“We engage audiences through all forms of media - and through keynotes at some of the most significant events in the global business calendar.”

Sam Lakha, Manager, Volans Outreach.

There is still hope!

2nd July, 2009 by Rosemary Reeve

Those of you who came across the article in a leading Sunday paper this weekend entitled “Britain’s Green Shame” would, like me, have started this sunshine filled week somewhat despondent.

It introduced a report to be released this week by the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) outlining that the UK is failing to meet almost all its targets, from carbon reduction, to income and health inequality. It highlighted that the UK is more about rhetoric than action and painted an extremely bleak picture.

So, being a glutton for punishment, I scoured the SDC website to read the report in full. I was however somewhat surprised when the only one I could find was the optimistically titled “Breakthroughs for the 21st century”.

Two pages of the report are dedicated to the need for change, outlining the areas where the UK is coming up short. The lack of progress is of course very worrying, however the rest of the report gives us sign of hope, identifying 19 ideas, initiatives and successes that could be scaled up to help achieve a more sustainable future for the UK and meet the targets that have been set.

The ideas are collected in 3 main sections; sustainable lives, sustainable places and transition to a sustainable, low carbon economy.

Here are a few simple ideas that stood out for me:

Engagement - mobilising popular support and collective action

This section championed a series of on-line networks (e.g. Project Dirt www.projectdirt.com) which link environmental groups and projects to build the critical mass required to catalyse change.

Congress for the future – influencing long-term policy

This idea is around the creation of a special congress that would convene each year to provide long-term policy direction to the UK government. If effective this would help sustainability become a priority beyond political terms of office.

From pre-pay to pay as you save

This is a new way to finance energy efficiency in homes so a homeowner doesn’t have to pay up front to retro-fit their house and instead pays back instalments based on the energy efficiency savings that he/she makes. This will mean that energy efficiency measures become accessible to more homes.

So have a look at the report. Not all the ideas are new; you might not agree with all of them but they do highlight some tangible ways forward to improve the situation in the UK. Championing these in the media may help to spark the interest of entrepreneurs and communities around the UK and start the scaling up process.

You can access the report via the link below:

http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications.php?id=972

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/07/there-is-still-hope/.

- Rosemary Reeve

No comments yet »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

No comments yet.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.