"...you provide a great collection of useful information here."
Amanda Ross, Practical Action
INTRODUCTIONS
What’s New?
LINKS will be regularly updating the What’s New section of this page. Come here whenever you log on to find out about any recent additions or other changes to the website.
Latest site updates:
April 2010.
Publication of
S&P Report spring edition: May 2010. Send
Links your email address to receive the spring edition
as an ebulletin.
Planned review
of all site contents: May 2010. Please email
Links with details of any changes that are necessary.
Pages Under Reconstruction
Three pages are currently off-line:
The
twp Participation Log pages are being revised to better show
how the case study LSPs and TSAs are responding to those global
unsustainability concerns brought to their attention.
Until
work is completed on the Local Visitors Forum, input from Coventry
and Warwickshire is being included in the Local What's On page.
New material to be included on the next update: due May 2010
Third Sector Assemblies - How These Can Promote Sustainability Concerns
Just see what it's possible for you to now do to bring sustainability into local decision taking where you live. How can we help them respond to initiatives such as April’s Peoples World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth’s Rights?
Is Community Empowerment Leaving Community Groups Behind?
Matthew Scott, Director of Community Sector Coalition, says that "collective and independent principled action has never been more urgent" in this article that first appeared in Urban Clearway issue 64.
Unsustainability and Empowerment
Leafleting, petitioning, literature sales, letter writing - are all well established ways of raising concerns in order to effect change. But there is now a broad raft of new working methods available for all those of us involved in sustainability organisations. The openings these create promise to bring the role of participatory democracy to the fore in local policy making.
Some of these participation opportunities are summarised and explored in Helpful Lobbying Tools. To appreciate the key role of National Indicators also see page Local S&P Initiatives in this site's Case Studies Section.
VCS Anniversaries
Ethical Consumer, Environmental Investigation Agency and Care for the Wild International all celebrated anniversaries during 2009. See S&P Report spring edition for more information and Visitors Forum for comment.
Visitors Forum Content
The page now includes features about:
Matching
up funding opportunities and the S&P agenda.
The
importance of bringing the sustainability imperative into locality
working.
The
rise of ethical consumerism and the green pound.
Campaigning
for honest money.
Community
voices - on community empowerment.
The Your Letters and Your Queries sections include questions about LSPs and Sustainable Communities Act / Citizens Panel areas, and contributions to the climate change debate.
Glossary Additions
The sustainabilitylinks.org Glossary continues to consolidate it role as the leading jargon buster bringing together sustainability, participation and community terminologies. Recent additions provide an S&P take on terms including:
command
papers
community
spaces
Comprehensive
Area Assessment
Comprehensive
Community Engagement Strategies
consultation
citizens
jury
e-campaigning
ecology
evidence
based policy making
locality
working
perverse
subsidies
shared
interest community
tax
dodging
toxic
fuels
What's On Entries
The two What's On pages continue to provide a rolling calendar bringing together S&P events, conferences, festivals, meetings, funding deadlines, socials, launches, courses, international summits, Government initiatives, special days, etc.
Helpful Books
The page will include details of ten or so newly published books for your LSP reading list.
Which of your health theme group members will be learning of the links between ill health and diet explored in What’s in This Stuff?
Partners working on either climate change or the natural environment will be able to attend future meetings well armed with statistics after reading Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo.
Helpful Addresses
The updated page will include details of several additional organisations working on sustainability, including Cool Earth, Farm Africa, Earth First! Green Seniors, Labour Behind the Label, Money Reform Party, Operation Noah, People and Planet, Schumacher Circle, Stop Climate Chaos and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There are also over 150 new addresses on the Helpful Websites page.
Coming later…
LSPs
are widely criticised for exclusivity, their memberships failing
to adequately represent women and ethnic / cultural groupings
- not to mention those organisations and other communities of
interest working on sustainability concerns. Are Third
Sector Assemblies going to be more inclusive?
How
did Coventry and Warwickshire LSPs respond to Links’ approaches
about COP15?
About sustainabilitylinks.org
This site’s been established to inform, aid and urge participation in local decision making processes by:
Bringing
key sustainability concerns to the fore in areas' decision making
processes.
Bringing
together news about topical sustainability and participation
developments.
Providing
a reference resource.
Offering
a networking opportunity.
The various topics covered here will be of interest to anyone who's involved in:
Community
and democratic participation.
Environmental
concerns.
Social
justice.
Local
economics.
Education.
The site will therefore be useful for - please see the Abbreviations page now - all members of:
NGOs
/ VCOs / TSOs.
LSPs
and wider SCS processes.
LIOs.
TSAs.
Council
members and officers.
All
those individuals active in community and campaign work.
You may have seen that the home page flags a few pages it’s useful to visit first. The Home page will give you a good idea of the website’s layout while the International Initiatives page explains where we’re coming from, why we think what we’re doing is something long overdue and - most importantly - how the site can help you where you live.
The Importance of Linking Sustainability & Participation (S&P)
At the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), world leaders acknowledged not only that our way of life was unsustainable, but also that if we continue to live as we are, our earth's environments would no longer be able to sustain life.
The resulting Agenda 21 established the need for a more participatory grassroots democracy – the means by which we could all set an agenda for the 21st century - in order for us to be able to deal with our unsustainable lifestyle. Although the recommended participatory processes are now in place for Britain to take on board the difficult challenges, unfortunately they’re not yet being used to address the more unpopular or difficult issues.
Until 1992 those recognising how perilous our situation is could be written of as cranks of extremists. After Agenda 21 things can never be the same again – and no amount of official denial, backtracking or spin can change this.
Abbreviations
S&P? UNCED? Both sustainability and community work are littered with acronyms and other abbreviations. Why not print out the Abbreviations page for easy reference?
Your
input please
Please send any newsletters, articles or other items for summary to: SustainabilityLINKS, 3 Park Road, Bedworth, Warwickshire CV12 8LH.
Please email any information about your events or projects, or any comments you’d like to make about sustainability and participation concerns to: info@sustainabilitylinks.org.uk
National Information Sorces & Resources
01. Website Contents
See above for information about WHAT'S NEW on sustainabilitylinks.
The page notes some of the key international initiatives about the terminal nature of our present lifestyle - and the threats this poses to the survival of humankind and all life on Earth.
It includes information about, and hyperlinks to, key documents such as the Johannesburg Declaration, Kyoto Protocol, Earth Charter, People’s Earth Declaration, Convention on Biological Diversity - and the watershed Agenda 21.
Moving from the international initiatives outlined in International Initiatives, National Initiatives gives details of recent British legislation that's both devolving centralised powers and giving every one of us a greater say in local decision taking and policy making.
Locality Working is the Government's new name for participation. See how local government and empowerment legislation is facilitating greater community input into local democratic processes. Are sustainability groups being actively excluded from localprocesses? Or simply marginalised? See what you think when you use the Comprehensive Community Engagement Strategy guidelines.
The page includes briefings on local empowerment law and guidelines including the Sustainable Communities Act, Unlocking the Talent in our Communities, Communities in Control and Comprehensive Community Engagement Strategies.
Other important S&P initiatives
See Model Resolutions for details of how areas can become Transition Towns and / or set up Third Sector Assemblies.
04. Helpful Books
This page contains some essential reading if you’re involved in any of your area’s participation processes. Books and other resources are grouped into the topic and action themes identified by many SCSs.
There are countless periodicals that can provide up-to-date news about a very wide range of S&P concerns - and these really should be being used to inform locality working processes. Do any members of your LSP theme group subscribe to any of the relevant titles? Take out your subs today.
The page also gives contact details for the national dailies’ letters pages – to help you raise the profile of S&P concerns.
06. Helpful Websites
Helpful Websites will enable visitors to find out more about some of the projects, organisations and businesses involved in S&P. Such a listing could never be complete, but the addresses included here serve to indicate the immense diversity of both high profile concerns and below radar activities.
The page is being developed to include relevant tv and radio information and film reviews.
Input please. - especially
any contact updates.
An ongoing compilation of details about those third sector organisations working on S&P concerns.
Some of the national VCOs listed will simply not be represented in local Strategy and Partnership related work – even though many will have members and supporters living locally, if not active local contacts or groups.
Perhaps VCS representatives already involved in LSP and locality working should be more actively encouraging and supporting input from these colleagues?
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 and Environmental Information Regulations 2004 are among recent developments that give communities the opportunity to become informed and involved in local decision making. This page includes advice on making information requests, dummy letters and website addresses giving further guidance. There's also a blank Participation Log page to help you keep track of the approaches you make.
A
chance to make contacts
Are you involved in local participation processes? Is our global unsustainability a concern you strive to bring into local provision, decision and policy making? Use the response form on Helpful Lobbying Tools to link up with many other people in the same position.
09. Best Practice and Policy Making
Input please - please
network your experiences.
Do you have an idea you'd like to see adopted locally? Or perhaps you're looking for ways to get an idea off the ground?
Best Practice and Policy Making is being developed to show what sustainability concerns are being addressed through local participation processes - the page brings together various best practice and policy making initiatives. It includes details of successful council motions on the Sustainable Communities Act and Transition Town status.
Input
please - an opportunity to tell others
about any innovative or inspirational resolutions
your organisation's passed.
The aim of Model Resolutions is to aid locality working through the provision of resolutions for LSPs, Councils, Citizen Panels, Third Sector Assemblies, VCOs et al.
The page includes a participation version of the Nottingham Declaration, a sustainability mission statement and Fairtrade Area Status motions.
It also includes Somerset County Council's resolution to become a Transition local authority and guidelines published by Herefordshire's Third Sector Assembly.
Input
please - Please send LINKS copies of
any other sustainability-related resolutions
that could be considered by local organisations,
including details of the source (eg LSP
/ council).
11. Model Sustainable Community Strategy
Although inspired by Agenda 21, Sustainable Community Strategies treat our global unsustainability as the elephant in the community. How would these Strategies look if they addressed our predicament, as originally intended?
The Model Sustainable Community Strategy page includes a few ideas about how areas’ SCSs would develop if they stopped treating their sustainability related responsibilities as an option.
12. Visitors’ Forum
Input please
-
please
network your news, articles and queries.
An open discussion forum bringing together sustainability concerns and participation processes, this page contains articles, letters, queries and other material from all those of us working on S&P concerns.
13. S&P Report
Input please. -
please network your news.
Different third sector periodicals focus on various sustainability and community work concerns. The S&P Report aims to take an overview, drawing upon the news covered in a range of these, while highlighting the importance of democratic participation in problem solving.
The quarterly updates will summarise information 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; from Government founded organisations such as the Sustainability Development Commission; and from wide support base campaigns like WWF, Campaign for Better Transport, Friends of the Earth , Soil Association and Jubilee Debt Campaign.
There are five sections:
Community
Environment
Education
Business and the Economy
VCOs
14. What’s On
Input please.-
please network your events news.
The SustainabilityLINKS What's On is the only listing that brings together details of activities being organised by national VCS organisations working on a range of sustainability and community programmes.
15. Abbreviations
This website uses many of the abbreviations common in community and environmental work. Why not print out the Abbreviations page for easy reference while you work?
16. Glossary
There are many technical terms used in both sustainability and community work. This list brings them together.
Local Case Study Section
From top down to bottom up
This website has been developed for use nationwide - however any nationwide attempts to address our global unsustainability depend on what we're all able to do at grassrooots level.
The remaining pages provide case study examples of how local campaigning, lobbying and participation work on national - and indeed global - concerns can influence decision making in your area. They’re based on the work SustainabilityLINKS is undertaking in England’s Coventry and Warwickshire subregion.
As this site's been established for national use visitors from out of the area should know that it's served by Coventry City Council and Warwickshire County Council. Within the shire there are five district councils: North Warwickshire Borough Council, Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council, Rugby Borough Council, Stratford-on-Avon District Council and Warwick District Council. Please note:
The geographical area of north Warwickshire (small n) is served by two local authorities: North Warwickshire (capital N) Borough Council and Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council.
Stratford-ON-Avon District Council serves the Stratford-UPON-Avon area.
Warwick District Council covers an area including the towns of Leamington Spa and Kenilworth.
17. Local Participation Opportunities
How can communities of interest and, indeed, individuals become involved in local decision making processes?
Input
please - Contributions would be particularly
welcome from those people already involved
in Coventry or Warwickshire processes.
Details are given here about the subregion’s Local Strategic Partnerships, Community Empowerment Network, Sustainable Community Strategy theme groups, Third Sector Assemblies / VCS influence, Citizens’ Panel and other participative openings, such as involvement in council meetings.
This page includes a list of abbreviations frequently used for and by organisations working in the subregion.
This will present a model roundup of council and other organisations’ S&P initiatives based on case study research across the Coventry and Warwickshire subregion.
The page includes a listing of websites of particular interest to those visitors from the area.
19. Model Local Participation Log (Archive)
The Log Archive will provide a permanent record of those sustainability concerns raised with the catchment’s decision takers - and their reactions to these. Just how successful can local lobbying be? How will those currently responsible for decision and policy making be judged by future generations?
This page shows how it's possible to promote sustainability issues by getting involved in local decision making processes. It includes details of information gathering and lobbying successes on concerns including the Nottingham Declaration, the Sustainable Communities Bill, fair trade, the Earth Charter and the damage being caused local public service provisions by economic globalisation.
This page is currently under reconstruction.
20. Model Local Participation Log (Live)
Each year the live Participation Log page will build into a record of the sort of lobbying work that can be undertaken to promote S&P concerns across an area.
The two Model Participation Log pages show how local communities of interest can manage their lobbying work. Why not make an ongoing record of your own approaches and responses and see just who's doing what - and who isn't - in the age of stupid.
This page is currently under reconstruction.
21. Model Local Strategy Audit
This page shows how we can all audit the S&P content of areas' current Sustainable Community Strategies.
The assessments here focus on these twenty year Strategies’ positive proposals, ignoring their failure to consider the implications of climate change and the other aspects of the environmental, economic and social collapse that're becoming increasingly evident. The page will also revisit the subregion’s earlier strategies to assess whether they succeed or fail on their own terms:
Are the seven Coventry and Warwickshire Sustainable
Community Strategies just a vehicle for rhetoric?
Are they merely a local public services Charter?
Or do they address credible sustainability
issues?
Do they give baseline statistics and set outcome
targets that can be subjected to measurement and
scrutiny?
The model audit page suggests how you can use your local SCS to hold your own area’s decision makers to their commitments.
Summer 2009 update
The page now includes a full assessment of Coventry's Strategy for 2008 - 2029.
Input please
-
Send
LINKS your letters, queries and articles
A local discussion forum bringing together sustainability concerns and participation processes, this page is open to those working on S&P concerns in the Coventry and Warwickshire subregion.
This page is currently under reconstruction.
23. Local S&P Report
Under construction.
Input please - Send
LINKS your newsletters and news.
An area’s different information streams scatter news about various sustainability and community work concerns. The S&P Report takes an overview of a locality’s activities, drawing upon the news covered in a range of sources, while highlighting the importance of democratic participation in problem solving.
There are five sections:
Community
Environment
Education
Business and the Economy
VCOs & funding
24. Local What’s On
Page preview
This feature illustrates how areas can bring together local information about sustainability, participation and community events – and all those who're involved in them.
If you're involved in any Coventry or Warwickshire groups or community events please send SustainabilityLINKS details of your activities: info@sustainabilitylinks.org.uk
Please
contact us with any information or feed back:
E-mail - info@sustainabilitylinks.org.uk
Post - Sustainability LINKS, 3 Park Road, Bedworth CV12 8LH