Page Aim
Different third sector news streams focus on various sustainability and community work concerns. The S&P Report aims to take an overview, drawing upon the information covered in a range of these, while highlighting the importance of democratic participation in problem solving.
The quarterly updates will summarise news from a range of sources, including the United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development (and associated UNEP and UNED and Stakeholder Forum); from key national players, such as Urban Forum and the New Economics Foundation, and from wide support base campaigns like WWF, Campaign for Better Transport, Friends of the Earth, Soil Association and Jubilee Debt Campaign.
Outline Contents
Communities
Environment
Education
Business and the Economy
Voluntary and Community Sector
Document Store
S&P Report: 2010 Editions
2010’s Summer and Spring editions include items on:
Urban Forum’s 10 Big Ideas
Eligibility for Office of the Third Sector Assistance
10:10
UN International Year of Biodiversity
Storms of My Grandchildren
Reducing Emissions - New Government Role
Climate Change Scepticism
Government Warned
Third Sector Declaration on Climate Change
How We Can Reduce Transport Emissions by 25% Before 2020
Long Term Waste Contract Danger
Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal
Defending Science
Anniversary reviews about: New Economics Foundation, Fairtrade Foundation, Ethical Consumer, Urban Forum, Care for the Wild International and Environmental Investigation Agency.
S&P Report: Archive Editions since 1994
S&P Report Autumn 2010
Communities
Compact News
The Compact has been revised again. The new draft version has been cut down from 95 to 37 key principles. Compact Voice has said that the latest version contains the "absolute core principles".
Compact Voice has also published information to help local and national government follow Compact principles when making spending decisions, while an unconfirmed report in Third Sector Magazine has suggested that there are plans to give Local Government Ombudsman the role of investigating alleged breaches of the Compact after the Commission for the Compact appeared on the leaked list of decommissioned quangos.
The most recent consultation on the Compact has recently ended, with respondents submitting their input by 29 October.
Community Band Aid
Since its first gig in 2006 Oxjam, Oxfam’s music festival has become an established feature of the annual music calendar.
The fundraisers run all through October with hundreds of events around the UK organised by people who are involved in their own local music scene. There is music to appeal to all tastes – the idea is that everyone can get involve and have a good time while raising funds for Oxfam’s vital work.
Over the years more than 36,000 musicians have played to over 750,000 people at around 3,000 events nationwide. The diverse music events have ranged from the amazing multi-venue one-wristband-gives-access-to-all Oxjam Takeovers, to a sponsored busk on top of Ben Nevis. Through Oxjam Oxfam has raised more than £1.2 million: enough to buy 10,619 emergency shelters or 705 classrooms.
Oxjam is clearly quite different from the big, single venue Glastonbury like events – its appeal lying in its essential grassroots nature. Gigs are created by a network of music lovers stretching across the UK involve thousands of volunteers and hundreds of thousands of fans, it is dependent on local communities to make music and fight global poverty.
Celebrity supporters include Jarvis Cocker, Kaiser Chiefs, Hot Chip, and Kasabian. Last October Fatboy Slim, Basement Jaxx, Editors, Roots Manuva and others performed intimate gigs in an Oxfam shop to launch the festival. Media and industry partners have included MTV, Xfm, O2 Academies, Live Nation and Festival Republic.
After four successful years, Oxjam now has the UK’s biggest annual festival line-up
Join now…
Oxfam,, Oxfam House, John Smith Drive, Cowley, Oxford OX4 2JY.
www.oxfam.org.uk
During June over 1,400 people participated in a major
one-day civil society event in London. Entitled 'UN
Forum: for a More Secure and Just World', the UNA-UK event was to
highlight the pressing challenges facing the UN today, and to stimulate
thought and debate on how to make the organisation stronger, more
credible and more effective. www.una-uk.org
Big Society, Little Support
A leaked letter from a Cabinet Office Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister has suggested that around 180 public bodies will be abolished in the Public Bodies Bill.
These include;
CapacityBuilders,
Audit Commission
Regional Development
Agencies
At the time of writing, decisions have yet to be taken on:
Community Development
Foundation
Equalities and Human
Rights Commission
The same Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude, has also stated that the Government will not be prescriptive over what the Big Society looks like and admitted it will be ‘chaotic and disorderly '.
RDAs Out, LEPs In
Local Enterprise Partnerships are new partnerships led by groups of councils and involving businesses, and sometimes VCOs, to promote strategies for economic growth.
These LEPs will be responsible for the new £1bn regional growth fund that will replace Regional Development Agency funding from 2011. Local Government Chronicle says that 22 bids out of the 56 submitted will be approved.
Big Society
Urban Forum has organised a tour of the country presenting free information events on the Big Society and the Coalition's policy plans. They have also set up a Big Society policy page on their website – which brings together facts, comment and analysis – and published two new briefings on recent policy matters.
‘Place-Based Budgeting’ draws on the lessons from the
Total Place pilots and looks to the future with the advent of community
budgets.
The Big Lunch took place for the first time last year,
when around a million people took part, sharing lunches in streets,
parks, gardens and other open spaces. The national event is led
by the Eden Project with support from partners – The Big Lottery
Fund, MasterCard, EDF Energy and the Department of Communities and
Local Government – who all want to break down barriers and build
bridges within neighbourhoods. Local ventures can be anything from
a simple lunch in the garden to a full-blown street party with games
and live music. The only requirement is to invite people from
your local community and to make sure you involve some people you
don’t already know. www.thebiglunch.com
Economic growth
“If we spend our time thinking that the most important objective of public policy is to get growth up we’re pursuing a sort of false god.”
Adair Turner, head of the Financial Services Authority.
Environment
Earth Summit Returns
Preparations are underway for Rio+20, which will mark the twentieth anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit – the seminal UN initiative which brought the world Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration.
Amidst unprecedented evidence of rapid environmental change and complex ecological dynamics, addressing environmental sustainability has become a central practical, moral and political challenge of our times. With social systems changing rapidly too, linked to population growth, urbanisation, mobility and globalised economic change, core development challenges around alleviating poverty and inequity are also becoming more complex.
An event in September raised a number of very pointed questions:
How might the pathways
that link environmental integrity with social justice now be re-conceptualised
and built?
What ideas, concepts
and agendas can best inform effective action?
How can we enrich
and reinvigorate our intellectual and practical repertoires towards
a new politics of environment, development and social justice?
Government in Denial?
Those relying on COP15 – 2009’s Copenhagen Climate Change Summit – to help ensure that we establish a more sustainable world hoped that it would result in a strong agreement to avoid climate change and achieve climate justice; while rich countries produce most greenhouse gasses poor countries face the worst effects.
At the follow up climate meeting in China this October, environmentalists accused rich nations of continuing to backtrack as they maintained their threats to abandon existing legal commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. The US’s Copenhagen Accord undermined rich countries’ earlier commitments whereby rich countries’ emissions have to be cut by 40% before 2020, without recourse to offsetting.
Wealthy nations have not agreed to a second commitment period, instead attempting to shift the responsibility to developing countries. One of the VCOs leading climate change campaigning, Friends of the Earth, has since had a meeting with UN representatives.
There was some progress made at the Tianjin negotiations – a global fund was discussed which would support developing countries in tackling and adapting to climate change. A global climate fund under the authority of the UNFCCC appears within reach. In a letter to US Secretary of State five prominent members of Congress stated their strong support for the fund to be established under the UNFCCC. It's hoped that pressure within the US administration will drown out the Government's calls for the World Bank to play a central role in the fund.
Local Action
In May Friends of the Earth teamed up with the Energy Savings Trust to run two conferences for local authorities on how they can get paid to generate green energy. It was an opportunity to convince key decision-makers from all over the UK to use feed-in tariffs (FITs) with delegates from more than 250 councils and housing associations.
FITs pay people who generate their own renewable power, from sources like solar or wind, a set amount per unit of energy. People who have installed the kit have lower fuel bills and a secure supply of locally produced power. They also receive an extra sum for every unit of unused energy that the householder or business exports back to the National Grid. FITs could.
Some councils are already using FITs – which could spark a surge in renewable energy usage in the UK – to tackle fuel poverty, save money for local residents, regenerate the local economy and cut carbon emissions.
There is always a lot of useful local climate change information on the FOE website. During October it featured details of the:
Climate Change Act’s
nationwide tour
autumn climate change
lobby
key role for local councils
in meeting renewable energy targets
council climate scheme
and petition for Government action on climate change
local CO2 targets and
budgets
sale of electricity by
councils
need for more local green
transport provisions
global day of local action
on 10:10:10
support for the Global
Climate Fund
Warm Homes campaign
www.foe.org.uk www.energysavingtrust.co.uk/
A new grant scheme launched by The Green Insurance Company,
aims to encourage green behaviour in the community and surrounding
natural environment. Funds of up to £2 000 are available
to small projects and organisations. www.greeninsurancegiving.co.uk/grants
‘The Coalition Government's New Structural Reform Plans’
outlines how each Government department will implement proposals
in the Coalition Agreement, including those on localism, public
service reform, and the Big Society. Structural Reform Plans are
replacing the Public Service Agreements introduced by the last Government
as part of the Spending Review process.
In June the United Nations Environment Programme
published a new report looking at the environmental impacts of consumption
and production patterns as the world is faced with growing populations.
The International Panel of Sustainable Resources Management
found that “impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially
due to population growth and increasing consumption of animal products…
a substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a
substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products”. www.unep.org
Resource depletion
“Rising affluence is triggering a shift in diets towards meat and dairy products – livestock now consumes much of the world’s crops and by inference a great deal of freshwater, fertilizers and pesticides.”
Ernst von Weizaecker, International Panel Of Sustainable Resources Management Report, June 2010. United Nations Environment Programme.
Campaign for Better Transport’s Car Dependency Scorecard
2010 ranks English cities on whether they make their residents more
reliant on the car. This scorecard helps to show which policy
changes have impact. Leaving the car at home only becomes
more attractive if buses and trains are frequent and affordable,
cycling and walking are safe options, and services, such as schools
and shops, are nearby. The Scorecard has generated hundreds
of news articles and thousands of visits to the CBT website.
Join now…
CBT, 16 Waterside, 44 - 48 Wharf Road, London N1 7UX.
020 7566 6483.
www.bettertransport.org.uk/ communications@bettertransport.org.uk
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has published
research to show how new renewable energy initiatives are conceived,
developed and mainstreamed, the role of social enterprises in this
and the potential for more community based schemes. Urban
Forum has also recently published research on community based renewable
energy projects. www.esrc.ac.uk
The Coalition Housing Minister has said that the new
Localism Bill will include a ‘community right to build ', giving
local people the chance to decide on local development. Under the
proposals the agreement of 75% of local people in a referendum,
would make planning permission unnecessary.
UN Climate Change Conference
The third round of UN climate change negotiations this year began with representatives from 178 governments meeting in Bonn, Germany.
The Bonn UN Climate Change Conference was held between 02 and 06 August. Its objective was to prepare the outcomes of the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún, which is taking place during November and December.
Mission Cancun
"Governments have a responsibility this year to take the next essential step in the battle against climate change… How governments achieve the next essential step is up to them. But it's politically possible. In Cancún the job of governments is to turn the politically possible into the politically irreversible.”
Christiana Figueres. Executive Secretary, UNFCCC.
At the end of 2009 the UN General Assembly approved a
resolution to develop a Universal Declaration of the Right of Mother
Earth. This followed October’s first hearing of the International
Climate Justice Tribunal. A World Conference on Climate Change
and Mother Earth’s Rights was then independently convened by the
Bolivian government as a response to the abject failure of COP15,
and world governments’ reneging on the few agreements that had been
reached. The between April Conference was one of many Bolivian
initiatives, which included a proposal for a global referendum on
climate change, demands for countries to agree a global temperature
rise of 1C and the adoption, promotion and legislation of Earth
Rights. http://cmpcc.org
Cutting CO2
“Rich countries… suggest reducing real emissions by 50% by 2050, but people who fight for saving lives talk of 90% and 100%.”
Evo Morales, Bolivian President.
EDM 845 was one of the most well supported Parliamentary
EDMs during 2009, receiving 259 signatures. It raised the profile
of the environmental impacts of the livestock industry and this
year Friends of the Earth – the organisation behind it – is taking
its Fix the Food Chain campaign forward by continuing to build alliances
with farmers. www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmhansard.htm
. www.foe.org.uk
Almost ¼ of vertebrates have been IUCN classified
as threatened – in almost all cases this is owing to human activity.
The scale of the international trade is almost as high as
that in illegal drugs. www.iucn.org
During October 36 science professors wrote to the Prime
Minister calling on him to protect core scientific research by cutting
investment in developing new nuclear weapons. The scientists
highlighted how £2bn a year, over 25% of the Government's
total scientific research and development budget, is currently spent
by the Ministry of Defence. www.sgr.org.uk/
Join now…
SGR, Ingles Manor, Castle Hill Avenue, Folkestone, Kent CT20
2RD. 01303 851965. www.sgr.org.uk info@sgr.org.uk
Unlike a number of other countries, the UK does not have
a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses. Opposition to
last year’s Great British Circus tour led Defra to launch a consultation;
in 2006 the Government pledged a ban but never followed this through.
Care for the Wild is also focusing on UK legislation to address
the problem of primates being kept as pets – it’s estimated that
there are up to 20,000. Many different species are kept, without
licence or inspection. www.careforthewild.com
Education
Education section
The S&P Report updates will include information about developments in education, as well as other news of particular interest to young people and other learners
11 Million Takeover Day 2010.
Takeover Day is a national event offering children and young people across the country the chance to work alongside adults and get involved in decision making in a wide range of organisations.
The scheme, which is on 12 November this year, provides an invaluable opportunity for VCOs to engage with younger people.
The event has grown from strength to strength since it was launched in 2007. Last year, around 30,000 children and young people were involved. This year 11 Million wants to encourage another 10,000 children and young people to show adults what they can do.
There is always a huge response from those wanting to get involved in activities such as chairing consultations, helping with campaigning, shadowing organisation managers or getting involved in decision-making – perhaps even at executive levels.
Organisations. Takeover Day can be designed to suit the needs of particular VCOs. Any organisations considering involvement are reminded to check local authority guidance in relation to child protection, off-site visits and work experience.
Children and young people. A visit to the website will enable young participants to download a Takeover Day information pack, and upload ideas, pictures, Powerpoints and comments about what they have planned.
11 Million has a mailing list to enable participants to stay in touch about Takeover Day news and developments.
www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/takeover_day
takeover.day@childrenscommissioner.gsi.gov.uk
Organic Farm School
The Soil Association's Organic Farm School is a series of hands-on courses in growing your own food, cooking and rural crafts. The courses cater to all skill levels and provide the opportunity to learn from organic farmers with personal experience - from a one-day basic introduction to more professional expertise - in bee-keeping, vegetable growing, willow weaving, hedge laying or dry stone walling, and many others.
These courses impart the sort of living skills our grandparents took for granted, giving participants a closer connection with the natural world.
Join now…
Soil Association, South Plaza, Marlborough Street, Bristol BS1 3NX. 0117 314 5000.
Youth Banking
London’s MyBank is a youth driven social enterprise which aims to develop financial skills to survive within an economic culture encouraging personal debt – in the UK this now exceeds £1,000 billion. Participating schools and colleges offer savings accounts along with learning resources, finance workshops and investment decision making assemblies.
MyBank’s aims include to understand and assess current economic norms, motivate saving rather than debt and consider the significance of ethical investment and business models, such as those established by Anita Roddick (Body Shop), Dale Vince (ecotricity), Jeremy Piercy (Shared Earth) and Craig Sams (Green & Blacks).
The initiative also provides vital life skills, with students now leaving university owing about £12,500 and over 90% of all adults never having received any education in basic financial literacy.
020 7702 0377. info@mybank.org
Business & the Economy
Banks Set for Another Bail Out
Despite at least £1.2 trillion of taxpayers’ money being put at risk to bail out the banking system, many of the major high street banks may well be asking for another hand-out from the public purse in 2011, according to recent New Economics Foundation research.
These figures raise the question of whether the Government is aware of the problem, and if so, whether the scale of planned cuts to public services is being influenced by the likelihood of another bail-out.
A new report, Where did our money go?, in October, uses Bank of England data to investigate what happened to the bail-out money, two years on from the credit crunch that sent shockwaves through the banking system and just ahead of the second anniversary of the biggest single bail-out in UK history on 8 October 2008. The report finds that:
There is a shocking lack
of information in the public domain about where the money has gone,
how it has been used and what has been the ‘quid pro quo’ for the
support.
Interest rates are higher
than before the crisis for firms and households, including on mortgages,
despite the Bank of England cutting interest rates to historic lows.
Lending to households
and firms has stagnated despite the bail-outs.
“The financial crisis resulted in a massive socialisation of losses after decades of private gain,” said Tony Greenham, Head of the Finance and Business programme at NEF and co-author of the report.
“The public have already paid for the failure of the banks twice, first by bailing them out, and then by suffering a programme of drastic cuts to public services to appease the financial markets. We need urgent reform of the banking system to ensure that bailed-out banks are not allowed to repeat their failures. The Government should ensure that banks use public money in a way that is socially useful and which prepares Britain for the Great Transition to a low carbon economy.”
As NEF’s report shows, the roots of the banking crisis lie in the political crisis of weak and ineffective regulation. The fact that we are on the cusp of a second banking failure just as a range of government commissions and enquiries are underway mean that not only must the reviews directly address fundamental reform of the banks, but that action will be required ahead of the outcome of the enquiries.
NEF is calling for a comprehensive package of reform, including:
The separation of retail
banking from speculative trading, and the curbing of socially unproductive
financial activities.
Breaking up the big banks,
reducing them to a size where the failure of one would not jeopardise
the whole economy.
The transformation of
the bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland into a Royal Bank of Sustainability
which must redirect its investment away from fossil fuels and towards
building green infrastructure.
The introduction of a
Community Reinvestment Act which would bring much needed transparency
to banks’ lending and ensure they invest in all communities from
which they take deposits.
NEF believes that an effective banking system is one that can channel resources into financially sound investment that creates social value without causing environmental degradation.
“The worst of the banks were once compared to ‘vampire squids’ wrapped around the face of humanity, sucking money out of the economy to reward a few reckless speculators. Now we desperately need a finance system that is fit for the purpose of serving a productive economy, and meeting urgent environmental and social challenges,” said Andrew Simms, NEF Policy Director and co-author of the report.
“Altogether, Britain faces a Great Transition that is necessary, desirable and possible but will not happen without re-wiring our banking system. Yet, for all the talk of learning lessons, the banks have been left largely untouched. They appear no more transparent or accountable, and scant new regulation has been implemented to prevent a repeat of the crisis.”
The former Chancellor, Alastair Darling, conceded in September this year that the so-called ‘Super Tax’ on bankers’ bonuses had failed to change the behaviour of the industry in giving excessive, unjustified rewards to executives. And, new international rules on how much capital a bank must hold compared to its liabilities sets the threshold actually lower than that already held by many banks and is also unlikely to change the industry’s behaviour.
NEF is urging policymakers not shy away from radical reform. In the current climate, the greatest risk is not to act.
Join now…
NEF, 3 Jonathan Street, London SE11 5NH. 0207 820 6300.
www.neweconomics.org info@neweconomics.org
The WI is currently campaigning for products’ country
of origin labelling (COOL) to be made clearer – members believe
the present legal requirements can be misleading ror many shoppers.
VCS & Funding
Landfill Communities Fund
In order to discourage the continued use of landfill as the primary method of dealing with waste in the UK a tax is levied on each tonne of waste deposited.
In the case of waste containing an organic element, essentially kitchen waste, the rate of tax rises by a fixed amount every year. Most of the money involved goes into the general taxation pot and is spent on the variety of services that are the responsibility of central government. A small portion of this money, currently up to 6%, can be paid directly to groups working in the communities that are directly affected by specific landfill operations. In order to be eligible to receive these funds a number of criteria must be met. Once it is demonstrated that these basic requirements are fulfilled then each application is judged on the benefits that will be delivered to the community in which it operates.
bassac and the Development Trusts Association (DTA) are
currently consulting their members on a potential merger. The two
national networks of community-based organisations have already
developed a strong partnership with each other over many years.
A merger would create a new organisation that would serve an expanding
community-based membership and bring together their expertise in
community enterprise, community development and championing social
justice.
The Scientists for Global Responsibility website has
recently undergone a complete redesign. Features now include:
a new layout to increase the site’s visual appeal, a guided search
facility to help navigate the wealth of information on the site,
RSS feeds plus the option to join, donate and/or sign up to one
of SGR’s email lists online. The content of the site has also
been updated with more of the organisation’s outputs from the past
few years. www.sgr.org.uk
Soil Association Concerns
This autumn there are a number of Soil Association campaigns to bring about more planet-friendly food and farming, and promote the connection between soil, food, the health of people and the health of the planet.
Defra has published a
White Paper on England’ natural environment – the first on this
subject in 20 years. A Soil Association response is being sent to
the Paper, which sets out a framework for practical action by Government,
communities, businesses and civil society.
It has recently emerged
that meat and milk from cloned animals have entered the UK food
chain. The organization is asking supports to back their call to
ban the use of cloning.
A Soil Association petition
is being circulated to protect the school lunch service from budget
cuts - they want recognition of the benefits of a good school meal
service and the introduction of a minimum spend on ingredients for
every child’s meal.
A similar petition support
their call to put in place clear standards for the quality of food
served in nurseries.
Their GM-NO! campaign
is ask for accurate labelling of meat and dairy products from animals
fed on GM feed.
The Soil Association
is also lobbying the Government to ban neonicotinoids and help ensure
the health and future of honeybees.
Please
contact us with any information or feed back:
E-mail - info@sustainabilitylinks.org.uk
Post - Sustainability LINKS, 3 Park Road, Bedworth CV12 8LH