It is a matter of much irony that the Government produced its most ambitious and comprehensive sustainable development strategy two months before the May election, yet has said virtually nothing about it before or after. At one level of analysis it is easy to see why sustainable development did not capture rhetorical space on the election campaign:
- opinion polls persistently place 'environmental issues' very low in the public's ordering of issues that need political attention
- sustainable development is a contradiction of terms that can be meaningless even to fairly informed communicators
- sustainable development is also awkward for governmental delivery
- there is no 'political culture' of sustainable development.
For these reasons, and doubtless many more that other contributors will offer here, sustainable development lost out in the somewhat repetitive election campaign of trust, taxes, public service delivery, crime, social order and the like.
Actually, the electoral agenda was set for sustainable development, if only we had looked laterally. Trust is a function of social connectedness and feeling worthwhile and respected. Health is about preventative caring for people in all walks of life, and shared responsibility for esteem and good living. Taxes relate to how we use our resources and create genuine happiness in people's lives. Education can prepare us all for active citizenry in a sustaining planet. The levers were all there: nobody pulled them in appropriate ways.
"...sustainable development lost out in the somewhat repetitive election campaign of trust, taxes, public service delivery, crime, social order and the like."
Impending leadership changes, repositioning of party policies, and a more active political climate offer huge scope for a more persistent and reconstructional approach to embedding sustainable development into the British way of life.
To begin with, the sustainable development strategy raises the theme of 'well-being' as a critical indication of progress. The notion is still undefined, but will be given some sort of high profile iconic status over the coming year. It would be tempting to scratch at 'wellbeing' and afford it a relatively facile cache. It is a hugely rich concept that genuinely would benefit from wide-ranging attention. For example, the health and education services are beginning to look at it in the form of a corporate badging of good citizenship and emphasising shared responsibilities for co-operative learning and health care. Similarly, the social support services are looking at the scope for investing to save on future public costs by working with would-be offenders via sustainability schemes - organic local food production, designing safe spaces for families together and youngsters to cycle, forming local enterprises for local procurement of building materials and refurbished goods.
Equally of interest is a concept of a 'democracy for posterity'. Sustainable development demands decisions that lie over generations for 'pay-off' to become evident, yet which require continuous engagement by successive cohorts of citizens. Dealing with climate change is an obvious example of this. But devising a strategy for global biodiversity, for the removal of highly toxic persistent organic pollutant, and for managing complex ecosystems such as the ocean surface, or the littoral shoreline, all demand a cooperative global to local democracy that as yet, has no governmental precedent.
This is a glorious opportunity to shape a fresh look at sequential, precautionary sustainability science that is participatory, visionary, and enriching, and creating of ecological citizenship. At this particular point in the election cycle, there is no better time to make a start.