does not escalate disproportionately;
2. the Government to encourage better energy management in buildings by creating a one-stop advice service;
3. more resources should be put into heat mapping to uncover where there is surplus heat and where demand is high enough to facilitate the development of district heating networks;
4. the public estate, including schools and hospitals, should commit to procure heat and cooling services from district heating networks;
5. the Government should consider pump-priming support for the infrastructure to enable waste heat from industrial processes to be linked to district heating;
6. the Department for Energy & Climate Change (DECC) and Treasury should consider opening up the competition for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to industrial projects;
7. the original plans to fund the RHI by a levy on fossil fuel users should be reviewed.

More from the CBI…

Green Streets: Exploring the potential of community energy projects – interim report

Green Streets is a unique challenge, run by British Gas, which seeks to generate important lessons about the role community projects can play in cutting carbon emissions, and about the opportunities and challenges involved in creating the ‘Big Society’.

Acting in an independent capacity, the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) is conducting a range of quantitative and qualitative research, to generate lessons from Green Streets about the potential of community energy projects, the barriers to these projects, and the solutions needed to overcome these barriers.

At this interim stage, the evidence suggests that there are major opportunities to be had from community groups installing renewable technologies, both for the finances of the community groups and for the wider impacts these technologies could have on public attitudes to energy use. Yet, the research has also identified significant barriers to community groups taking up these technologies, such as capital and financial, technical and organisational expertise, as well as the time to pull a project together.

To increase the number of these projects, community groups will need to work in partnership with a range of different actors, such as support providers, local authorities and technical delivery partners, and it is vital that central Government plays an enabling role by remaining committed to the financial subsidies that exist for renewable technologies.

More from ippr…

You just have to get by: coping with low incomes and cold homes

To get a picture of what life is like for the individuals and families affected by fuel poverty – many of them elderly, disabled or otherwise vulnerable – the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) interviewed 50 households as part of a study (published September 2010) into the realities of living on a low income in a British winter.

The starting point of the study was a survey of 699 UK households living below the official poverty line, followed by in-depth interviews of vulnerable households. What became clear is that families or individuals on low incomes will fear the onset of winter as rising energy bills and promised cuts to welfare benefits threaten to push them beyond the limits of their already hard-pressed budgets. Among households with an annual income of £6,000 or less, nearly two-thirds said their homes are cold in the winter, with single-adult and lone-parent households hit especially hard.

Many interviewees expressed a determination to make ends meet despite the financial pressures of everyday life, yet often the cost of avoiding debt is going cold and going hungry. The study found that low-income households with highly constrained budgets typically cut back their spending on both fuel and food.

More from CSE…

In this round-up:

• Right Here, Right Now (nef): co-production for better public services
• Getting the Big Picture Right (CABE): large scale urban design
• Task Force on Sustainable Lifestyles (UNEP)
• Achieving Sustainable Rural Communities for the 21st Century (Rural Coalition)

Read about more new publications in the latest SDRN bulletin…

New Report – Right Here, Right Now

People’s needs are better met when they are involved in an equal and reciprocal relationship with public service professionals and others, working together to get things done. This is the underlying principle of co-production – a transformational approach to delivering services.

For over a year, the new economics foundation (nef) and NESTA have been working together to grow a network of co-production practitioners. They are building a substantial body of knowledge about co-production that offers a powerful critique of the current model of public service delivery and a key to transforming it.

This report offers recommendations for the direction of travel in public services, based on what has been learnt so far. It suggests changing the way that services are managed and delivered, changing the way services are commissioned and opening up new opportunities for co-production, with a ‘Co-production Guarantee’. It also addresses the challenges and opportunities of the government’s vision of a “Big Society” for public service delivery.

More from nef…

New Report – Getting the Big Picture Right

People are travelling much further nowadays in their daily lives, for work, shopping and for leisure. This means that housing and job markets now operate at a larger scale. Hospitals and higher education institutions also have bigger catchment areas. All this affects the way in which places should be planned and designed.

The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) has spent two years trialling a flexible framework, ‘Getting the big picture right’, which advises a new approach to large scale urban design, with more working across local authority boundary ‘red lines’ on a map. Housing and job markets do not observe those red lines, nor do people notice when they are crossing them in the car or on the train. In the same way the solutions to many urgent environmental issues, such as water management, flood prevention and low carbon energy generation, are arrived at by thinking and working across boundaries.

Large scale urban design can inform decisions on where to invest limited resources for infrastructure, or where to focus the energies of private developers and public service providers. Working at this scale can strengthen local prosperity, for instance by linking specialised centres together to support a knowledge economy. It can tackle inequality, for instance by directing investment in transport infrastructure to connect failing areas to thriving areas. The framework offers a way for councils to take forward the idea of local enterprise partnerships (LEPs), recently announced by the government, particularly with regard to their role, size and governance. CABE used a mix of UK best practice, international research and workshops to produce this guidance.

More from CABE…

New Report – Task Force on Sustainable Lifestyles

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Task Force on Sustainable Lifestyles has recently published its overall findings from a four-year project to explore ways to engage, exemplify, enable and encourage people, civil society organisations and governments to further sustainability in people’s everyday lives.

The international Marrakech Task Force on Sustainable Lifestyles, led by the Swedish Ministry of the Environment, is one of seven international Task Forces that have been launched on specific sustainable consumption and production (SCP) themes, in order to accelerate a regional and national shift towards SCP. The Task Force on Sustainable Lifestyles gathered best practice examples from developed and developing countries from ongoing work around the world and supported new projects to fill gaps in knowledge.

Despite the Task Force ending, many of the projects will continue under the newly established Partnership for Education and Research about Responsible Living (PERL). The report includes a Manifesto setting out the top line recommendations from the Task Force to deliver more sustainable lifestyles, falling under the following themes: enthuse and inspire; create support structures; celebrate success; focus your efforts; and form partnerships.

More from Sustainable Scotland…

New Report – Achieving Sustainable Rural Communities for the 21st Century

The Rural Coalition recently launched this report, which describes a future for rural England in which every rural community can thrive. It presents a shared policy agenda for rural communities. Its overriding objective is to help achieve a positive, lasting legacy of sustainable rural communities in which people enjoy living and working; which are vibrant, distinctive and in keeping with the character of their surroundings, with a full range of good-quality local services; and which enhance local landscapes, heritage and biodiversity while meeting the challenges of climate and economic change. It proposes urgent, implementable changes that pick up and respond to the concerns that the partners in the new Coalition Government have already stated they wish to address.

The Rural Coalition was formed in September 2008, comprising the following organisations: Action with Communities in Rural England, The Campaign to Protect Rural England, The Country Land and Business Association, The Local Government Group, The Royal Town Planning Institute, The Town and Country Planning Association, and it has been advised by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.

More from the Commission for Rural Communities…

In this round-up:

• Our Cities Ourselves: 10 Principles for transport in urban life
• Great Outdoors: How our natural health service uses green space to improve wellbeing
• Cents and Sustainability: Securing Our Common Future by Decoupling Economic Growth from Environmental Pressures
• Slow travel and tourism

Read about more new publications in the latest SDRN bulletin…

New Report – Our Cities Ourselves: 10 Principles for transport in urban life

Visionary urbanist Jan Gehl and Walter Hook, Executive Director of the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), have together set out ten principles for creating more sustainable cities in a new publication.

The report shows how cities from New York to Nairobi can meet the challenges of rapid population growth and climate change while improving their competitiveness. The publication’s purpose is to reframe the issue of transport so that it is no longer seen as separate from, but rather integral to, urban design.

More from the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy…

New Report – Great Outdoors: How our natural health service uses green space to improve wellbeing

Safe, green spaces may be as effective as prescription drugs for treating mild to moderate forms of depression and anxiety according to this new FPH report.

Whilst anti-depressants are generally most effective for the severely depressed, the report suggests that people with milder forms of depression generally improve with access to green space and open air. The report also shows that living and working close to green spaces and being able to enjoy them safely can reduce crime and increase productivity in the workplace. Furthermore, easy access to parks and natural areas is shown to decrease health inequalities.

The FPH report therefore calls for GPs to use more alternatives to medication for mental illness, including advice to spend time and exercise in green spaces. The report pulls together recent evidence that shows the impact of green space on health and makes a number of recommendations for GPs, local authorities, local strategic partnerships and research-funding bodies.

More from the Faculty of Public Health…

New Book – Cents and Sustainability: Securing Our Common Future by Decoupling Economic Growth from Environmental Pressures

Cents and Sustainability seeks to provide a clear-sighted response to the 1987 call by Dr Gro Brundtland in ‘Our Common Future’ to achieve a new era of economic growth that is ‘forceful and at the same time socially and environmentally sustainable’. The Brundtland Report argued that not only was it achievable, but that it was an urgent imperative in order to achieve a transition to sustainable development while significantly reducing poverty and driving ‘clean and green’ investment.

With some still arguing for the need to significantly slow economic growth in order to reduce pressures on the environment, this new book, ‘Cents and Sustainability’, argues that it is possible to reconcile the need for economic growth and environmental sustainability through a strategy to decouple economic growth from environmental pressures, combined with a renewed commitment to achieve significant environmental restoration and poverty reduction.

Beginning with a brief overview of some of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time, the book then explains ‘decoupling theory’, overviews a number of factors that can undermine and even block efforts to decouple in both developed and developing countries, and then discusses a number of key considerations to assist the development of national ‘decoupling strategies’. The book then focuses on presenting evidence to support greater action, not just on climate change, but also on decoupling economic growth from the loss of biodiversity and the deterioration of natural systems, freshwater extraction, waste production, and air pollution.

More from Earthscan…

New book – Slow travel and tourism

It is widely recognized that travel and tourism can have a high environmental impact and make a major contribution to climate change. It is therefore vital that ways to reduce these impacts are developed and implemented. ‘Slow travel’ provides such a concept, drawing on ideas from the ‘slow food’ movement with a concern for locality, ecology and quality of life.

The aim of this book is to define slow travel and to discuss how some underlining values are likely to pervade new forms of sustainable development. It also aims to provide insights into the travel experience and to explore the concept of slow travel. It sets out its core ingredients, comparing it with related frameworks such as low-carbon tourism and sustainable tourism development. The authors explain slow travel as holiday travel where air and car transport is rejected in favour of more environmentally benign forms of overland transport, which generally take much longer and become incorporated as part of the holiday experience.

The book critically examines the key trends in tourism transport and recent climate change debates, setting out the main issues facing tourism planners. It reviews the potential for new consumption patterns, as well as current business models that facilitate hyper-mobility. Finally, the authors illustrate their approach through a series of case studies from around the world, featuring travel by train, bus, cycling and walking. Examples are drawn from Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas.

Cases include the Eurostar train (as an alternative to air travel), walking in the Appalachian Trail (US), the Euro-Velo network of long-distance cycling routes, canoe tours on the Gudena River in Denmark, sea kayaking in British Columbia (Canada) and the Oz Bus Europe to Australia.

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