SustainabilityLINKS

Linking People, Sustainability & Participation

 

 

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What all this is about

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Further Sits & info.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    Welcome and editorial to the SustainabilityLINKS Website

     

    After being in preparation for nearly five years, I can’t believe it’s time to write an introduction for this website, and to say… hello!

    The site attempts to serve four purposes.  

    - Firstly it summarises and brings together news about topical sustainability and participation developments. - Secondly it provides a reference resource.  

    - Thirdly it offers a networking opportunity.  

    - Lastly it aims to fulfil an important democratic function by bringing sustainability concerns to the fore in local decision making processes.  You may’ve noticed from the home page that

    this material’s divided between the Topical, Reference, Networking and Participation Menus.  

    There’s a fifth menu that’s primarily for those people living or working in the Coventry and Warwickshire sub region.  Although LINKS intends moving this menu to its own site in due course, it’s included now so that site visitors from everywhere else can also see just how S&P works at grassroots decision making level.  (Have a look at the lower table on the C&W and S&P: An Introduction page.)

    On launch the site will be something of a pilot version of what it will become. Until it goes  live, there will not be any of the direct input from site visitors that’ll come to form the bulk of its content.

    You may’ve seen that the home page flags a few pages it’s useful to visit first.  The LINKS Website Contents will give you a good idea of the website’s layout while the About LINKS and Programme Rationale pages explain where we’re coming from, why we think what we’re doing is something long overdue and how the site can help you where you live.

    Unsustainable World… Untenable Politics

    It was the United Nations’ Agenda 21 that first mainstreamed the idea that sustainability and participation (S&P) had to be brought together if we’re to  tackle the mounting problems confronting us during the 21st century.  Unfortunately since 1992 the two have tended to go their own separate ways.  

    The Big Idea behind SustainabilityLINKS is to bring them both back together again.

    The sustainability concerns that’ve been raised by different communities of interest over the years may have been recognised by the UN, but – like those elsewhere – the British Government has failed to deal with the huge elephant in the room that is our increasingly unsustainable world.

    All those of us working with third sector based projects (a look at the National CVOs Working on S&P and Helpful Websites pages will give some idea of the number and diversity of initiatives) have to reach out both to our sector colleagues, urging them to embrace a new perspective, and to the local Sustainable Community Strategy processes that’re now in place all across the country.

    It’s regrettable that to date local VCOs working on S&P have not been very involved in the production of their areas’ Sustainable Community Strategies or the Local Strategic Partnerships and various themed activities contributing to them.  

    “You have to work through local and sometimes national governments, but probably more important is to empower local communities.  The people affected are the immense majority of the population.”

    Ricardo Navarro

    Chair, FOE International, 2002

    Is this a result of strategic marginalisation or self exclusion?  You only have to look at the policy implementation guidelines published by Government since 1992 to find the answer.  For example, 2006’s recent National Community Forum consultation and review of third sector participation in regeneration would serve to illustrate the way many voluntary sector organisations are being routinely sidelined by terms of reference and engagement.  

    Add to this Government policy that shifts service delivery from the public sector to voluntary organisations and a worrying scenario emerges.  It’s one thing for a Government to pursue its manifesto through its own statutory bodies.  It’s quite a different situation where this or that political party determines what third sector organisations should be doing when that organisation’s membership may well exceed the political party’s, or its service delivery depends upon the goodwill, low pay or even voluntary input of staff.

    Please let LINKS know what you think about this and the many other sustainability-related issues that’re becoming increasingly important in the way we live.  Also please could you let us have your news so that we can share it with everyone else working on similar things in similar circumstances.

    You can either email site manager Carl with short contributions, or send material for summarising to me at 3 Park Road, Bedworth, Warwickshire CV12 8LH.  We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

                                  Paul

                                  Paul Galley

                                  Data Collator

     

     

    ...Also - Hello from me

    Like Paul has said above, this site has been a long time coming, due mainly to the fact that all the work done on it is purely voluntary and has to be fitted in between other commitments. In other words, we need your help! If you are looking at this site then you are at least interested (if not working) in the area of "sustainability" - so why not contact us?

    Primarily I see this site as an information resource and meeting point where people can propose actions or ask for and offer help. The areas dealt with feature more and more in the media but are only just filtering in to most people's every day life. Mention Sustainability to most people and you are still likely to be met with either a blank stare (they have no idea what you are talking about) or, a withered look (they know exactly what you are talking about and are anticipating a lecture) For this reason yours can be a lonely old task.

    I hope this site goes some way towards addressing that. Everyone has their own area of specific concerns whether it be recycling, transport, education etc but we can all learn and help each other and sometimes come together to campaign for causes that concern us all.

    Here are just a few of the things that have motivated me to get involved:

    1. Why have we been getting more "wealthy" since the 1950's and yet no happier?

    2. Why do people remain unemployed when the working population is working longer and longer hours?

    3. Why do our elected representatives seem more interested in telling us what to do instead of listening to what we want them to do?

    4. Why, at a time when we are being urged to use cars less, is the public transport system so abysmal?

    5. Why is debt promoted as normal and something to aspire to?

    Answers or suggestions on a postcard please - actually just e mail them to me.

    Please get involved in any way you can - this site will be useless without your input and you never know, you might just start something small that grows into something big that actually changes something for the better!

     

     

     Letters for Next Page Update Please

    Ten years ago Friends of the Earth published a report commissioned from independent consultants. Entitled‘Perceptions of National Barriers to Local Sustainability’ the research categorised these barriers to change as political, structural, and institutional.  To what extent are even those of us working on sustainability bound by our own organisational and cultural conventions?

     

     

    1. Do you believe that democracy isn’t working?  What aspects of our political decision-making processes are undemocratic or, even worse, anti-democratic?  Unsustainability, globalisation, corporate power, information technology – how have such things outdated our democratic practices?  And why do we store so much faith in a system whose piecemeal growth has stumbled from one short-term expedient to the next, and whose very origins are so dubious?  What better ways of doing things are there?

    2. What do you think about the massive national housing development programme that’s affecting your area?  

    3. Why aren’t our colleges doing more about sustainability?  

    4. What issues would you like to see your area LSP addressing?  

    5. Would you like to congratulate your Council on anything it’s doing to promote more sustainable living?  

    6. How can those of us working on sustainability best help Councils in their efforts to implement sustainability-related measures, such as recycling and traffic calming?  

    7. What practical ideas does anyone have for living more simply?

    8. Would you like to raise the profile of issues affecting your locality?

    9. Why aren’t local Partnerships taking on board the global and long term links – even in such basic matters as refreshment sourcing policy?

    10. Colin Mason’s ‘A Short History of the Future’ outlines seven imminent sustainability related disasters – climate change, depleted energy supplies, population growth, drinking water shortage, famine, poverty and global lawlessness.  What should we be doing to address these now?  Are there any other problems you feel will have a more significant impact on our lives?

    11. Drop LINKS a line, remembering to include your name and address, then watch this space!

     

     

    Your Letters

    Why Does Our Third Sector Have Its Head in the Sand?

     

    A growing number of professions based in both the public and market sectors - such as planners, architects, insurance providers, health workers - are now taking on board the implications of, for example, climate change.  Some scientific fields and campaign groups have been speaking up since the 1960s, and the international community, led by the United Nations, began championing sustainability issues during the following decade.  (See the Reference Menu’s Website Contents page Bibliography.)

    A couple of years ago the British Government published two relevant papers – the Sustainable Development Shared Framework and UK Sustainable Development Strategy: Securing the Future.

    Meanwhile, recognising the need to act, but aware of the difficulty of doing so independently, a mounting number of major corporations have begun calling for Government commitment and resolve – BT, John Lewis / Waitrose, British Gas, Scottish Power, and the National Grid are amongst those urging Parliament to take a lead.   Even the chair of Shell, Lord Oxburgh, has said that

    “governments in developed countries need to introduce taxes, regulations or plans to increase the cost of emitting carbon dioxide… none of this is going to happen by itself”.

    A quick look at this site’s National CVOs Working on Sustainability page gives an indication of the ever-growing array of third (and market) sector organisations working on sustainability concerns, ranging from production, consumption, business and finance to science, technology, education and diet.  

    Another of the sites’ items is about the London Sustainability Exchange research which suggests that the capital’s local infrastructure organisations have ignored the urgent new challenges.  

    The two Government papers mentioned above are a earnest  constrained attempt to bring sustainable development practice to the public sector.  Unfortunately our own sector infrastructure and voluntary councils are tied to dangerously anachronistic agendas.

    This was perhaps well illustrated by a NACVS response to the Government’s consultation on LSPs and the sector a couple of years ago.  While providing a very comprehensive and commendable assessment of the third sector’s role in the identification and delivery of local services it ignored the Sustainable Communities Strategy elephant trumpeting very loudly and urgently in its ear.  If these LSP documents are responsible for looking ahead 20 years how is our community going to start coping with the increasingly severe impacts of climate change, of peak oil, of escalating resource competition, of an unsustainable international economy, of globalisation?

    And of course the same is true of our Local Strategic Partnerships.  It is indeed ironic that LSPs were both inspired by, and originally charged with the task of progressing the sustainability imperative of Agenda 21.  It is not merely ironic but tragic, that it will be at local community level that we  - and those who follow - will have to suffer the worst consequences of ongoing grassroots inaction and denial.

                          Paul Galley

                          3 Park Road, Bedworth CV12 8LH

                           

    Talking Point

    Send your discussion topic suggestions to SustainabilityLINKS.

    1. Are communities really better able to address the challenges ahead than conventional politics?  Won’t the Government and party system produce stronger leadership?

    2. Economists routinely dismiss record levels of household debt claiming they’re balanced by increasing usehold assets – but don’t these debts and assets belong to different people?

    3. Being green is all about doom and gloom and going without.  Has it got anything positive to say?

    4. You know those films where the Earth’s being invaded by evil space beings where we’re always the victims, the good guys?  Why’s it so much harder for us all to see ourselves as the villains?