Page Aim
Do you have an idea you would like to see adopted locally? Or perhaps you are looking for ways to get an idea off the ground? This page is being developed to show what sustainability concerns are being addressed through local participation processes. If you're involved in local SCS, Partnership or other participation processes why not check off your own work against this page's best practice and policy tick lists?
Page Contents
Although the items are not listed in strict chronological order, the more recent ones are included first.
Page Updates
The frequency of updates depends upon the level of input and, as usual, the time available for researching S&P work nationwide.
Anyone involved in council, LSP, Sustainable Community Strategy, Citizens Panel or any other local decision making processes, is urged to share examples of sustainability and participation best practice.
Recommended reading
Much of the information included on this page is taken from eg, the sustainability practitioners’ professional journal. LINKS would recommend that site visitors subscribe to eg, as it is the key source of information on S&P related policy and practice in the UK. It’s published by CIRCA. o 01223 564334. eg@circaworld.com eg@circaworld.com
Sustainable Communities Act 2007
Warwick District Council, January 2009. www.warwickdc.gov.uk
At its January 2009 the Cabinet agreed to meet the spirit of the Act, with the Citizens' Panel being reconstituted under the required terms:
Panel focus groups would meet during February and March
to discuss sustainable local communities activities
the resulting proposals would go to the Panel for prioritisation
and submission to the LGA by 31 July
Community Engagement Strategy proposals would embrace the
Act
The significance of the Act was acknowledged:
it brings democratically under-represented groups, such
as youth and BMEs, into decision making processes
it recognises that local people know best how to promote
local sustainability - but that they need the Government
resources and other assistance to implement proposals
its main objective is to provide a means for communities
to ask the Government to take action on local concerns -
ie via local authorities and the LGA
it aids mandatory LSP and Sustainable Community Strategy
action plan processes
It was also noted that:
the best starting point for community consultation is a
gathering of local concerns, not a consideration of Council
proposals
the Act not only empowers communities to resolve their own
problems it also gives people the opportunity to influence
what happens at national level
It was agreed that the requirements of the Act had no financial implications and were consistent with the policy framework as set out in the Corporate Strategy.
St Albans Public Transport Partnership
Impact, CBT. June 2009.
During April 2009 a partnership was established comprising representatives from county and district councils, four bus companies, two rail operators and a university. Under the chair of Campaign for Better Transport's chief executive the pioneering group is enabling providers to work together.
Generally transport providers assert that such arrangements would fall foul of the Office of Fair Trading's restrictive implementation of competition law, but after CBT brought legal expertise to policy interpretation such collaboration is permitted as long as councils agree that consequent proposals are in the public interest.
Public transport users routinely face many avoidable difficulties, ostensibly caused by uncooperative service providers - simultaneous timetabling, lack of through ticketing, uncoordinated interchanges and journeys failing to link across LTA catchments.
In a bid to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the Hertfordshire
parish of Brickendon has secured almost £7,000 to provide
households with special electricity consumption monitors which
enable them to compare bills. Each quarter a prize is
awarded to the householder achieving the biggest energy reduction.
www.wattwatchers.org.uk Positive News, summer 2009.
LSP Eco Island Vision
Positive News, summer 2009.
Island Strategic Partnership - the Isle of Wight's LSP - is on track to realise its vision to become the developed world's first eco island by 2020. The impetus for this grew from LSP surveys which revealed a widespread recognition of the need for people to shift to less unsustainable ways of thinking and doing.
"This is an exciting plan for change that needs everyone pulling together to help make it happen."
Island Strategic Partnership.
The SCS requires a complete review and overhaul of the island's ways of thinking and doing and aims to involve every individual and organisation in the necessary social, economic and environmental behaviour change. The Strategy proposes that the island should be:
thriving
healthy and supportive
safe and well kept
inspiring
It includes specific aims for the island to:
have the lowest carbon footprint in England
harness the maximum amount of renewable energy
become a beacon for green excellence
introduce free parking for low emmission vehicles
turn a large school zero carbon
introduce domestic solar panels and rain harvesting
switch to planting public spaces with drought tolerant species
"It's about buillding sustainable communities and empowering citizens."
Steve Beynon, Chief Executive, Isle of Wight Council.
More information can be obtained from; Eco Island, ISP Team, County Hall, Newport Isle of Wight PO30 1UD. www.eco-island.org.uk
Third Sector Climate Change Declaration
CDF News, July 2007
Since June 2007 it's been possible for VCOs to sign up to the Third Sector Climate Change Declaration at www.everyactioncounts.org.uk/declaration. An aim of Every Action Counts is to support the sector in delivering practical sustainability at local level.
"The thousands of organisations that make up the third sector are powerful forces for change in our society - and it's a force we need on our side in the fight for climate change."
David Miliband, Environment Secretary.
Reporting on the Declaration, CDF said that as the third sector is about addressing market failures and supporting communities it follows that VCOs need to act on the Stern Report, which recognised that climate change "is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen. Its impacts are not evenly distributed - the poorest countries and people will suffer earliest and most".
Two Lincolnshire villages will include strawbale social housing.
Using this thermally efficient building method, the zero
carbon housing will be three times better insulated than the
legal requirement. www.amazonails.org.uk Positive
News, summer 2009.
Participation
opportunity
Please let LINKS know If your local council ever undertook the Stocktake or signed up to the Declaration?
School Runs
FOE, June 2008
From September 2008 Richmond Council has been targeting CO2 emissions originating from school runs – parents will have to pay for parking permits at rates corresponding to their cars’ size. Those with smaller cars will pay nothing, while owners of people carriers and 4x4s will require permits of up to £75 a year. The pilot scheme will affect 13 schools, but it’s expected to be rolled out by local authorities across the country.
Transition Towns - Positive News, Spring 2007
www.transitiontowns.org www.transitionpenwith.com
UK towns have begun to prepare for the impending switch from our high energy consumption lifestyle and oil dependency economies. In Totnes the change over is being brought about through partnership sub groups reviewing energy, local government, health, food, economics, livelihoods, the arts and the psychology of change. Participants are collaborating on an Energy Descent Action Plan report.
Meanwhile, in the Penwith sub region of Cornwall, ‘Skilling Up to Power Down’ courses are being offered on energy, food, waste water, economics, permaculture and localisation; and Bristol has recently become the first city to join Transition Towns.
The growing need for mainstreaming transition culture, precipitated by climate change and peak oil, means that it is becoming increasingly necessary to accept and adopt a range of behavioural adjustments, including personal fossil fuel rationing.
How Community Strategies and LSPs can Address Sustainability - eg, April 2002
This was an advisory paper researched and written by Alison Pilling (CAG Consultants) and David Cooper (LSP and Community Strategy Manager, Fenland District Council) and published by eg. , in April 2002.
Sustainable Community Strategies
The paper summarises the various opportunities Community Strategies create for LSPs and communities to address difficult sustainability issues. They may;
Provide a forum where the environmental agenda can be discussed
alongside more conventional economic and social concerns.
Define a local environmental vision / strategy and develop a
shared ownership of it.
Facilitate the engagement of key players, not previously involved
with sustainability issues.
Foster key player ‘sustainability champions’ within local communities.
Require the establishment of delivery mechanisms.
Pilling and Cooper then go on to outline the ways in which sustainability practitioners may introduce sustainability thinking and doing into Community Strategy processes. They may;
Monitor Existing Strategy
Incorporate councils’ Quality of Life indicators, including comparative
data from other areas.
Appraise strategy development against the local best value performance
plan, using ongoing reviews of relevant objections.
Develop a framework of accountability, with areas’ environmental
networks scrutinising the progress of LSPs both in Community Strategy
development and implementation.
Map Identified Needs
Produce a local environmental assessment highlighting areas of
concern; circulate this to LSP members and other process participants.
Build on Existing Strategies
Seek adoption of local councils’ sustainability or well-being
core commitments, along with relevant footprinting.
Link cross sector environment spokespeople and field expertise
(eg waste, energy, water) into LSP and community processes.
Ensure specific sustainability strategies (eg on biodiversity)
are brought into Community Strategy processes from research stages.
Include existing local authority decision making and scrutiny
criteria (eg best value, land use plan), adapting them where necessary.
Outline Strategy Framework
Gain support for the inclusion of an environmental theme on a
par with community safety, health, etc; through local consultation
results, environmental plans and cross sector expertise.
Scope the other themes against environmental criteria.
Include opportunity for addressing the local impacts of global
trends, such as climate change, environmental migration, sectoral
unemployment
Using a sustainability perspective, identify other concerns not
addressed by more traditional approaches
Agree Vision
Incorporate and build on exercises undertaken by LA21 and other
sustainability practitioners, eg community dialogues, visioning,
network, area mapping.
Think in strategic terms, rather than marketing or detail.
Ensure tat sustainability’s perspectives are brought to discussions.
For example, that housing provision is considered in the context
of countryside and population concerns.
Participant processes should include consensus building exercises
ranging from experience sharing to conflict resolution.
Embrace and Deliver Community Vision
Use the Government guidance to joined-up working “Preparing Community
Strategies” (paragraph 14).
Help partner agencies explore how their sustainability policies
fit into the Strategy, along with other cross-cutting issues, such
as equal opportunities, education and training.
Involve and help resource community involvement in promoting
sustainability concerns.
Local Strategic Partnerships
Build sustainability into the LSP core agreement and its appraisal
into the Community Strategy review process.
Urge Partnership members’ agreement on sustainability principles.
Ensure LSPs develop information exchanges with, and invite representatives
of, third sector organisations working on sustainability issues.
Use the wellbeing power inventively.
Ensure that sustainability networks are aware of the potential
value of linking into the LSP agenda.
Work with sustainability networks to identify champions to sit
on the LSP, and include representatives in chairing rotas.
Facilitate an understanding of community, environment and economic
inter-connectedness.
Promote positive solutions - LSPs value any such input.
Ensure that the local interpretation of national guidance embraces
a sustainability perspective.
Ensure that LSP and process agendas include unsustainability
issues and updates.
Broaden Partnership horizons to take on board local footprinting
concepts.
Third Sector Infrastructure Guidance - LGA, March 2002
Learning from LSPs, published by the Local Government Association, set out advice for Partnerships when working with the third sector.
After attempting to define the sector and urging LSP management processes that LSPs “should seek to achieve the best possible involvement, consultation, representation and communication with the community and voluntary sector”, the paper outlines its long established role as representative and advocate, provider of advice, information and support, innovator and provider of services, catalyst, expert and, through its second tier organisations, co-ordinator.
“Accountability of LSP representatives is an issue for all sectors. It should be possible to agree mechanisms for selecting representatives that are open and transparent with robust reporting back and communications strategies.”
Learning from LSPs - LGA, 2002
The guidance also recognises the traditional responsibility of the sector in identifying needs and activism, no matter whether “a local parent and toddlers group arguing the need for a pedestrian crossing, or a major national organisation campaigning on developing world debt”. In a case study the paper includes details of Herefordshire Partnership processes, whose participants include Council for the Protection of Rural England, Friends of the Earth and Transport 2000.
Learning from LSPs also explains the importance of the community and voluntary sector’s infrastructure in accessing and sharing information and its function as a forum to “discuss policy matters of common concern and to make collective representations about these concerns…”
Durham Biodiversity Partnership
The DBP integrated its biodiversity concerns into the county’s Community Strategy. It began its work by supporting LSP members in identifying their relevant obligations under the Local Government Act 2000 and the links between biodiversity, quality of life and wellbeing. Strategy processes also embraced the Biodiversity Action Plan, whose objectives are to conserve, enhance and re-create area biodiversity, prioritise action on locally threatened species and habitats and promote the UK Biodiversity Action Plan.
Initiatives have included linking arable stewardship and bird populations, training for wildlife liaison police officers, a groundbreaking set of coastal and marine species and habitat action statements, the production of guidance for business, local authority and planning organisations.
Head Start
In some areas process work undertaken on Agenda 21 led to the production of LA21 Strategies, which were adapted for publication as initial Community Strategies. For example, in north Shropshire the LA21 group formed the core of the LSP and agreed to ensure that sustainability was retained as the over-arching principle. And in rural east Hampshire the Community Strategy origins led to its support for the building of a sustainable village hall.
Strategies For The Future - eg, May 2002
In 2002 the International Council for Local Environment Initiatives and International Union for Local Authorities published ‘Accelerating Sustainable Development: Local Action Moves the World’. This was a local government dialogue paper prepared for the Johannesburg Earth Summit: it contained a number of recommendations about what councils should be doing to take the lead in local sustainability work. This tick list summarises the ICLEI / IULA advice. which was reviewed by eg, in May 2002
Strengthen local mechanisms for delivering sustainability.
Strengthen and increase resources to local government.
Redesign local government to deliver sustainability.
Institute eco-systems planning.
Build a new culture of sustainability.
Adopt sustainability cultural norms to guide public polices.
Use procurement to create markets for sustainable products.
Use public investment to promote sustainable consumption patterns.
Accelerate the transition to sustainable communities and cities.
Strengthen local and international links and collaborations.
Councils’ new community leadership role is producing some interesting developments. For example, in Warwickshire one council is accommodating its town’s main post office and another the county’s third sector Voluntary Action. One has initiated and led work to acquire Fairtrade Town status. Please let LINKS know of any equally admirable initiatives where you live.
North East Lincolnshire LSP Mission Statement
When launched in 2002 the Partnership agreed its mission statement was “To develop and establish with the community both a sustainable vision for north east Lincolnshire and the means to achieve it”. The first Community Strategy was subsequently prepared “in accordance with the principles of sustainable development”. This guidance was supplemented by a sustainability appraisal framework which helped determine appropriate objectives. Subsequent Strategy processes were informed through sustainability overview and best practice briefings and workshop sessions.
Hereford And Worcestershire’s - Welcome To Our Future
WTOF grew as an independent community owned charity out of the sub-region’s LA21, its board being made up from representatives of organisations from the three sectors. It was therefore already an established local player when it became involved in Hereford and Worcestershire’s LSP and Community Strategy work. It subsequently produced an account of its experiences.
WTOF made itself available as a community learning tool for developing the sustainability agenda, with regular public meetings drawing wider representation into Partnership processes, and forming an invaluable link between the professional and grassroots sectors. However, this led the charity to urge caution on tokenistic involvement and the need to develop more credible participation levels, since noting the disparity between the openness of Strategy discussions and subsequent policy formulation and implementation.
Croydon, Leeds and Wealden Studies
In a paper published by “eg” in July 2002, Alison Pilling (CAG Consultants) and David Cooper (LSP and Community Strategy Manager, Fenland District Council) aimed to feed LSPs with “relevant, timely and digestible information about the real problems and opportunities for sustainable development”. Their study looked at the different approaches taken by Partnerships in three areas of England.
“Any partnership is going to crumble into the ‘same old same old’ of bureaucratic unsustainability unless it is built on some decent foundation… Without these foundations they have no mandate to drive forward sustainability approaches to local decision making.”
David Cooper and Alison Pilling
In Croydon the LA21 team built up and facilitated a Local Partnership
committed to community and environment projects and with sufficient
in-house expertise to scrutinise their council’s performance. From
this LSP theme groups were subjected to similar audits.
A similar approach was taken in Leeds, where the LSP defined
six theme concerns, which were then subjected to sustainable criteria.
To give their work a sustainability overview and context Wealden’s
LSP put in place an appropriate mission statement; “To establish,
implement, monitor and update, in partnership with Wealden communities
and others, a Community Strategy and action plan to improve the
wellbeing of the people of Wealden, while safeguarding the needs
of future generations”
Since then, interpretation of the wellbeing power has been important but the Strategic Partnership has also established the environment as a core theme, and recognised its systemic importance.
Route Maps
In 2001 discussions between LA21 officers, the Environment and Resources Information Centre, Going for Green and sustainability practitioners produced two route maps for introducing sustainability into LSP and Community Strategy processes. Their starting point was Government guidance, such as Preparing Community Strategies (2000) and LSP Guidelines (2001).
Sustainability Grid
The aim of the sustainability grid used by some LSPs and Councils is to determine the impacts of policy making. A simple tabulation enables the goal of each policy decision to be scored according to agreed objectives. For example, the objectives column can include considerations such as environmental protection and use of natural resources, and a horizontal scale can range scores from 1 to 10 (with 1 indicating detrimental effects and 10 indicating strong benefits).
Another example of such grids can be seen in the work of Kirklees LSP. Every Community Strategy proposal was tested against a set of 32 sustainability criteria, based on the Audit Commission’s QoLs and championed locally by the Partnerships environmental theme group.
Consumption Reduced
Paper published by Lincoln City Council’s Green Steps project, spring 2004
Called Green Steps, a practical project with impressive results was run in Lincoln involving the city’s LSP. Amongst those residents taking part there was a reduction in gas, electricity and water usage of about a fifth / a quarter, and recycling increased by 50%. Apart from actually reducing the consumption patterns of those involved the project gained extensive publicity for the concept of ecological footprinting and the need to make lifestyle change. Projects like Green Steps also give a practical demonstration of the importance of information giving and re-education in community empowerment.
London Sustainability Exchange Report
o www.lsx.org.uk/programmes/commstratlspsdlon_page2062.aspx
Based on research carried out during autumn 2004, the London Sustainability Exchange has published several recommendations to help LSPs take on board Government guidance regarding the adoption of a properly structured approach to sustainability.
Involve and help resource community involvement in promoting
sustainability concerns.
The sub-group responsible for sustainability should be adequately
resourced to carry out both the role of planning and leading environmental
improvements and cross disciplinary work. In the longer term
a specific sustainability sub-group should act as an advisory body
to the core partnership.
LSP learning and skills programmes should be in place to help
members engage with sustainability related issues.
There is a need for an increased promotional initiative to increase
understanding of sustainability. This should focus not merely
on promoting sustainability in its own right but also on how it
links to other plans.
The involvement of voluntary and community groups needs to be
developed. Work on sustainability is mostly being done by
environmental groups with few links between social and environmental
groups.
Work is also needed to tackle the uncertainty about the role
and nature of Partnerships and to increase transparency and accountability.
This will need to be done by LSPs, local councils and at other
levels.
Every LSP needs to develop better links between the sub-groups
and the core partnership with clear reporting mechanisms and regular
opportunities for each sub-group to raise items for discussion at
the core group.
The material here is summarised from the article published in the May-June 2005 edition of ‘eg’. For more information about the Report see the summer 2005 Best Practice.
Fenland Environment Network
The Network is represented on the LSP steering group and brings together the main authors of environment strategy issues, such as energy, water, biodiversity and waste. With multi-agency involvement, network reps explore cross-cutting issues with other theme groups. Induction workshops led to the drafting of LSP terms of reference, providing a basis for the Partnership to address environmental issues, and a mission statement, recognising the need for environmental wellbeing and needs of future generations.
LAAs and Sustainability
eg, August – September 2006
In her article ‘LAAs – Should Sustainable Development Staff Get Involved?’, Joan Bennett cites some examples of where Local Area Agreements have agreed sustainability outcomes – this commits area LSPs to determine how best to achieve these through their Sustainable Community Strategies.
Kingston’s LAA has outcomes to reduce business waste and increase
energy efficiency on industrial estates.
Rotherham’s has a target to increase the number of places selling
Fair Trade.
A Cornwall LAA outcome is to develop the county as a Centre of
Excellence for biodiversity.
A Shropshire LAA outcome is to achieve sustainable low carbon
communities.
Lancashire better homes outcome includes measures to increase
the energy efficiency rating of housing stock.
Characteristics of a Sustainable Society: A Checklist for Local Authorities
LGMB, 1998
A sustainable society seeks to:
Protect and enhance the environment.
Use energy, water and other natural resources efficiently and
with care.
Minimise waste, then re-use or recover it through recycling,
composting or energy recovery, and finally sustainably dispose of
what is left.
Limit pollution to levels which do not damage natural systems.
Value and protect the diversity of nature.
Meet social needs.
Create or enhance places, spaces and buildings that work well,
wear well and look well.
Make settlements human in scale and form.
Value and protect diversity and local distinctiveness and strengthen
local community and cultural identity.
Protect human health and amenity through safe, clean, pleasant
environments.
Emphasise health service prevention action as well as care.
Ensure access to good food, water, housing and fuel at reasonable
cost.
Meet local needs locally wherever possible.
Maximise everyone’s access to the skills and knowledge needed
to play a full part in society.
Empower all sections of the community to participate in decision-making
and consider the social and community impacts of decisions.
Promote economic success.
Create a vibrant local economy that gives access to satisfying
and rewarding work without damaging the local, national or global
environment.
Value unpaid work.
Encourage necessary access to facilities, services, goods and
other people in ways which make less use of the car and minimise
impacts on the environment.
Make opportunities for culture, leisure and recreation readily
available to all.
Ticklist Usage
It would be easy for local authorities to tick all of the above if the aim of the exercise was simply to check whether council policy nods in the right direction.
However, the ticklist would serve a more useful purpose if used during policy discussions and decisions to highlight the conflicting requirements of Government and S&P agendas.
Councils and LSPs need to continually check and note what national policy obstacles inhibit the realisation of their own sustainable development aspirations.
The City of Bedford Metropolitan District Council embedded
LA21 in Community Strategy work by placing sustainability at the
aspirational heart of its production. The City’s first Strategy
addressed both Agenda 21 and local government modernisation objectives.
The Council has subsequently used its sustainable development
action planning workshops for staff to support best value reviews.
The workshops, run through the Council’s sustainable development
programme, have linked officers’ roles and sustainability. Participants
have been asked to propose actions to address the positive and negative
impacts of their work and the results were evaluated as performance
indicators. For example, when the property management department
looked at the efficient use of energy, natural resources and water
they saw that one way they could address best value was to increase
buildings’ energy efficiency during routine repair and renewal jobs.
Newcastle City Council’s sustainability appraisal of
its finance best value review has led to such improvements as; auditor
training in sustainability, the use of real cost accounting in procurement
evaluations, renewable energy sourcing and an assessment of the
greenhouse gasses emitted as a result of investment decisions.
Local authorities are taking the lead in developing decentralised
energy policies that do not increase local dependence on fossil
fuels and nuclear power; for example Woking Borough Council has
reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 77%. In the ten years
after the council published its energy efficiency policy it also
reduced its energy consumption by 40%. The council also
set up its own company to provide a sustainable district energy
service and the first CHP and integrated CHP / photovoltaic systems
in the UK. See the council website, and also those for Southampton,
Cheltenham, Merton, Nottinghamshire and High Peak. o www.woking.gov.uk
Warwickshire County Council website has won a national
media award for WWF-UK’s Best Environmental Web Site of 2006. Winners
of other categories include BBC Radio 4’s Costing the Earth programme,
the Soil Association and Michael McCarthy of the Independent.
One of Bristol City Council’s two deputy leaders was
made responsible for sustainable development and social justice
with the post holder supported by a designated scrutiny commission.
A member of the executive is responsible for related operational
services. The Council’s corporate aims and performance plan
both address sustainability and its constitution states its “policy
framework includes the LA21 strategy”.
Bradford Metropolitan Borough Council’s Environment O&S
committee has included co-optees from the Environment Agency, Environmental
Action Trust, Bradford University and the Business and Environment
Forum. It has such responsibilities as sustainability, pollution,
waste, countryside and highways and, as one of five O&S committees,
is jointly responsible for best value reviews as well as for the
production of an annual report about the local environment and the
City Council’s impact upon it.
Lichfield and Daventry Councils recycle 46% and 42% of
their waste, which are the highest local recycling levels in the
UK and better than many EU countries with impressive national recycling
statistics. Only Austria (63.6%), Belgium (49.6%) and the
Netherlands (48.4%) do better than the two Staffordshire districts.
Signatories of the Aalborg Commitments are developing
a web-based training package linked to the European Sustainable
Towns and Cities events. Track information about its development
and other civic awareness raising initiatives see the website. o
www.sevilla2007.org
The Local Government International Bureau often includes
details of UK local authority sustainability best practice on its
website. o www.lgib.gov.uk/policy/case_studies.htm
Earth Charter
This is the Earth Charter Commission document setting out an international code of values for a sustainable future. The principles are defined as respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, social and economic justice and democracy, non-violence and peace. o http://www.earthcharter.org
In 1987 the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development called for a charter that would set forth fundamental principles for sustainable development. When the charter was left unfinished at the subsequent Rio Earth Summit, Summit secretary general Maurice Strong – together with Mikhail Gorbachev – took it forward by establishing the Earth Charter Commission, with steering committees in Africa and the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. The final draft of the Earth Charter was approved in March 2000 and officially launched three months later.
Participation opportunity Has your Local Strategic
Partnership endorsed the Earth Charter yet?
The Earth Charter website includes advice on how we can use the document as an educational tool, values framework, discussion springboard and ethical blueprint within our communities. Its endorsement indicates a commitment to the spirit and aims of the document and an intention to work for the implementation of its principles.
“We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must chose its future...
“…we must decide to live with a sense of universal responsibility, identifying ourselves with the whole earth community as well as our local communities. We are at once citizens of different nations and of one world in which the local and global are linked. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future will-being of the human family and the larger living world.”
Preamble. The Earth Charter.
Local Climate Change Action
LSP Commitment to Climate Action
NEF, summer 2006
o www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_DemocsRegister.aspx?destination=/gen/democsdownload.aspx
Hertfordshire Partnership members collaborated with NEF in the production of a climate change DEMOCS kit which drew upon information from the United Nations, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, NASA the DTI and British Antarctic Survey and Hertfordshire’s own greenhouse gas emission records. Deliberative Meetings of Citizens are part card game part policy making tool with kits now available to help users consider a range of different sustainability related issues.
The Hertfordshire LSP initiative targeted a wide local demographic, involved 300 people from across the county’s various communities. The results were impressive, with participants agreeing to prioritise the need for raising awareness of climate change impacts on people and the environment and necessary lifestyle changes. Participants called for higher local emission targets than those set by central Government and the whole process served to determine Hertford LSP’s climate change policy position.
Cities for Climate Protection Campaign
eg, October – November 2006
Following the launch of the CCP campaign at May’s Reinforced Strategy for Europe conference the International Council for Local Environment Initiatives is inviting all EU cities and towns to link and network, with local council leaders also being asked to endorse the event’s Stockholm Impulse Declaration. o www.icleieuripe.org/
Participation
Opportunity - Has your local council
endorsed these? Make your LSP members aware of the opportunities
for action on climate change.
The London Climate Change Partnership is preparing London
for the impacts of climate change, addressing issues such as flooding,
rising temperatures and limited drinking water supplies. o www.london.gov.uk/climatechangepartnership
The Greater London Authority has published material to
help London boroughs meet emission targets, which will also help
local authorities elsewhere. The London Plan (Sustainable
Community Strategy) is aiming for a zero carbon development by 2010.
o www.cse.org.uk/
RICS has published the results of three UK cities’ experiences
of different low carbon options – transport, energy supply and built
environment. o www.rics.org/
The North West’s RDA has published a climate change action
plan for consultation, and to help address the challenges ahead.
o www.nwda.co.uk/
RSS and LDF should play a central role in developing
climate strategies – that’s the conclusion of a new report available
on the Town and Country Planning Association website. o www.tcpa.org.uk/downloads/
Sustainability Stocktake for Chief Executives in Local Authorities
Subtitled ‘Your Management Team’s Agenda for the Millennium’ this is an S&P checklist published in 1998 by the Local Government Management Board the Local Government Association and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers. It gave local authorities – and others – an opportunity to assess how well their local authority has progressed, and be of interest to local councils, Strategy process participants and residents alike.
UK Local Government Declaration on Sustainable Development
The Declaration was prepared by the Local Government Management Board for the Local Authority Associations in England and Wales, COSLA and ALNI.
Its signatories were the Chairs / Presidents of the council member national organisations; ACC Environment Committee, ADC, ALANI,AMA, and COSLA, and it has been adopted by many local authorities.
Recognising the importance of S&P and the role local government has to play in addressing the new agenda, this Declaration seeks greater central Government commitment and support for grassroots action. It is valuable both as a local authority position statement on sustainable development, and as an indication of the priority Government has since given the different the Declaration raises.
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